Does this sound familiar? You're a decent intermediate player, able to play well, and at session speed. You go to a session, armed with an MP3 recorder. You record a whole night's worth of tunes, most of which are new to you. You go home, spend a couple months learning them all. It's a haul, but you do it.
Recharged, you return to the session with a spring in your step, ready to jam along for the whole night. You fetch yourself a pint, find yourself a seat, pull out your instrument, get ready to show off your repetoire...
And not a single one of those damn songs gets played all night.
I'm wondering how many tunes, on average, you guys think it takes to get to "session literacy" -- the point where you can play, say, a good 80% or 90% of the times.
Presently, I know about 50 tunes. It's not a bad repertoire, repertoire, but more often than not, 50 tunes feels like the tip of the ol' Irish iceberg.
that's the tip of the iceberg all right - the trick is to figure out which iceberg. repeat that record and learn all the tunes bit about 30 more times and you'll have it
50 tunes is a bit less than the tip. I think the tip is about 10 percent of the iceberg, and the usual count is somewhere just south of 10K discrete tunes (7500-9000 sounds like a reasonable range), so you're a bit less than the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
Now, how many tunes are played at your session over the course of time T? I actually did some back-of-the-envelope figuring on this one time, I think I convinced myself that less than 1K tunes (more like 500) are "known" by a given session - meaning, played by at least some number N players at that session. So you might be in iceberg territory wrt your local session, if you've picked the right tunes to know...
"Which iceberg" exactly. I started off playing in sessions in North London, about three years ago. After a year or so, I was feeling pretty comfortable - you know, I knew most of the tunes that would be played on any given night, I could start sets, bring new tunes to the session etc, but there were also enough unfamiliar tunes that it kept it exciting every session.
Then I went to New York for a few weeks, and thought I'd visit some sessions. Didn't know a single tune. Went to more sessions, and I'd know maybe 2 or 3 tunes a night. After a few weeks of being there, of course, I started to become more familiar with their repertoire, but it just made me realise how very real regional differences are.
One more thing. This feeling of "holy crap, there are SO MANY TUNES that I still have to learn!" -- try to learn to savor or even enjoy that feeling. That feeling is part of the fun of session playing.
All you need it to learn a few sets really, really well. Not fast and furious!!l But learn them so that you can play these few tunes with class, and so that you would be able to start and finish them with style in any session in the world.
Then go to as many different sessions as you can where you'll pick up tunes despite yourself, and having picked up a few tunes from each session you'll find your self fitting into most sessions, but never expect to know all the tunes!
If you're in a session, and you can play every tune in that evening, then you're among friends and you really ought to get out more.
I'd even say that repertoire is not merely regional, it's parochial.
And then we, 'Er Indoors and I, went to an Old-Timey session ( supposedly ) in Western New York, and could play about 90% of those chosen on the day. So there are no hard and fast rules - just keep learning tunes.
Bowlocks, there are actually only a half a dozen or so tunes, it's just they play 'em differently all the time and give them different names and suchlike.
It's not rocket surgery, relax.
Enjoy.
G'Night.
"All you need it to learn a few sets really, really well. Not fast and furious!!l But learn them so that you can play these few tunes with class, and so that you would be able to start and finish them with style in any session in the world."
I hope I'm misinterpreting that ... 'cos if not, it sounds to me like a recipe for never fitting in to any session, anywhere. You gotta be able to go with the flow, play the tunes you know differently depending on who you're playing with and how they're playing them on that particular night, and mix 'em up like crazy. Personally, I'd go for just getting some tunes under your belt. The rest will follow.
Personally I'm not fond of the approach "Go for quality not quantity". Yes, try and have have a few sets you know really, really well but at the same time reserving time to constantly learn new tunes. Learning tunes is the best way to improve at trad. You have to listen closely and the phrasing of whoever or whatever you play along to should help your rhythm.
Something I think is important is that when you learn tunes you DON'T HAVE to remember them all. You can play them for your own pleasure for a while or use them as exercises. Forget a tune for 5 years if you want but one day you'll hear it at a session of hear someone playing it that inspires you. Suddenly the tune is like an old friend you just have to catch up with.
Frightening but true. 10 years of going to gig, sessions and festivals and listening to recordings, and I might be halfway there at a stretch (although I probably learned most of those in the about the first 4 years, after which the intensity of my quest diinished somewhat). And I'm already forgetting them.
A handy thing on the "tunes" section is that you can find out the most common tunes, at least the tunes which show up in the most people's tunebooks, which is probably a fairly good guide to which tunes are most commonly played in sessions.
I took a look and of the 100 most common tunes I know all but a couple, of the 200 most common tunes I know all but a few.
But I can sit at my local session for an hour and not know anything they're playing.
And...this is odd too... dozens of tunes I know seem to be completely unknown to the session people. It's like I've spent the last 30 years learning all the "wrong" tunes! Tunes that everybody played in sessions around here in the 80's seem to be unknown now. How odd.
I suppose every session has it's own repertoire, and that repertoire will change over time as new tunes come into favour and old tunes drop out of favour.
Oh and what Joe says above is also spot on: due to another local session being closed, all of those people have started to come to my session, bringing with them an entirely different group of tunes, most of which I've not heard before.
So even in the same town, two sessions, two groups of tunes.
There's one way in which the "learn a few tunes well" is surely good advice: at any given moment, your next step is to "learn a few tunes well". If your next step is "learn fifty tunes", then you've made your steps far to big.
Certainly "learn a few tunes well and then stop" would be peculiar advice, and probably not what was meant.
