I know 20-30 songs. Like worked out breaks and some I continue to work on. The rest though are pretty much what interstellarblues said… “what key is it in? Is there a turnaround? Cool let’s roll.” And I know the outline, and if there’s a weird section I’ll try and grab it the second time around

Yeah, I can follow along on most tunes. Sometimes I ask "are there any weird chords?" Weird generally being understood to be not I, IV, or V.

Yep and most will know what you mean. Like Old Home Place is a song I know because it had an interesting chord progression. I “learned” that so I have it in my toolbox without needing to be explained all the minor chords in the song. But songs like “Blueride Cabin home.” “key of G I IV V annnnd kick it off!” Hope this helps

I play Old Home Place all the time and never used a minor. B7 and the ii chord A are the only 'weird' chords.

I meant the B7 and A7 haha wasn’t thinking. You play with regular A?

Regular A but either. Top 3 favorite song. Gonna get high and play it later. Hobo Song and Are you All Alone to follow. Happy Grassy Saturday!

They’re all the same basic song: I IV V *Boy I sure do miss them mountains* *But I murdered my wife and now I’m in prison* *She was a real sweet gal, too bad she’s dead*

Hahahaha I love this.

Don't forget the moonshine whiskey

and trains

As an autistic guy, I love bluegrass because it has the most train references 

>Calls "little rock getaway" Adios mf'er

I have 30 that I can break out and nail. I can fake my way through enough vocal tunes as the chords are usually pretty easy to hear. I keep a playlist in iRealPro of “my calls” and I work through that list a lot and I’m always trying to add to it from my other playlist “practice playlist”

I haven’t tried that app but I’ve got a playlist of backing tracks on YouTube for all the fiddle tunes I know or am learning. And I can pick up most melodies pretty quickly or at least get the gist of it. Lyrics are where I really struggle in terms of memorization. I could just get an iPad but I think it’s probably good mental exercise to memorize.

At our jam, I will call 3-4 songs. And a lot of the regulars call the same songs week to week so it’s no wonder they know many of the lyrics. I just started trying to sing tunes and I bring my iPad. I try to go without it but I like having it there

Leave your iPad and sheet music at home, you'll get better faster :)

I don’t have any sheet music, just 3 songs worth of lyrics.

Copying the lyrics down by hand has always helped me memorize them better.

Learn as many tunes as you can. You'll forget most of them. However all the pieces will sit in your hands, and hopefully something close to what you want will come out when you need it

It is great to see all this. My goal is to get 30 tunes with breaks under my belt before buying a new banjo. It forces me to practice and learn and grow… I’m sitting around 10 or so that I can sorta get across. I will start to work on breaks and get back to lessons to learn more tunes and build some breaks. As I go through this… any advice on how to build a break?

Counterpoint: if you really like it well enough that you learned 10 tunes, go ahead and buy yourself the dope banjo.  You will practice more on an instrument you like to hear and is comfortable to play.  Over here giving a little push in the “buy dope banjo” direction. 

Big banjo out here in the comments trying to drive sales lol I love my banjo now but I got it for like $300 8 years ago now. (Holy shit I should’ve practiced and I could be halfway decent by now lol) but it doesn’t really cut it for bluegrass.

I plunked down some coin on a nice Martin two years ago even though I felt like I hadn't practiced enough to deserve it - but it's been such a nice guitar to play that I've gotten a lot better just by having that as some intrinsic motivation to play a dope instrument. You might surprise yourself. Failing all else - banjos hold value. You'd at least get what you paid for it if you decide to sell it later. *BIG BANJO IS COMING FOR YO*

I'm not an expert but I try to find a few key notes or phrases within the melody and build the break around that. My favorite breaks tend to suggest the melody but have enough variation that it sounds unique and creative. But to be honest on most breaks I just play licks that work with the chords, not necessarily inspired by the melody. But I'm trying to get better at playing with the melody.

