how many songs in your repertoire?

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 12:00 PM

I was a song leader for the Cub Scouts until about ten years ago. I counted up my songs one time, and was surprised to find I had about three hundred committed to memory. The Scouts got on a kick where they wanted me to center on songs from their two official songbooks, and I kind of drifted away and started singing grown-up songs. I find I'm either too old or too lazy to memorize new songs, so I use "cheat sheets" for the new ones. I'm reputed to know all 1200 songs in the oft-maligned Rise Up Singing Songbook, but it isn't true.
But I was proud of those 300 camp songs, even if parents considered some of them to be obnoxious.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 10:33 AM

I'm not sure exactly how many songs I know. I can tell you that I once sang for over 8 hours without repeating any songs. we were enjoying some nice weather while sitting around a campfire at a music festival. But that was before I started writing my own songs, so I'm sure I could probably go for a longer period now, if I wasn't so old and in need of regular naps.

Mike

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: breezy
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 10:20 AM

With some of Georges choruses your club will be grateful of an extra opportunity to get to grips with them.

I do em good, better than the man hisself even, if I may be so modest

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Flash Company
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 10:10 AM

I have this sort of photographic memory for lyrics, the trouble being that it isn't selective. I remember songs I wish I could forget sometimes! They sneak back into my head and haunt me for days.
If I am only counting songs that I used to sing when I had a full set of lungs, I would guess at about 300, but the others! Oh how I wish I could forget them!

FC

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Rasener
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 09:42 AM

hey Breezy, I hope you are not going to sing Georges numbers when you come up here. We don't want to hear George singing the same thing when he comes up.

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 08:42 AM

heck - half the time (or more) I don't recall that I know a song until someone else starts to sing it.

There are quite a few I can sing if I have the lyrics - never counted - many I can sing along to; many more I can sing chorus to but don't know the verses.

a pitful few I can do from memory

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: breezy
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 08:11 AM

and they were are called American Pie

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Splott Man
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 08:09 AM

It's funny, isn't it, about instant recall of songs long assumed forgotten.

I've kept a list of just titles of each song I've learnt since the mid 60s. Some of which I now have no idea about. I remember a period back then when I would learn 3 songs a week to keep my floor spot fresh, I can't do that any more. However, a couple of years ago, a few of us in Cardiff felt we had been complacent about our respective repertoires and decided to debut a new song each per month at our local club, we kept it up for over a year.
It was a really useful exercise for me as I now have 3 distinct repertoires to keep fresh.

I remember a letter in Melody Maker many years ago from Don MacLean responding to a critical article about him in a previous issue, in which, as an aside, he claimed to be able to recall upwards of 6000 songs. Now THAT's a memory!

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: breezy
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 07:19 AM

bout 200 recorded
Working rep is about 75 but constantly evolving with songs being left behind that may be revisited at a later date.
Latest songs are from the works of George Papavgeris from whom Andy Irvine, Vin Garbutt, Cloudstreet, Roy Bailey, Johnny Collins have dipped and Harvey Andrews wishes he'ld written.
Have any of you got any of George's in your song list?
if not then you aint doing your homework.

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: curmudgeon
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 07:17 AM

About 25 years ago, I counted up to about 800+. I've added a few more since. Of course I can't always remember what's on the list -- Tom

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: kendall
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 06:47 AM

500 or so

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Joybell
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 06:15 AM

True-love and I have both picked up songs by osmosis since we were first able to talk. We've both learned others at a fair pace since childhood. It's what singers do. Between us that's 125 years of picking up songs. We both stopped counting about 20 years ago. We don't dare do another count because it might remind us of how many songs we've forgotten. Joy

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 06:01 AM

Like Leadfingers I stopped counting. I find that if I hear someone sing a song it will remind me of something lost in the ether of my mind, just a word will do it, and I find myself singing a song I haven't sung for perhaps 20 years. My wife of 25 years is still amazed when I pull out a song she has never heard me sing before.

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 05:31 AM

When I first started singing Folk Songs i thought that the more songs I knew the easier it would be , but realised when I started doing set lists for bookings , that the really hard part is which songs do you leave out !! I stopped counting when my list of songs topped the five hundred mark , and that did NOT include all the songs I have learned by osmosis and never actually written down.

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Rasener
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 04:02 AM

0

I just listen and enjoy.

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: hesperis
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 10:34 PM

Not enough. ;)

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 10:04 PM

And only half of them are tv theme songs ;)

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Deckman
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 09:59 PM

About 2,800, last count, several years ago. But you need to remember ... I'm VERY old. Bob

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 09:57 PM

Anne, I have a similar song book that has just over 400 songs in it. A few of those were put in so that I would have the words to learn.

But I know most of them.

That does not include an awful lot of songs that I know, but don't perform and don't intend to perform.

At 65 I've got a few years on you though.


Blackcatter, that's an impressive tally.

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 09:44 PM

By the way, I'm 38.

Subject: RE: how many songs in your repertoire?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 09:44 PM

I sing, don't play guitar. And I play tin whistle.

Singing: 250+ song memorized, 600 or so that I can sing with lyrics in front of me well enough not to embarass myself on stage.

Whistle: 30 or so I can play well enough. I've only been playing for 4 years or so. Not much for practicing.

--------------------

And I remember in college my humanities profs saying the age of bards has long past. I could safely sing for over 8 hours without anything more than a list of songs to remind me which ones I have memorized. Oddly enough my phone number is the only one I know by heart.

Subject: how many songs/tunes in your repertoire?
From: GUEST,Anne Croucher
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 09:33 PM

I decided to make a copy of all the songs I sing, or have sung, in the version I use, putting in the guitar chords and capo placing if any, before my memory gets so bad I can't do it right.

I am at around 250 and still counting as I remember songs I used to sing with those already written into the repertory.

I am 53 now, still have the song book I started as a student back in 1969 (though it burst out of its original ring binder years ago) - and the same ol' Framus 'Texan' guitar - the only neck I've found I can get my hand around to make an F chord.

Is my collection of songs average? Unusual? Or do most people not bother to count?

Anne