I’ve been reading alot recently about ITM, and sessions, and how different folks learn tunes, etc.
It seems most folks have tunes completely memorized when they play. This started me thinking about how many different tunes ITM musicians are exposed to through their experiences with other musicians, practice time at home, sheet music, etc.
I thought it might be a nice conversation starter for people to share their own personal experiences about how many tunes they know well and are able to play from memory.
So, how many tunes do you know? If possible, please include how many years you have studied and performed ITM on your instrument (or instruments).
Hint: When the internal search bombs, try a Google site search.
Yes … But you know, “memorize” doesn’t seem quite right here. even if there’s work involved. Think of a favorite melody or a pop song - say, “Happy Birthday”. You know it, but it hardly feels like you’ve memorized it as such. It’s just there in your head and under your fingers, acquired by the osmosis of exposure and repetition. And it’s tricky to talk of memorization when you may play a tune differently every time.
One reason that it’s hard to cite specific numbers is that repertoire is not monolithic. There are tunes you’ve thoroughly worked out personal settings for, tunes you can join in on with confidence, tunes you know well enough to get through with some style, tunes in your head but maybe not quite yet under the fingers, maybe on one instrument but not another, tunes half learned and in various stages of acquisition … or de-acquisition …
Judging from the people I usually session with, I’d guess 600 to 1200 tunes is probably a fair baseline for each individual - some certainly have more - with experience ranging from 10 to 40 years with this music.
When I first started sessioning, I embarked on a crash course of learning ~100 of the local warhorse tunes over a period of month or so. That provided a good foundation for both confidence and growth. And because of the nature of the music, the more tunes you have, the easier it can be to acquire more.
Of course, size isn’t everything. But, as in many folk traditions, it does count for something. Tradition bearers with a large repertoire - and all the other tune, source, and style information that goes with that repertoire - may be very highly regarded as living repositories.
For what it’s worth: I’ve been estimating I knew 500 tunes for about eight years now, after making a list of a couple hundred tunes I had in common with a friend back in 2002. However, I did my best to enter every tune I could remember knowing in Alan Ng’s my.irishtune.info database earlier this year, and came up with a list of 216 tunes. Now, that list is definitely missing approximately 100 tunes I know that aren’t things in his database – lots of Canadian tunes and my own compositions, for instance. And it’s probably missing tunes that I forgot to add, or forgot I know – for instance, I played tunes with some lovely new folks this week, and they reminded me of a couple of great old jigs I hadn’t thought about in years.
My best estimate is that there are probably 350-450 tunes I know well enough to at least muddle through on my own, and maybe another 100 polkas, slides, singles, and doubles that I could play along with if someone who knew what they were doing them. So either my earlier estimate was off, or I’ve been forgetting tunes as fast as I learn them!
I’ve been playing for about 2½ years now, and I’m starting to approach the 100-mark. At least including those tunes that, for me, are “session only”, the ones I only pull off when playing with someone and would muck up pretty badly if I did them by myself, for one reason or another.
I think MTGuru’s “fair baseline” for each individual is about right. I would guess that I’m about at the top of that range, but that’s after 40-odd years playing this music. FWIW, my guess is based on the fact that I know I know 1000 tunes, 'cos that’s about the number you get if you add up the various “lists” dotted around the place on scraps of paper plus some in electronic form, etc (I think a lot of trad musicians keep these lists, but most seem to be about as chaotic as me in the organising of them). In addition, I think I know an extra 500 or so, based on the number of times it happens that someone will start a tune at a session and I will happily charge straight into it, in one of those “Oh, that one, that’s a good one” sort of moments. And I’d take off a couple of hundred for those tunes that I don’t know I no longer know. In summary, there are tunes I know I know, tunes I don’t know I know, but there are also tunes I don’t know I don’t know, some of which may be tunes I think I know. All of this is, of course, in a constant state of flux, since tunes are forever being added in at one end, and dropping off at the back end.
You’re right, I suppose I should. But I’d rather play tunes than count them (as long as someone else starts the damn things; I’ve reached saturation point, I’m afraid).
We’ve tried keeping lists on various occasions but we keep losing the notebooks, etc. that they’re in. Sigh.
I started keeping a list on spreadsheet of the tunes I had learned off by heart.
There are about 120 of these. I have more tunes, but I don’t want to add to the spreadsheet, as I can get the printout on one A4 piece of paper, which I keep in my pocket. It has the first couple of bars of each tune in ABC notation, so it’s a useful prompt.
Every now and again I think: “I should add that one to the list”. Really I need one pocket list and one comprehensive list. If I was bothered.
But those are tunes I play on the whistle. In fact, they’re tunes I play on the high D whistle. I play others on the C and B, and the Low E, D & C. And there are the tunes I play on the Willowflute - which are mostly Scandinavian Trad, although I can play some ITM on it.
Then there are the tunes I know in guitar, most of which are classical, although I do pick out a few ITM tunes and some O’Carolan pieces.
I shouldn’t think I was near the baseline 600 that MTGuru says. Maybe half that. But then I’m just a tyro in comparison.
One odd thing is that I can play a great many more tunes than I can recognise when they are played by someone else, say; tunes I know on the whistle I don’t recognise when they’re played on the fiddle or accordian. Once or twice I’ve fancied learning something I’ve heard that way, and when I ask what it is, it’s one I “already know”.
Funny, it was actually Tommy I had in mind when I mentioned tradition bearers above. He visited the Folklore Institute once for a concert and seminar, and I remember that tune repertoire size was a discussion topic. Both in general, and in connection with his own “discovery” and reputation.
When just getting into Trad music, a well-respected flute player told me that the advanced local players all had at least 500 tunes!!! So, being keen, I set out systematically to learn 500 tunes - which I did. Sadly they didn’t all turn out to be 500 GOOD tunes!!!
Also it’s really hard to keep that many tunes fresh in your mind.
These days I’m certainly less systematic, and let the learning curve just be more natural. So now just listening to nice tunes people share, and letting it “sink in” a few times at the session works for me. So now I 'd have to guess at more than 600 and less than 700. If I did the math on just the “good” tunes then much lower of course.
But, as in many folk traditions, it does count for something. Tradition bearers with a large repertoire - and all the other tune, source, and style information that goes with that repertoire - may be very highly regarded as living repositories.
