Unofficial Taylor Guitar Forum - UTGF
Lessons, Recordings, How Tos, Repair, Accessories => Lessons, Recordings, How Tos, Repair, Accessories => Topic started by: DennisG on April 05, 2015, 02:19:01 PM
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Here's the supposition: you get a phone call to grab your guitar and rush down to your local hot spot to perform. The money's great and you just can't pass up the offer. How many complete songs -- no partials and no songs you still haven't quite mastered -- could you do?
I'm just a hack, so I could manage to do 14 songs. How about you?
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With no song sheets, I'm good for about 14 too. With lyric sheets, maybe 30.
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Powered mainly by my one-man ELO tribute, I could manage about 17 or so complete songs. How many I could actually play well enough for someone to pay me to perform them, however, is another matter...
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Wow, that's a good question and gives inspiration for practicing your list so you can be ready if called upon :)
I might could do around 25, but the majority of those are originals. Believe it or not, you have to rehearse those from time to time, too, because if it's been a while you can forget them. So maybe it could be less! Ha!
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My personal play list is over four hours long and has about 150 songs on it. That includes vocals and strumming, folk vocals with fingerpicking, country blues and ragtime fingerpicking solos, and Hawaiian slack key instrumentals in 5-6 different tunings. I can do - from memory - about an hour's worth of each category. But I have been playing for a LONG time, performed for many years at coffeehouses and festivals, and routinely play in at least three different jam circles therefore I need to know a wide variety of songs. While I practice a lot, I don't learn very much new stuff these days, as most of my practice time and attention goes into maintaining what I already have under my fingers and in my brain. And yes, if you don't play it somewhat regularly (at least once or twice a month) it goes away. In my case, the music itself is fairly easy because I can hear chord changes pretty well after all this time, but I find myself needing lyric sheets and set lists a lot more than ten years ago. If I have a gig coming up, I will spend about 90 minutes per night for a couple of weeks beforehand polishing up what I plan to play.
I always suggest to students and newer players to have five of your favorite songs that you can play from memory on demand, and keep a 3x5 card in your case with that list. In a song circle or jam, it takes a while to come around to you five times, so you should be covered. Odds are you won't have your binder, your music stand, a light and all the "stuff" with you around that spontaneous campfire jam. At every guitar camp or major jam session, there is always a song or two that I don't know but want to be able to play, and I make it a point to go home and learn it the next week. Then it becomes another song to maintain.
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I suppose a dozen or so but I have to say my "playing in front of others" days are pretty much over.
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Five cold from memory, any time. 50 more with lyrics in front of me.
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Err, none, but I'm getting there. It'd be an Eagles medley at the moment ;D
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I'm about to find out. :o
I just got booked to play a private party next Sunday. I figure I can go for 3 hours or so. Probably 40 songs more or less. I may need a couple of cheat sheets for the lyrics, though. I can pretty much remember most of the chords, though (hopefully).
My part-time gigging hobby band has a set list of about 50 songs I can play with no problem, so I probably will work in a bunch of those to go with my regular solo stuff.
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Like many here...15-20 wouldn't be too impossible for me to do cold...but I never go without my I-Pad with the "On-Song" app. I easily have over 300 hundred songs that I can do while taking an occasional glance at the I-Pad mounted on it's own stand in front of me and a blue tooth enabled foot petal to turn the pages on the I-Pad.
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On the spot I could do maybe 20-25 originals, maybe 10 Beatles songs, maybe 10 random covers, and about 10 more traditional Irish songs. So ballpark 50 songs? First time I've really added it up. Dang! I'm kind of impressed with myself ;)
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ONE! :D
Working on 5-6 but only one down so far. But that's ok no one is calling me anytime soon
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probably bout a dozen that I feel confident
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I have about 120 in my list but numbers like "My way and Yesterday - there' s a pile of chords so without a few rehearsals I don't do them .And also I'm hooked with this program OnSong on my IPad - no more sheets blowing in the wind and flipping pages , I don't stare at it but I have it as a crutch to look occasially in case the chords get a little hairy . In the band we found we needed about 40 for a night of playing
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I have about 120 in my list but numbers like "My way and Yesterday - there' s a pile of chords so without a few rehearsals I don't do them .And also I'm hooked with this program OnSong on my IPad - no more sheets blowing in the wind and flipping pages , I don't stare at it but I have it as a crutch to look occasially in case the chords get a little hairy . In the band we found we needed about 40 for a night of playing
OnSong sounds cool.