If you figure 2 minutes per tune, a 3-hour session, with 2/3 of the time spent playing and 1/3 spent talking and tuning, you need about 60 tunes for the session. If they played your 50 tunes, you would know about 84% of the tunes. But for this to happen frequently it would mean playing the same tunes over and over again, week in and week out. I'm always amazed at how many people seem happy doing this, but I think it bores most people silly. It certainly bores me. I would think that for a single weekly 3-hour session to be interesting, there would need to be a shared repertoire of maybe 250-300 tunes, minimum. If you want to play 80%, you can do the math.
But there's a wide variation in what those tunes are (and how many of them there are) from session to session. I figure that there are maybe 400 tunes that I can play along with if they aren't played too fast. Most of them are fairly common. At most sessions I've been to in the past year or two, I know most of the tunes. Maybe not 90%, but as many as most of the players there.
But there have been a few times where I've felt like I've walked into a different universe. One time, in 3 hours, I knew about 7 tunes. Another time, 15 (about 9 of them started by one player who wasn't among the leaders that week). Most of the time I recognized the titles and knew that I'd seen them in collections or owned recordings of them, but hadn't knowingly encountered them in sessions before.
A few months ago, I started compiling a tunebook with the goal of including enough tunes so that someone who learned them could play along with the large majority of tunes at the large majority of sessions. It's got about 500 reels. I got sidetracked in the middle of the jigs and haven't gotten any further. My guess is that I could come up with some 1200 tunes or so. And, yet, sessions like those described in the previous paragraph would defeat even this effort.
I suspect that the need for a large repertoire is recent, now that people travel more and play with a larger variety of musicians around the world. 60 years ago, there wouldn't have been much need to know more than a couple of hundred tunes. I know some famous musicians had vast repertoires, but I suspect they were exceptions - we know of them largely because they were such gold mines for collectors. My guess is that the anonymous players had very modestly-sized repertoires.
Since the advent of Comhaltas, with lots of children taking lessons from an early age, lots more people can develop large repertoires. If you learn two tunes per week for 10 years, you've got 1000 tunes. And you're only 18. Even if it's only one tune per week, you've got 500. 50 tunes - 10% of the iceberg!
Sometimes I've made rough counts of the number of tunes played in sessions, and the figure seems to come in the region 60-70 most of the time. These sessions are of course the normal social ones.
If you've only got 50 tunes, and you're still calling them songs intermittently, you're not really intermediate yet.
"Personally I'm not fond of the approach "Go for quality not quantity". Yes, try and have have a few sets you know really, really well but at the same time reserving time to constantly learn new tunes. Learning tunes is the best way to improve at trad. You have to listen closely and the phrasing of whoever or whatever you play along to should help your rhythm."
The point is that if you just try to learn tune after tune after tune, (like trying to learn 50 tunes in 2 months) then you're likely not going to be playing them very well. When someone says focus on quality before quantity they mean that you should learn a tune really well, and take time to play it properly.
I'd much rather play with someone who only knows a handful of tunes, but plays them well, than someone who "learned" a ton of tunes, but leaves out half the notes, or has no style, or no ornaments.
Nico, you have misunderstood what I said. I am saying focus on playing a few tunes very well while as an extra learn tunes and don't be afraid to forget them. Learning tunes is a great way to improve the technique of the tunes you already know.
80 to 90 % of the tunes is a bit unrealistic unless you've been playing 20 years in the same town with the same group. Many above have mentioned the various reasons for the thousands of tunes out there. Others at the session aren't probably expecting your performance at the 90% of the time. Play the tunes you know, and remember its a social occaision. Save performances and recitals for your parents, and realize this isn't about you. I mean that in the kindest way, by the way. You can relax, because it's just not expected that you know all the tunes right away, and it's very much expected that as a newbie you are coming to listen and absorb the rhythm, and style of your local session, you might fit in much faster by not playing in fact, because the others can recognize your interest is sincere.
Wow! Thank you everyone for such a wealth of responses. Yeah, it's funny to be at this for a couple years already and still feel, as one poster pointed out, that even "intermediate" would be a stretch.
Sometimes it's frustrating to go to a session and feel lost most of the time -- or to just sit there with little to do but twiddle my thumbs and silently sip my Guinness. That said, it makes me understand why a lot of the players are a good bit older than me (I'm a just-turned 25), and the youngest of the good ones are, say, around 30 or so.
I second that, lazyhound! About my first year or so was spent recording tunes & actually playing very little. I asked the fiddler in the session where I did that recording how many tunes he thought he knew. He replied that it was in the neighborhood of 3,000 tunes, and I believe him. I could go to his session for a few MONTHS straight & maybe hear only a dozen or so tunes EVER repeated! ITM is a jouney, not a destination; you'll never be "done" learning how to play or learning new tunes. But that's the fun of it- you never actually "arrive", so enjoy the ride!
Hi Jay,
Seems to me that the fiddler was indulging his ego. Good session leaders should find a balance between common tunes that enable newcomers to participate and rarer tunes to provide them an opportunity to expand their repertoire.
And for those who believe in a hereafter, particularly of the cell full of banjo players kind, there is this rumor going around that you only get to play the tunes you learned in life.
"You can be sure that the good players have done their time sitting there with little to do but listen and sip their Guinness." Thanks for that reminder, lazy. Sometimes it's easy to get stuck feeling like you only sit around listening if you're not-so-good...
Click on "Members" on this site, then "Tunebook", and you'll see tunes arranged in order of popularity. (This is not exactly true as some very popular tunes are not searched for much because they are already known, however it is a good guide). Learn the first two hundred and you'll be able to cope with most sessions. Having said that, I'm with the "I'd rather here one tune played well" brigade. Hope this helps. Best wishes.
