Quote:
Originally Posted by Laughingboy68
I have 397 songs in my ready to gig repertoire. I'm motivated to get to an even 400, so I'll try to learn three new tunes with this challenge. My biggest obstacle is finding something new to play. I think I'm gonna have to seek some inspiration in other people's contributions here.
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I have a question for folks - Mike wrote the above and it sparked my curiosity because I have been wondering something.
Mike - when you say you have almost 400 gig ready songs, can you play all 400 from memory when you are playing live or do you require visual assistance during the performance? Tab, music sheet, chord chart....something?
The reason I ask is that I've been playing for just under a year after a 35 year hiatus - I am NOT good, but am making progress and able to play easy songs in relatively short order. I have a "song book" that I built with about 30-40 songs in it - all of which I can play through, some more fluently than others. I build these sheets from sources like Ultimate Guitar - I find song I like, select the one that seems to be highly rated, copy it into a Word document, fix the chords and spacing if it does not appear to be right, and I produce a pretty good chord or tab sheet for the song which I then put in the book and chip away at it.
I ask the question because, though I am a novice and it is getting easier, I am astounded that someone could remember that many songs - chords, strum patters, and chord timing. What is a realistic goal to set for being able to memorize and play songs? When I watch live music (I will likely never play live) sometimes the artist will have an iPad hanging from the mic stand. What is on the iPad? Other times it appears as though they have deep song reservoirs memorized. I find this incredible.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts. Is it reasonable to be able to play a certain amount of songs from memory? Will I always require visual assistance for many of them - is that normal? What do performers use? What is typical?
Thanks for the insight - more curious than anything because I will likely never gig. Though who knows, I keep threatening my kids that I'll descend on a poor, unsuspecting coffee shop and humiliate us all.
Justin