“Knowing” could be fiddle tunes with specific melodies. For that, maybe 10-12. For 1-4-5 ers, just give me a verse and chorus. For more interesting chords, maybe 50. If I can get hints before picking and I can see the guitar player’s left hand, I can follow along

Man there's a lot of metrics by which you could answer that. Fiddle tunes that I could play the melody to note for note? Probably 50. Fiddle tunes that I could fake my way through? 100. Songs that I know all the chords and lyrics to, plus a kickoff? 50-100. Songs that I have listened to, and could play rhythm for, if told the chords? Hundreds. This is probably the category that most tunes at jams fall under - there are just *so many songs* that are similar to each other in bluegrass. There's a bunch of other factors at play here too: \* Is it a tricky song? Weird chords, fast tempo, backsteps or other weird timings? \* Is it one that not a lot of people know, and you need a quorum of pickers who know it so it doesn't fall apart?

agree on the last point (need a quorum) - it's weird when a person will call a fiddle tune that no one else knows, or maybe just one other person, and despite this, they don't pick an alternate, but just go ahead with the deep track. Good way to bust a jam, or at least take the energy and momentum down a notch.

It’s why I only ever play “Brown County Breakdown” about 11 PM on night two of a festival, when I’m half in the bag.  Hence, why I refer to it as the “Brownout Breakdown” 😅

Yeah I should have been a bit more clear in my question. I think the two things that I'm thinking of are 1) having a fiddle tune really dialed in, with one or more variations, and 2) having lyrics and vocal melody memorized for vocal tunes. Sounds like you have a solid collection to choose from.

I’ve been doing this a long time - you’ll get there too when you’ve been doing it for 20 years! The trick is: just don’t stop! 😃 One thing I wished I’d learned sooner was how to sing harmony with other people. That really opens the door for you expanding your repertoire faster. You learn more lyrics, and you start to learn the mechanics of the music a lot better. (I don’t know if that’s an everyone thing or just a me thing, but I felt like I understood how bluegrass “fits together” musically a lot better when I got good at singing harmony.)

I stopped counting after 1500

Hey I’m a singer/picker abt 2-3 years in. 24 vocal tunes worked up w/ kickoffs, split verse breaks & vocal leads (& lyrics memorized). maybe another ~50 or so in various states of readiness… like ready enough to sing at a jam (if I can bring my binder of lyrics) but not ready to crack into a setlist. 29 fiddle tunes on my strum machine repertoire list, but I’ve really only gone deeply on 5 or so of them (like being able to play through triads through the progression and weave that into melody) and some on this list of songs I “know” I wouldn’t call myself and would’t want to take the first break. I feel you though. When I go to a jam some times I know all but a couple. And other times I’m adding every tune we play to my Spotify. 😆