Bad players often suffer from "I can't just sit here and do nothing"-itis.
Pick one iceberg. The regional thing is true. Get fluent with the greatest hits via the Members>Tunebook thing and then find a session you can call home. Learn all of those tunes, that should be your main goal, to learn as many of your locals' tunes as possible.
But, curiously enough, many regular contributors here suggest that they NEVER play any of the tunes on the "Greatest Hits" list, simply because they are too hackneyed.
It probably is true that, if you pull out one or two of the GH list at a session then, most people will know them and join in, even if grudgingly.
Once you know a fair percentage, and that's obviously a moveable feast, of the tunes in your local session, then you can sally forth and test the waters further off. It has all the potential for a long and interesting journey.
Chrispy, you did the right thing at the start, record a pile of tunes, learn them and return to the session. So maybe next to none of your tunes were played but they are now in your locker. Do the same again next time you go - record the tunes and go home and learn them and keep doing that. You'll find yourself more and more involved.
It is much, much better to keep building around the locally played tunes rather than trying to learn lists from here - that really is bordering on pointless. If you have extra time chip away at the 'top' tunes, they are good to know but you will get much more satisfaction by keeping it local.
With all this talk of thousands & thousands of tunes there'll be people resigning themselves to being wall-flowers forever. As an alternative view, well you can play along to them all if you practice improvising techniques & learn the musical progressions, rather than trying to lock everything down to set pieces. The clues are in the first few lines. Listen to the flow of the tune then see how you can fit in. Run a theme/ accompaniment through in your head & you'll be joining in by 1/2 way through the piece, but get ready to drop out quick once the 'change' moves in. Towards the end of the piece you'll probably feel you could play it all if they went around again. Remember you only have to complement what's going on, you don't have to lead the whole shin-dig. Then you'll forget the lot five seconds later.
For me, the uncertainty is part of the appeal--"How many tunes will I know, tonight?" At my local session, it can be up to 80-90 percent. At other sessions, maybe as low as 10-20 percent.
If a tune sounds somewhat familiar, I might try to pick it up on the spot by playing very quietly (easy, on fiddle, and it's right under my ear). But usually I just listen and learn.
I don't agree with the idea that popular tunes should be ignored because they are "hackneyed". A little bit of true artistry can transform even the most commonplace tunes. If you get bored with a tune then maybe you should ask yourself if it is the tune you are bored with, or the way you are playing it. Tunes are a bit like women. Promiscuity is fun but developing a loving relationship with one is also valid and arguably better!
I think Gary has it right--about 200-250 tunes and you will be playing most of the time at your local session. I have a few years under my belt, and am still only halfway there (although I did spend a few years sidetracked by learning to accompany the tunes). Old dogs learn new tricks, but not quickly!
Oh, and playing in a band doesn't help the repetoire either. You tend to learn less tunes, even though in honing them for performance, you learn them very well.
But in the end, if the worst thing that ever happens to you is sitting, listening and drinking while others play, you have a good life!!!!
My head is officially spinning. I'm just starting out. I've got some work to do. I guess if I learn a tune a week, I'll be an ample sessioner by the time I'm too old the hear them.
If a new tune starts popping up repeatedly I will try to
learn it. But there are 'one off' tunes and even though I might have
recorded them or gotten the names I won't bother. I don't have that much
practice time available.
I think you're asking the wrong question. 50 tunes could mean anything -- or nothing!
A safe bet would be to stick with a session you like and merely learn the tunes they like to play most of the time.
For that you must go at least twice a month or ever week if they hold it every week.
1. it's a mistake to think you should/must or ought to play "every tune" 90% of the time. Why? it's often better to listen and learn and sit out and noodle ONLY [if you must noodle at all] the parts of a new tune that you can get ....and do that very quietly. Don't try for the whole tune.
2. learn the common repertoire....if you can get that from your current session mates then try cd resources such as the Foinn Sessiun cds put out by CCE...Matt Crantich et al. There are lots of book/cd combos that can at least point you in the direction of the most commonly played tunes...but, of course, that's no guarantee.
3. Again, forget this notion -- a silly one -- that there's some "magic" number of tunes that must be learned. Simply not true. Quality is better than quantity in any case. And as alluded to above in other posts,...better to learn a few standard sets....The Tarbolton set being one, for instance....And there are many others even given regional differences.
I haven't a clue how many tunes I know actually. Lost count, I've considered making a tune list.... but my attention span is too short to take it on. Once you've lost count, and once you've lost inhibition about not knowing every tune... you've probably started to fit in? Hows that for advice? Do I fit in? I'm not sure I'm too worried about it. If you go to the session often enough, the regs will recognize you as an improver, and will ask you to start tunes now and again... so... you most likely will get your moments in the sun.... don't rush it. Ok... that's my last post on this!
Making a list of all the tunes one knows - if that is indeed possible for anyone past the beginner stage - counts in my opinion as behaviour bordering on the obsessive. The time is better spent playing the music.
This leaves aside the time-consuming problem of actually naming the tunes! I've been going to an English session for about 4 years and I guesstimate the number of tunes I "know" (to the extent of playing them with confidence when anyone starts a tune) must run into three figures - but, I actually know the names of possibly no more than a dozen.
Lazyhound, everything about playing this music is obsessive! Ha! Learning hundreds of tunes, listening obsessively, practicing long enough and well enough to get the hang of playing it properly---it's all quite obsessive behaviour as far as I'm concerned. So why not keep a list of tunes if you're bored one afternoon and feel like it? Personally, I just the tunes page on this website. Much easier than keeping a list somewhere myself.
