Peggy, you make a great argument for at least writing down the name of songs you know or knew. This thread has reminded me that I've probably "forgotten" more songs than I currently can recall (tunes I keep a list). I'm going to start trying to remember those songs.

I indeed need to start to make some kind of list for real this time. I'll stay with the category 1 tunes, I like to play what I love most. Some tunes (don't shoot me) I might never play like Cluck Old Hen, not even one serious attempt I took to play this one.
However, there are many more tunes that I really liked to play in the past than the tunes I like to play since last year , but for some reason I never got back to them after they had my full attention for a longer while, thinking of tunes like Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine, Year of Jubilo , Hawks and Eagles, Over The Waterfall, The Star Above The Garter, John Ryan's Polka, Booth Shot Lincoln , Sailaway ladies,  Old Corn Liquor, Spotted Pony, Coleman's March, Midnight on The Water and then there are tunes like Stam Willum or Swallowtail Jig, Drowsy Maggy, The Black Rogue, The Connaughtman’s Rambles, The Grumbling Old Man and the Growling Old Woman.. so almost all of the tunes from the free fiddle lesson website. And tunes like Shady Grove and Blue eyed Boston Boy and stuff like Elk River Blues, I'll Fly away and such I also reallly want to keep alive.
Then this together with tunes I recently have been playing...

Ok, looks like I know very well to recall what I consider as the good stuff (for me). Someone has got some work to do here!
It is all about discipline my father would say. He knows me well. If I lack anything it's the discipline to work systematic towards my goals, but the list I just typed here sounds very appealing. That's a good start.

Edit :if I look at all the titles I just wrote down, I would need something like a rotation system to practise a couple of the tunes on this list daily, then rest of the time of each day is for something new , new tune or new technique  or just bowing exercises.

I've probably said this a zillion times before, but just enjoy yourself! Let your fingers dictate what tunes you play, not that frowning authority figure within you that sometimes shows up. To be sure, keep pushing the envelope, but don't make yourself miserable over it. Allow your skills to develop at their own pace.

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Originally posted by Quincy

I indeed need to start to make some kind of list for real this time. I'll stay with the category 1 tunes, I like to play what I love most. Some tunes (don't shoot me) I might never play like Cluck Old Hen, not even one serious attempt I took to play this one.
However, there are many more tunes that I really liked to play in the past than the tunes I like to play since last year , but for some reason I never got back to them after they had my full attention for a longer while, thinking of tunes like Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine, Year of Jubilo , Hawks and Eagles, Over The Waterfall, The Star Above The Garter, John Ryan's Polka, Booth Shot Lincoln , Sailaway ladies,  Old Corn Liquor, Spotted Pony, Coleman's March, Midnight on The Water and then there are tunes like Stam Willum or Swallowtail Jig, Drowsy Maggy, The Black Rogue, The Connaughtman’s Rambles, The Grumbling Old Man and the Growling Old Woman.. so almost all of the tunes from the free fiddle lesson website. And tunes like Shady Grove and Blue eyed Boston Boy and stuff like Elk River Blues, I'll Fly away and such I also reallly want to keep alive.
Then this together with tunes I recently have been playing...

Ok, looks like I know very well to recall what I consider as the good stuff (for me). Someone has got some work to do here!
It is all about discipline my father would say. He knows me well. If I lack anything it's the discipline to work systematic towards my goals, but the list I just typed here sounds very appealing. That's a good start.

Edit :if I look at all the titles I just wrote down, I would need something like a rotation system to practise a couple of the tunes on this list daily, then rest of the time of each day is for something new , new tune or new technique  or just bowing exercises.

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That is a pretty healthy looking list. I play many of them. If it were me, I would play them all in a sitting, just to keep them in my memory (muscle memory and brain memory). At least at first. If you find you can recall them at will, you're starting to get them under your skin.

IMO, you can't play a tune unless it is "under your skin",.. You are just going through the motions, however adeptly.

It would be meaningless and forgettable to just attempt to play the notes without any intention's, connections or context.

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Originally posted by pete_fiddle

IMO, you can't play a tune unless it is "under your skin",.. You are just going through the motions, however adeptly.