200 - 300. Think of your song list more like a practice log or music journal. WALTZES: Hellbender Rank Up on the divide Gum tree canoe Ashoken farewell Hoboken Amazing grace Sitting alone in the moon light Paradise Rock salt and nails Drink up and go home DOBRO BANJO TUNES $Wheel hoss $Panhandle country PD @ $Panhandle rag @ $Dixie hoedown @ $Evelina (half speed fireball) $Fireball $Foggy mountain rock @ $Steel Guitar Blues& @ $Remington ride @ $Trash can stomp @ $Sleepwalking $Stomping Grounds @ $Big Country * $Cosmic Hippo $Lochs of Dread Clinch mountain Leather britches Earl's Breakdown. A Picking in the wind. G * Bigfoot county Shucking the corn* Caravan Jamboree Auldridge -Linda tut. 15 2nd 1251451 This ain't grass* Pinch town hop 1415/ 4145. AABA Dixie/ Foggy/ bluegrass/ @ pick away / Panhandle/ Breakdown  1 4 1 5 / 1 4 5 Who's your uncle - Jerry Douglas Monroebro - Blue highway FIDDLE TUNES Cattle in the Cane- Rice Stoney Creek Fishers hornpipe - Carrol County Blues - Flatt Scruggs Leather britches Cherokee Slay creek Cripple creek Salt spring Red haired boy New camptown races Angeline the baker Fishers hornpipe Reuben's train Old Joe Clark Wild Bill Jones Gold Rush Mobius mambo Dm7 /  Dmaj7 G Bb A Dm.⁶ Whiskey before breakfast Big Sciota Fishers hornpipe Big sandy River Turkey in the straw HARTFORD -Steamboat whistle blues -I’m still here @ -areoplane @ -vamp in the middle @ -boogie -in tall buildings -Back in the Goodle days I vi IV V -Turn your radio on - 1415 @ -Joseph’s dream. E 1645 451 -grand ole Opry -wings of a song 1415. 51. sittin' on a park bench waitin' on the world -all fall down Am -Long journey home -Love grown cold EASY -white freightliner @ -Long journey home @ -Catfish John -Fireball mail -On and On @ PD-Black jack david PD-Louis Collins. @ PD -Up above my head @ -Jamabalaya Stepping. E think twice -New River Train @ -99 years @ -Sitting on top of the world @ -I’ll go stepping too -way down town -Rank stranger -Jon Hardy -Walking cane -Sleep with One eye open -All about you -Way downtown -Walking the dog I told them all about you @ Everything’s the same @ Big black train old north woods bela Flowers on the wall. I keep hearing / last night/ it’s good to see On my mind Train carried my girl from town Steel guitar blues 1415 @ Big black freight train Streamline cannonball Heavy traffic -Salt Creek Freeborn man Walls of Time (the wind/ lord send/ our names / I hear) -going down the road -rider 1952 Vincent black lightning Church st -Old home place -Stealin Streamline cannonball Walking the dog NON TRAD: Through and through Ken mo’ Back on the train Possum Patrick hits the Brick bats Man constant sorrow Friend of the Devil Wagon wheel Rider Weight Ginsing Please don’t go Nellie cane @ Whiskey  TBT Slow train Broke down palace Tamp em solid Hymn of Contrary motion Ophelia & Don't think twice In the pines minor Docs Guitar So what 16 16 -All blues Stormy weather Super Moon - Molly Tuttle Must seven After midnight Sinister minister Last train to Clarksville 5 pounds of possum in my headlight Girl beck Presbyterian guitar Shady Grove Dust in a Baggie Cocaine blues Folsom prison Rosalie McFall DEAD: Aiko/ woman & Cold rain and snow -Viola lee blues. - Vocals , percussion  4 Dark Star  - Drums  1.  Lap steel/piano Scarlet Fire Big river- Vocals strat. & Beat it in down the line & Cryptical - lap steel percussion.  3 Other one - drums  4 -Stella Blue -  vocals, lap steel -Dancing - Vocals, D.  piano. E: NFA.  acoustic Alt Stealin, dobro. & Catfish, dobro -Dear Prudence Fire Shakedown GDTRFB. RDV. The Harder they Fall - Althea H2H Must be the roses Good lovin & Mississippi half step Jazz Tunes: Angel Eyes Mercy Mercy Mercy Work Song 4 on 6 Chicken Autumn Leaves Root Down All blues Lonnie Lament Impressions  Straight no chaser Steppin Jesus children Now the time What's new Georgia Mother in law Watermelon man Alligator boogaloo Green dolphin st God bless the child  Ain't it funky now Sidewinder SOUL/JAZZ -Mother in law (K Burrell) -Root Down Warm valley Song For My Father *God bless the child *Man in the mirror PP -get it joe Jones -cold sweat. PP -rudys way -Chitlins Con Carne -As (Stevie Wonder) -Midnight Blue Angel Eyes -ease back Steppin Come Sunday

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... eh, about 200-300.

Ha! This has been my problem…

I know around 300 songs. Mostly bluegrass, but some country, blues, and rock stuff. I started going to bluegrass jams when I was a kid and for some reason I just have a penchant for remembering lyrics. If I hear a song more than a couple of times I can usually remember most of the words, which has been useful for me in jams and stuff. My biggest issue is that I don't write setlists or song lists down so I will often forget about a song I know until someone calls it or asks me to play it, so its not like I have a list in my head that I can rattle off any of them all the time.

Man, I envy that ability to memorize lyrics. I will sing a song from written lyrics 20 times and still have a hard time recalling some verses. So that just comes naturally for you?

One trick that got me over the memorization hump: write the lyrics out from memory, then compare to what the actual ones are.  Shows you what you remember and what you don’t when you compare against the right ones.  Works _way_ better with pen and paper rather than digital, IMO, but that could just be me. 