I'm kind of surprised that no one on this thread has mentioned choosing tunes based on which ones you like. There are a lot of tunes out there. And of course you want to play tunes that others can also play. But there are a handful of tunes that get played at my session that I just find irritating, and I refuse to learn them. I would say 75% of the tunes I learn are the ones I love, and 25% are ones I'm lukewarm about but that others play.
That's a good point kennedy. There are some tunes i don't want to learn too and plenty I'd prefer not to hear either. Always a good idea to start with tunes you like the sound of. Funny thing with this music is that just when you think you are getting through a lot of tunes you like then some you didn't start to grow on you.
That's true, tunes can grow on you. Conversely, some tunes can also lose some of their appeal.
I have this idea that one's repertoire is itself a musical expression---that the tunes one prefers/learns/plays define one's taste. And I find that I'm attracted to certain players because of the tunes they play (or I'm not fond of some players for the same reason). I also find myself sometimes liking a tune because I hear it played by a player I like---not because they play it in a certain way (although that helps), but because if I like the tunes they play, the new tune usually fits in with the taste of the player. Don't know if this makes sense...
Re repertoire being an expression of one's taste: oldstrings and I are regulars at a session, and it's become something of a running joke that oldstrings tends to lead skippy, major jigs and polkas, while I'll gravitate toward minor reels, and to a lesser extent, minor jigs. Makes for a nice mix, and it's not like either of us hates the other's tunes - we just tend to tilt the balance in opposite directions
And hallelujah AMEN to learning tunes you like. I'll learn my friends' tunes if and only if I enjoy them; if a tune on a recording really grabs me, I'll learn it whether or not anyone else is playing it, and introduce it to the session when the opportunity arises. But when people only learn tunes for the sake of fitting in, you end up with tunes that no one likes but that everyone plays, simply because, well, everyone plays them. Witness the popularity of a certain Dmaj hornpipe, which I've never actually known anyone to admit to enjoying .
"Oh, and playing in a band doesn't help the repetoire either. You tend to learn less tunes, even though in honing them for performance, you learn them very well."
Thanks, Al Brown, I hadn't quite identified what was preventing me from learning new tunes.
Now, someone above mentioned learning the tunes you like.
That's fine as long as either 1) you're not interested in participating in sessions or 2) the tunes you like happen to be the same tunes your local session likes to play.
I know a fiddler who has been playing Irish music for over 30 years and who only learns tunes he really likes. He doesn't participate in sessions. He used to go to one session back in the 80's but his participation was limited to sitting around not playing 95% of the time, and every now and then playing a tune solo. That's not what most people think of as participating in a session.
But if the goal is maximum participation in your local session, you need to attend regularly and make recordings of the tunes they play repeatedly and learn those tunes whether you like them or not.
I recommend actually recording your local session playing the tunes and learning them from the recording because that way you'll get the exact version of the tune your session plays, not a version out of a book or website somewhere that might clash.
As was mentioned above, it's better to learn the tunes that the session as a whole tends to play rather than the "one off" tunes that an individual might play once and you'll never hear again.
The only time learning tunes you like becomes a problem is if you only like really unusual tunes that no one else knows. Richard's fiddler is a pretty extreme example of that. I do know someone kind of like that myself---this person ends up playing solo a lot and doesn't seem to notice (or care?) that no one else is playing along.
But if you go to a session and you only like one or two tunes the whole night, you either a) have a session that plays really awful tunes and you should find another session, or b) have to consider whether you really like Irish music after all.
On the other hand, I question this whole notion that you have to be able to play 80-90% of the tunes played to have a good time at a session. Who says? I'm perfectly happy if I get to join in on several sets of tunes during the night, and maybe start a set or two myself. I do try to learn tunes I know my friends play, but I also try to learn tunes they don't know yet, and we're all happy to hear what each of us has been working on during the week. It's "what have you been learning lately?", "this new reel [plays tune]", "oh, that's a good one, I'll have to learn that one" or "I've heard it this way, have you heard this version?", etc., and then we come back the next week and can play some of the new ones together. It's all a process. No one feels like they have to memorize the whole iceberg of Irish tunes. I think you're asking for permanent frustration if you take that approach.
So how many tunes does it take?
So how many tunes does it take?
Does this sound familiar? You're a decent intermediate player, able to play well, and at session speed. You go to a session, armed with an MP3 recorder. You record a whole night's worth of tunes, most of which are new to you. You go home, spend a couple months learning them all. It's a haul, but you do it.
Recharged, you return to the session with a spring in your step, ready to jam along for the whole night. You fetch yourself a pint, find yourself a seat, pull out your instrument, get ready to show off your repetoire...
And not a single one of those damn songs gets played all night.
I'm wondering how many tunes, on average, you guys think it takes to get to "session literacy" -- the point where you can play, say, a good 80% or 90% of the times.
Presently, I know about 50 tunes. It's not a bad repertoire, repertoire, but more often than not, 50 tunes feels like the tip of the ol' Irish iceberg.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by TheChrispy
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
that's the tip of the iceberg all right - the trick is to figure out which iceberg. repeat that record and learn all the tunes bit about 30 more times and you'll have it
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by airport
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
50 tunes is a bit less than the tip. I think the tip is about 10 percent of the iceberg, and the usual count is somewhere just south of 10K discrete tunes (7500-9000 sounds like a reasonable range), so you're a bit less than the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
Now, how many tunes are played at your session over the course of time T? I actually did some back-of-the-envelope figuring on this one time, I think I convinced myself that less than 1K tunes (more like 500) are "known" by a given session - meaning, played by at least some number N players at that session. So you might be in iceberg territory wrt your local session, if you've picked the right tunes to know...