Here's the app that I use to keep my sheets from blowing in the wind:
(https://d2t1xqejof9utc.cloudfront.net/screenshots/pics/b81855227489111a2295594c8f4adc1c/medium.JPG)
;)
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30 or 40 I guess. Majority fingerstyle, minority strum and sing.
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A bit over 60. There are more but they were learned years ago and I don't bother playing them anymore. I almost never forget a lyric but I do forget which songs I know. I keep a list to remind me of the Song, Tuning, Key and Capo Position.
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id probably do the 16 i have in the set at the moment that wouldn't be a problem
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My playlist has about 40 songs that I have performed, but for most of them I need some help and at least need to have my music book in front of me "just in case". I'd say I can do about 15 cold, without the words in front of me. But, my nerves still get to me and that makes me forget - even songs I've played a hundred times before without help. My usual venue is a 15-20 minute open mic night, so I can get away with practicing five or six songs a few days before hand. Later this year I'm doing an hour long gig at the riverfront, so there's going to be some serious practice time going on.
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I have about 50 songs and 6 instrumentals in my head that I can do to a performance standard. I generally do not forget lyrics. What I do forget is - what songs I know, key, capo position, starting chord shape and sometimes tuning. I keep a list of of songs with that info on my computer, phone, and kindle as well as hard copy in the guitar case printed in a large font. I still learn a new song every month or so but it takes a while (3 months?) before it gets added to the list of things I can actually do. I also regularly forget where I put my car keys, wallet etc.
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I could probably do 30-40 right now. Back when I was playing a lot, I could do four hours from memory. I'm looking forward to starting playing out again more, so I'll have to dig out my lists. I'm one of those guys that hates music stands. I just work from a song list.
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My wife and I started doing some gigging about two years ago and got performance ready about 30 songs. We 've added about 10 or so more. Some are duets and some I sing solo. So about 40-45 songs total.
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I've probably got a little over an hour and a half of music that is performance ready from memory, two hours if I get to use my tablet with my lyric pad lead sheets. I've been working on adding to my set, since my Celtic duo is starting to book shows. I've been adding new music at a pretty good rate, 1-3 songs per week at present.
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I think 15-20 from memory. Give me my book of charts and I could do 100+. I've done 125+ different songs at open mics in the last 6 years but some were "one and done." ;)
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probably 16 to 20 if i had to sing them many more if im just doing guitar
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probably about 200 - but I play all the time and if I sat to think I might even remember a few that I forgot I knew ;)
Sadly, I've probably forgotten an equal number of tunes over the years...but I've been playing live since I was 16. Plus I go through phases where whole chunks of my repertoire fall into the "I don't want to play that song anymore" bin for a while before I pull them out again and say "why haven't I done this recently...I forgot how much I liked it" ;)
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I'm glad I'm not the only one that can't remember which songs I know. Between band set lists, acoustic set lists, classical repertoire, it all gets confusing. Even the dulcimer, which I know only maybe 30 or 40 tunes on, I keep a piece of paper in the case just to remind me what songs I know. And then there's the mountains of stuff I haven't done in years.
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I recently attempted to compile as complete a song list as I could and then I saved it on Dropbox, so I can pull it up on my phone or tablet anytime...provided I remember it's there ;)
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Update: Since last post on June 17, I'm up to a three hour set and now have a residency at one of the local tourist spots.
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Without my chord charts probably about twenty.
With my chord charts (and MIDI) over six hundred.
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I did a 90 minute 'set' last Saturday at the campgrounds I was staying at. Although I was facing into the woods, people walking the access road would come into the site and talk to me and compliment my playing. The next day some kids from the next site walked by and said 'thanks for the concert'. I had another 15-30 minutes of songs I could have done, but didn't want to 'disturb the peace' any later. I can play many more songs, but its remembering the lyrics that's the tough part.
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I can play many more songs, but its remembering the lyrics that's the tough part.
Don't even get me started on this one.... Memorizing lyrics is crazy hard for me. I'll forget lyrics to a verse of a song I've sung 1000x right in the middle of it.