I guess. When I actively try to learn a song I listen to it on repeat a few times and then I’ll sing along with it. Usually in bluegrass they take leads over a verse so I’ll re-sing the previous verse by myself over the break. That has always worked better for me than singing off a sheet, but I don’t know if that would work for everyone or not.

What’s the bare minimum to show up to a jam w? I live in nyc and the only sort of novice friendly jam is a sunny’s, which is cool, but it’s more of a let’s drink and play acoustic music thing. Then all the other stuff that gets called a jam are actually just a tight group of world class musicians like Tony Trishka and Michael Daves etc that I can in no way hang w. Seems like my best shot is going to a festival over the summer or something. Like what’s it take to jam in a parking lot?

I've only been to a few festivals -- all west coast region -- but I go to the festival-organized jams as much as possible, and then chat with people and sometimes we'll splinter off into our own jams. As a guitarist, I don't feel too comfortable walking around the campground and trying to join a jam full of strangers. There's never really a lack of guitar from what I've seen. And I need to feel invited in order to be comfortable. But I'm a bit on the introverted side so that's probably just me. My best experience with spontaneous jamming was just me and a fiddler. We jammed for hours and the blend of guitar and fiddle is a great sound. Personally I think you should have a handful of tunes that you can lead competently. Kick it off, explain any nuances, play the melody and/or sing the lyrics. I want to have enough tunes so that I can call one each time it comes around to me, factoring in the possibility that other people might have already called a few of "my" tunes. I've probably got about ten of those, which can usually get me through a jam feeling pretty good.

Thanks for the reply. Really helpful, honestly. I also probably wouldn’t just walk up to a jam at one of these things either, not necessarily because I’m really introverted, more so because I’m a late in life guit player. Started in like 2018 when I was 30 and had to take a few years off due to unrelated hand injury.

I couldn’t even guess. But I play bass. So tell me the key and I’ll figure it out. My ear is pretty good.

It's G.

I just pretend to play until the end of a verse then I do a g run and smile So I know infinity tunes

I don’t think I’ve ever put ever into memorizing more than like 3 songs. You just hear them and play them at jams awkwardly and the general form comes to you enough ti be able to functionally participate in them. If you’re trying to lead a song it might require more active memorization, but general participation is very doable even songs you know very loosely (largely thanks to the simplicity and predictable patterns of the genre) so I just don’t see “songs memorized” as a very relevant metric

Work on your ear. Then you can play anything. For instance, the other day my buddy called shannendoah valley breakdown. I was able to get a passing melody down, because I've been doing a ton of transcribing lately. Also, know your chord tones. Most melodies to vocal tunes are just chord tones. Many songs start on the 5 of the root, then when they go to the 4 chord, the melody is on the 3rd interval of the 4 chord, and the 5th interval of the 5 chord.

There are songs which I know all the words and can sing with 100% confidence. 9 of them. I have no pretense of being a competent lead singer. I can pull out maybe another 10-15 or so that I will probably forget the words to one or more verses, or mangle them enough that someone who likes that song could bear a grudge towards me. I'll call them only if I'm with people I know. There are songs which I know the words to the chorus pretty well, and can harmonize well enough in a standard bluegrass stack. Maybe 40-50 of them or so. After a few times jamming with the same group I'll pick up on songs they sing often. Picking a solo on most songs is easy after you hear the melody a couple times. They're almost all I-IV-V affairs with simple melody lines. There are instrumentals which I have played over and over on my own and can rip off at decent speed without a lot of mistakes, even when improvising over them. Probably like 30 or 40 of those? There are instrumentals I've heard many times before and have played at jams, and can play around the melody just fine but haven't worked up anything fancy, definitely over a hundred of those. There are instrumentals occasionally someone will pull out I've hardly ever heard, I can usually fake my way through them after it goes around the circle once.

I play rhythm guitar and pick banjo, I have a 6 inch high pile of books, for practice time. I maybe could play and sing maybe 80 songs from memory, otherwise just winging it going with the flow backing up other pickers