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
"Which iceberg" exactly. I started off playing in sessions in North London, about three years ago. After a year or so, I was feeling pretty comfortable - you know, I knew most of the tunes that would be played on any given night, I could start sets, bring new tunes to the session etc, but there were also enough unfamiliar tunes that it kept it exciting every session.
Then I went to New York for a few weeks, and thought I'd visit some sessions. Didn't know a single tune. Went to more sessions, and I'd know maybe 2 or 3 tunes a night. After a few weeks of being there, of course, I started to become more familiar with their repertoire, but it just made me realise how very real regional differences are.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by Joe CSS
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
One more thing. This feeling of "holy crap, there are SO MANY TUNES that I still have to learn!" -- try to learn to savor or even enjoy that feeling. That feeling is part of the fun of session playing.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by timmy!
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
1000 is a start.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by ethical blend
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
All you need it to learn a few sets really, really well. Not fast and furious!!l But learn them so that you can play these few tunes with class, and so that you would be able to start and finish them with style in any session in the world.
Then go to as many different sessions as you can where you'll pick up tunes despite yourself, and having picked up a few tunes from each session you'll find your self fitting into most sessions, but never expect to know all the tunes!
Go for quality not quantity.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by gtag
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
If you're in a session, and you can play every tune in that evening, then you're among friends and you really ought to get out more.
I'd even say that repertoire is not merely regional, it's parochial.
And then we, 'Er Indoors and I, went to an Old-Timey session ( supposedly ) in Western New York, and could play about 90% of those chosen on the day. So there are no hard and fast rules - just keep learning tunes.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Bowlocks, there are actually only a half a dozen or so tunes, it's just they play 'em differently all the time and give them different names and suchlike.
It's not rocket surgery, relax.
Enjoy.
G'Night.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by mcknowall
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Sorry, make that brain science.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by mcknowall
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Try starting off sets more often.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
"All you need it to learn a few sets really, really well. Not fast and furious!!l But learn them so that you can play these few tunes with class, and so that you would be able to start and finish them with style in any session in the world."
I hope I'm misinterpreting that ... 'cos if not, it sounds to me like a recipe for never fitting in to any session, anywhere. You gotta be able to go with the flow, play the tunes you know differently depending on who you're playing with and how they're playing them on that particular night, and mix 'em up like crazy. Personally, I'd go for just getting some tunes under your belt. The rest will follow.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by ethical blend
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
LOL [literally] [lots]
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by ethical blend
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Personally I'm not fond of the approach "Go for quality not quantity". Yes, try and have have a few sets you know really, really well but at the same time reserving time to constantly learn new tunes. Learning tunes is the best way to improve at trad. You have to listen closely and the phrasing of whoever or whatever you play along to should help your rhythm.
Something I think is important is that when you learn tunes you DON'T HAVE to remember them all. You can play them for your own pleasure for a while or use them as exercises. Forget a tune for 5 years if you want but one day you'll hear it at a session of hear someone playing it that inspires you. Suddenly the tune is like an old friend you just have to catch up with.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by bogman
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
"1000 is a start."
Frightening but true. 10 years of going to gig, sessions and festivals and listening to recordings, and I might be halfway there at a stretch (although I probably learned most of those in the about the first 4 years, after which the intensity of my quest diinished somewhat). And I'm already forgetting them.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Chrispy I can relate.
A handy thing on the "tunes" section is that you can find out the most common tunes, at least the tunes which show up in the most people's tunebooks, which is probably a fairly good guide to which tunes are most commonly played in sessions.
I took a look and of the 100 most common tunes I know all but a couple, of the 200 most common tunes I know all but a few.
But I can sit at my local session for an hour and not know anything they're playing.
And...this is odd too... dozens of tunes I know seem to be completely unknown to the session people. It's like I've spent the last 30 years learning all the "wrong" tunes! Tunes that everybody played in sessions around here in the 80's seem to be unknown now. How odd.
I suppose every session has it's own repertoire, and that repertoire will change over time as new tunes come into favour and old tunes drop out of favour.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by Richard D Cook
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Oh and what Joe says above is also spot on: due to another local session being closed, all of those people have started to come to my session, bringing with them an entirely different group of tunes, most of which I've not heard before.
So even in the same town, two sessions, two groups of tunes.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by Richard D Cook
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
There's one way in which the "learn a few tunes well" is surely good advice: at any given moment, your next step is to "learn a few tunes well". If your next step is "learn fifty tunes", then you've made your steps far to big.
Certainly "learn a few tunes well and then stop" would be peculiar advice, and probably not what was meant.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
If you figure 2 minutes per tune, a 3-hour session, with 2/3 of the time spent playing and 1/3 spent talking and tuning, you need about 60 tunes for the session. If they played your 50 tunes, you would know about 84% of the tunes. But for this to happen frequently it would mean playing the same tunes over and over again, week in and week out. I'm always amazed at how many people seem happy doing this, but I think it bores most people silly. It certainly bores me. I would think that for a single weekly 3-hour session to be interesting, there would need to be a shared repertoire of maybe 250-300 tunes, minimum. If you want to play 80%, you can do the math.
But there's a wide variation in what those tunes are (and how many of them there are) from session to session. I figure that there are maybe 400 tunes that I can play along with if they aren't played too fast. Most of them are fairly common. At most sessions I've been to in the past year or two, I know most of the tunes. Maybe not 90%, but as many as most of the players there.
But there have been a few times where I've felt like I've walked into a different universe. One time, in 3 hours, I knew about 7 tunes. Another time, 15 (about 9 of them started by one player who wasn't among the leaders that week). Most of the time I recognized the titles and knew that I'd seen them in collections or owned recordings of them, but hadn't knowingly encountered them in sessions before.
