Some years back we had a guitarist (loosely used) in our group in camp at a festival who unfortunately couldn't/wouldn't sing, and only played backup chords. He repeatedly "played a few bars" of lots of tunes for us, with the question "do you guys know this one?"

Unfortunately again, the only songs he knew were old country/western ones, that all used exactly the same 3 chords, mostly in the same sequence and with the same timing.

He totally failed to understand why we were unable to just jump right in and pick up on "his songs." (He heard - in his head - a lot more than what he played, and couldn't understand that we didn't hear "the rest of it" when he played for us.)

We often encounter a very similar problem with persons who have a song "stuck" and want to identify it. Getting it out of the head where it's stuck in a form that others can use to try help is sometimes the really difficult part.

Once that part's done ... we've probably got some really useful tools here.

John