A few months ago, I started compiling a tunebook with the goal of including enough tunes so that someone who learned them could play along with the large majority of tunes at the large majority of sessions. It's got about 500 reels. I got sidetracked in the middle of the jigs and haven't gotten any further. My guess is that I could come up with some 1200 tunes or so. And, yet, sessions like those described in the previous paragraph would defeat even this effort.
I suspect that the need for a large repertoire is recent, now that people travel more and play with a larger variety of musicians around the world. 60 years ago, there wouldn't have been much need to know more than a couple of hundred tunes. I know some famous musicians had vast repertoires, but I suspect they were exceptions - we know of them largely because they were such gold mines for collectors. My guess is that the anonymous players had very modestly-sized repertoires.
Since the advent of Comhaltas, with lots of children taking lessons from an early age, lots more people can develop large repertoires. If you learn two tunes per week for 10 years, you've got 1000 tunes. And you're only 18. Even if it's only one tune per week, you've got 500. 50 tunes - 10% of the iceberg!
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by GaryAMartin
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Sometimes I've made rough counts of the number of tunes played in sessions, and the figure seems to come in the region 60-70 most of the time. These sessions are of course the normal social ones.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
If you've only got 50 tunes, and you're still calling them songs intermittently, you're not really intermediate yet.
"Personally I'm not fond of the approach "Go for quality not quantity". Yes, try and have have a few sets you know really, really well but at the same time reserving time to constantly learn new tunes. Learning tunes is the best way to improve at trad. You have to listen closely and the phrasing of whoever or whatever you play along to should help your rhythm."
The point is that if you just try to learn tune after tune after tune, (like trying to learn 50 tunes in 2 months) then you're likely not going to be playing them very well. When someone says focus on quality before quantity they mean that you should learn a tune really well, and take time to play it properly.
I'd much rather play with someone who only knows a handful of tunes, but plays them well, than someone who "learned" a ton of tunes, but leaves out half the notes, or has no style, or no ornaments.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by Nico
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Nico, you have misunderstood what I said. I am saying focus on playing a few tunes very well while as an extra learn tunes and don't be afraid to forget them. Learning tunes is a great way to improve the technique of the tunes you already know.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by bogman
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Dear original poster
80 to 90 % of the tunes is a bit unrealistic unless you've been playing 20 years in the same town with the same group. Many above have mentioned the various reasons for the thousands of tunes out there. Others at the session aren't probably expecting your performance at the 90% of the time. Play the tunes you know, and remember its a social occaision. Save performances and recitals for your parents, and realize this isn't about you. I mean that in the kindest way, by the way. You can relax, because it's just not expected that you know all the tunes right away, and it's very much expected that as a newbie you are coming to listen and absorb the rhythm, and style of your local session, you might fit in much faster by not playing in fact, because the others can recognize your interest is sincere.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by SandyBottoms
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
How many licks does it take? (I keep having a vision of that owl eating a tootsie pop after three licks.).
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by SandyBottoms
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Wow! Thank you everyone for such a wealth of responses. Yeah, it's funny to be at this for a couple years already and still feel, as one poster pointed out, that even "intermediate" would be a stretch.
Sometimes it's frustrating to go to a session and feel lost most of the time -- or to just sit there with little to do but twiddle my thumbs and silently sip my Guinness. That said, it makes me understand why a lot of the players are a good bit older than me (I'm a just-turned 25), and the youngest of the good ones are, say, around 30 or so.
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by TheChrispy
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
You can be sure that the good players have done their time sitting there with little to do but listen and sip their Guinness.
Join the club!
# Posted on September 27th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
one good original i'd say
and TheCrispy has inadvertently come up with a brillient name for it _ 'Tip of the ol' Irish iceberg'
now who's gonna write it?
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
I second that, lazyhound! About my first year or so was spent recording tunes & actually playing very little. I asked the fiddler in the session where I did that recording how many tunes he thought he knew. He replied that it was in the neighborhood of 3,000 tunes, and I believe him. I could go to his session for a few MONTHS straight & maybe hear only a dozen or so tunes EVER repeated! ITM is a jouney, not a destination; you'll never be "done" learning how to play or learning new tunes. But that's the fun of it- you never actually "arrive", so enjoy the ride!
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by jaychoons
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Hi Jay,
Seems to me that the fiddler was indulging his ego. Good session leaders should find a balance between common tunes that enable newcomers to participate and rarer tunes to provide them an opportunity to expand their repertoire.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by GaryAMartin
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
I'm surprised no one has given the OP the short answer: You can never know enough tunes. Just keep learning--that's what it's all about.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by tuckered out
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Too many.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
And for those who believe in a hereafter, particularly of the cell full of banjo players kind, there is this rumor going around that you only get to play the tunes you learned in life.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by david_h
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
"You can be sure that the good players have done their time sitting there with little to do but listen and sip their Guinness." Thanks for that reminder, lazy. Sometimes it's easy to get stuck feeling like you only sit around listening if you're not-so-good...
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by amyamanda
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Click on "Members" on this site, then "Tunebook", and you'll see tunes arranged in order of popularity. (This is not exactly true as some very popular tunes are not searched for much because they are already known, however it is a good guide). Learn the first two hundred and you'll be able to cope with most sessions. Having said that, I'm with the "I'd rather here one tune played well" brigade. Hope this helps. Best wishes.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by Fiddle Fancier
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Good players love to listen.
Bad players often suffer from "I can't just sit here and do nothing"-itis.
Pick one iceberg. The regional thing is true. Get fluent with the greatest hits via the Members>Tunebook thing and then find a session you can call home. Learn all of those tunes, that should be your main goal, to learn as many of your locals' tunes as possible.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
But, curiously enough, many regular contributors here suggest that they NEVER play any of the tunes on the "Greatest Hits" list, simply because they are too hackneyed.
It probably is true that, if you pull out one or two of the GH list at a session then, most people will know them and join in, even if grudgingly.
Once you know a fair percentage, and that's obviously a moveable feast, of the tunes in your local session, then you can sally forth and test the waters further off. It has all the potential for a long and interesting journey.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Chrispy, you did the right thing at the start, record a pile of tunes, learn them and return to the session. So maybe next to none of your tunes were played but they are now in your locker. Do the same again next time you go - record the tunes and go home and learn them and keep doing that. You'll find yourself more and more involved.
It is much, much better to keep building around the locally played tunes rather than trying to learn lists from here - that really is bordering on pointless. If you have extra time chip away at the 'top' tunes, they are good to know but you will get much more satisfaction by keeping it local.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by bogman
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
With all this talk of thousands & thousands of tunes there'll be people resigning themselves to being wall-flowers forever. As an alternative view, well you can play along to them all if you practice improvising techniques & learn the musical progressions, rather than trying to lock everything down to set pieces. The clues are in the first few lines. Listen to the flow of the tune then see how you can fit in. Run a theme/ accompaniment through in your head & you'll be joining in by 1/2 way through the piece, but get ready to drop out quick once the 'change' moves in. Towards the end of the piece you'll probably feel you could play it all if they went around again. Remember you only have to complement what's going on, you don't have to lead the whole shin-dig. Then you'll forget the lot five seconds later.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by Beanzy
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
What you are describing is noodling. If a session newby wants to be very unpopular than that's the way to go.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by bogman
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
For me, the uncertainty is part of the appeal--"How many tunes will I know, tonight?" At my local session, it can be up to 80-90 percent. At other sessions, maybe as low as 10-20 percent.
If a tune sounds somewhat familiar, I might try to pick it up on the spot by playing very quietly (easy, on fiddle, and it's right under my ear). But usually I just listen and learn.
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by tuckered out
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
....and there's nothing worse than a noodlng bodrhan-player.......
# Posted on September 28th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
I don't agree with the idea that popular tunes should be ignored because they are "hackneyed". A little bit of true artistry can transform even the most commonplace tunes. If you get bored with a tune then maybe you should ask yourself if it is the tune you are bored with, or the way you are playing it. Tunes are a bit like women. Promiscuity is fun but developing a loving relationship with one is also valid and arguably better!
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by Fiddle Fancier
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
I think Gary has it right--about 200-250 tunes and you will be playing most of the time at your local session. I have a few years under my belt, and am still only halfway there (although I did spend a few years sidetracked by learning to accompany the tunes). Old dogs learn new tricks, but not quickly!
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Oh, and playing in a band doesn't help the repetoire either. You tend to learn less tunes, even though in honing them for performance, you learn them very well.
But in the end, if the worst thing that ever happens to you is sitting, listening and drinking while others play, you have a good life!!!!
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
My head is officially spinning. I'm just starting out. I've got some work to do. I guess if I learn a tune a week, I'll be an ample sessioner by the time I'm too old the hear them.
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by Jimmy B
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
If a new tune starts popping up repeatedly I will try to
learn it. But there are 'one off' tunes and even though I might have
recorded them or gotten the names I won't bother. I don't have that much
practice time available.
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by Hup
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
"But in the end, if the worst thing that ever happens to you is sitting, listening and drinking while others play, you have a good life!!!!"
Amen.
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by amyamanda
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
I think you're asking the wrong question. 50 tunes could mean anything -- or nothing!
A safe bet would be to stick with a session you like and merely learn the tunes they like to play most of the time.
For that you must go at least twice a month or ever week if they hold it every week.
1. it's a mistake to think you should/must or ought to play "every tune" 90% of the time. Why? it's often better to listen and learn and sit out and noodle ONLY [if you must noodle at all] the parts of a new tune that you can get ....and do that very quietly. Don't try for the whole tune.
2. learn the common repertoire....if you can get that from your current session mates then try cd resources such as the Foinn Sessiun cds put out by CCE...Matt Crantich et al. There are lots of book/cd combos that can at least point you in the direction of the most commonly played tunes...but, of course, that's no guarantee.
3. Again, forget this notion -- a silly one -- that there's some "magic" number of tunes that must be learned. Simply not true. Quality is better than quantity in any case. And as alluded to above in other posts,...better to learn a few standard sets....The Tarbolton set being one, for instance....And there are many others even given regional differences.
cheers,
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by mtodd
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
there's alot to be said for ' . . . less is more . . . ' across a wide range of musical (and, for that matter, other 'artistic') genres
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
I haven't a clue how many tunes I know actually. Lost count, I've considered making a tune list.... but my attention span is too short to take it on. Once you've lost count, and once you've lost inhibition about not knowing every tune... you've probably started to fit in? Hows that for advice? Do I fit in? I'm not sure I'm too worried about it. If you go to the session often enough, the regs will recognize you as an improver, and will ask you to start tunes now and again... so... you most likely will get your moments in the sun.... don't rush it. Ok... that's my last post on this!
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by SandyBottoms
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Making a list of all the tunes one knows - if that is indeed possible for anyone past the beginner stage - counts in my opinion as behaviour bordering on the obsessive. The time is better spent playing the music.
This leaves aside the time-consuming problem of actually naming the tunes! I've been going to an English session for about 4 years and I guesstimate the number of tunes I "know" (to the extent of playing them with confidence when anyone starts a tune) must run into three figures - but, I actually know the names of possibly no more than a dozen.
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Lazyhound, everything about playing this music is obsessive! Ha!
Learning hundreds of tunes, listening obsessively, practicing long enough and well enough to get the hang of playing it properly---it's all quite obsessive behaviour as far as I'm concerned. So why not keep a list of tunes if you're bored one afternoon and feel like it? Personally, I just the tunes page on this website. Much easier than keeping a list somewhere myself.
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by kennedy
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
I'm kind of surprised that no one on this thread has mentioned choosing tunes based on which ones you like. There are a lot of tunes out there. And of course you want to play tunes that others can also play. But there are a handful of tunes that get played at my session that I just find irritating, and I refuse to learn them. I would say 75% of the tunes I learn are the ones I love, and 25% are ones I'm lukewarm about but that others play.
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by kennedy
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
That's a good point kennedy. There are some tunes i don't want to learn too and plenty I'd prefer not to hear either. Always a good idea to start with tunes you like the sound of. Funny thing with this music is that just when you think you are getting through a lot of tunes you like then some you didn't start to grow on you.
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by bogman
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
kennedy, I believe lazyhound is indicating that some players know several tunes without ever knowing their names. Of course, I may be mistaken. ;)
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
That's true, tunes can grow on you. Conversely, some tunes can also lose some of their appeal.
I have this idea that one's repertoire is itself a musical expression---that the tunes one prefers/learns/plays define one's taste. And I find that I'm attracted to certain players because of the tunes they play (or I'm not fond of some players for the same reason). I also find myself sometimes liking a tune because I hear it played by a player I like---not because they play it in a certain way (although that helps), but because if I like the tunes they play, the new tune usually fits in with the taste of the player. Don't know if this makes sense...
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by kennedy
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Re repertoire being an expression of one's taste: oldstrings and I are regulars at a session, and it's become something of a running joke that oldstrings tends to lead skippy, major jigs and polkas, while I'll gravitate toward minor reels, and to a lesser extent, minor jigs. Makes for a nice mix, and it's not like either of us hates the other's tunes - we just tend to tilt the balance in opposite directions
And hallelujah AMEN to learning tunes you like. I'll learn my friends' tunes if and only if I enjoy them; if a tune on a recording really grabs me, I'll learn it whether or not anyone else is playing it, and introduce it to the session when the opportunity arises. But when people only learn tunes for the sake of fitting in, you end up with tunes that no one likes but that everyone plays, simply because, well, everyone plays them. Witness the popularity of a certain Dmaj hornpipe, which I've never actually known anyone to admit to enjoying
.
# Posted on September 29th 2009 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
"Oh, and playing in a band doesn't help the repetoire either. You tend to learn less tunes, even though in honing them for performance, you learn them very well."
Thanks, Al Brown, I hadn't quite identified what was preventing me from learning new tunes.
# Posted on September 30th 2009 by oldstrings
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Now, someone above mentioned learning the tunes you like.
That's fine as long as either 1) you're not interested in participating in sessions or 2) the tunes you like happen to be the same tunes your local session likes to play.
I know a fiddler who has been playing Irish music for over 30 years and who only learns tunes he really likes. He doesn't participate in sessions. He used to go to one session back in the 80's but his participation was limited to sitting around not playing 95% of the time, and every now and then playing a tune solo. That's not what most people think of as participating in a session.
But if the goal is maximum participation in your local session, you need to attend regularly and make recordings of the tunes they play repeatedly and learn those tunes whether you like them or not.
I recommend actually recording your local session playing the tunes and learning them from the recording because that way you'll get the exact version of the tune your session plays, not a version out of a book or website somewhere that might clash.
As was mentioned above, it's better to learn the tunes that the session as a whole tends to play rather than the "one off" tunes that an individual might play once and you'll never hear again.
# Posted on September 30th 2009 by Richard D Cook
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
Fiddle Fancier above suggests that if you learn the most common 200 tunes you'll be able to cope with most sessions.
Maybe that's true, but I know all but a half-dozen of those 200 and I can sit at my local session for three hours and maybe know one or two tunes.
In a strange upside-down way this "commoness index" seems to be a guide to which tunes certain sessions WON'T play.
Each session it a different animal and if you want to participate you need to learn the tunes that particular session plays.
# Posted on September 30th 2009 by Richard D Cook
Re: So how many tunes does it take?
I like Dezi Donnelly's take on this (just the beginning patter before the tunes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4ISkXGjxK0
The only time learning tunes you like becomes a problem is if you only like really unusual tunes that no one else knows. Richard's fiddler is a pretty extreme example of that. I do know someone kind of like that myself---this person ends up playing solo a lot and doesn't seem to notice (or care?) that no one else is playing along.
But if you go to a session and you only like one or two tunes the whole night, you either a) have a session that plays really awful tunes and you should find another session, or b) have to consider whether you really like Irish music after all.
On the other hand, I question this whole notion that you have to be able to play 80-90% of the tunes played to have a good time at a session. Who says? I'm perfectly happy if I get to join in on several sets of tunes during the night, and maybe start a set or two myself. I do try to learn tunes I know my friends play, but I also try to learn tunes they don't know yet, and we're all happy to hear what each of us has been working on during the week. It's "what have you been learning lately?", "this new reel [plays tune]", "oh, that's a good one, I'll have to learn that one" or "I've heard it this way, have you heard this version?", etc., and then we come back the next week and can play some of the new ones together. It's all a process. No one feels like they have to memorize the whole iceberg of Irish tunes. I think you're asking for permanent frustration if you take that approach.
# Posted on September 30th 2009 by kennedy