It would be meaningless and forgettable to just attempt to play the notes without any intention's, connections or context.

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Most definitely.

And who cares if one learns "Cluck Old Hen?" I only learn (memorize, get under my skin) tunes I want to learn. I can easily play a few dozen tunes without much effort if someone else starts them, tunes I've played before, but I'm not going to put them on The List if they don't grab me in any way. Only so much time to bother with all of the so many tunes, why waste it?

My weakness is that I like a good 90% of the fiddle tunes I encounter.  Wherever I go within the fiddle universe I find grit, romance, fun (okay, silliness), sadness, patriotism and just plain grab-your-partner dance tunes.  Cluck Old Hen is particularly silly. If I had three hands, I'd be wagging an index finger while I played the tune's "Uh, uh, uh!" chorus.

I just dug up Over the Waterfall, I find my self adding up up bowing and down-hown up up and some shuffling and hammer-ons , trying to play with it as to speak. It already sounds far more fiddley than it did when I studied this tune for the first time and I only played it through three times so far. This is a very pleasant discovery, that I can do more with it than I used to. Now I only need to figure out exactly where I will do what so that I have my own version. Getting there :-D

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Originally posted by ChickenMan

Peggy, you make a great argument for at least writing down the name of songs you know or knew. This thread has reminded me that I've probably "forgotten" more songs than I currently can recall (tunes I keep a list). I'm going to start trying to remember those songs.

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I keep a list and update it as life goes along and my interests and priorities evolve. Right now the list shows my Big Favs in a large and bold font, the tunes I'm learning and developing in italics, and then in normal font all the others that I need to play every now & then so I don't lose them. Finally, I have a fairly large list of tunes that someday I might have time to learn or maybe somebody thinks I should play -- those are in tiny little print haha. 

Oh, I have always kept a tune list. That wasn't clear in my post. But I've never thought to track the many 100s of songs I've known and performed over decades of being on stage.

I have never kept a tune list, and i only know a couple or three players that do. Maybe a set list of a dozen or two tunes for performance reasons, but never a tune list.

There was a moment in time where I did keep a list....I had only a guitar...we moved up here and I was 35 years old and just realizing I was forgetting a lot of tunes...so I tried to make a list, check it twice...anyway, I'd just moved up here to get a job where I got peanuts for pay, but being a state job, all kinds of wonderful benefits for the family, etc. So I was working anywhere from 40-80 hrs per week, running daughter around to all the new places, helping her with homework and playing games with her, doing artwork with a variety of media that I could buy cheap as one of my job benefits, keeping a garden, etc., etc. etc. But I had the list and I had some tunes I'd put into "jail," meaning for me that I never play through that one for enjoyment, rather, to slowly play with persnickety attentiveness to each and every detail...very slowly so the details could be known. After maybe six weeks being in jail, those tunes would progress to playable for enjoyment type tunes...I rotated them around like that. I eventually lost track of all of that, bought banjos and fiddles and more guitars and a dulcimer and a Yamaha keyboard was given to me...anyway, lost track of that and learned some more tunes to boot...lost control entirely...but when I think back on those first couple of years living up here and being so busy...I can't imagine how I was managing all of that. Now I can't get nothin' done and don't even know what I've played, or what...lol. Life gets teejus, don't it?

I think the sheer volume of material that’s readily available to us now makes it hard to focus. The temptation to move on to yet another cool tune is like eating potato chips. Remembering tunes and carrying them around is actually kind of a burden but that's just part of owning your repertoire. Reading the page is fine for learning. I’m embarrassed to say how many times I have to repeat a new thing. I think I’ve got it nailed then at the session it eludes me and it’s back to the woodshed. If you’re a strong ear player starting a tune out of thin air is the real test of how well you know it. I know a player who keeps a small book with the first 2 or 3 measures written in musical notation. That’s all he needs and the rest falls into place. Some people hear tunes in groups, one will set the next one up if that's how you practice but I personally hate staying in one key for more than 2 or 3 tunes, my ears get tired. The problem back in the day used to finding material, now it’s the opposite. 

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Originally posted by Peghead

 I know a player who keeps a small book with the first 2 or 3 measures written in musical notation. 

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I have though of something similar. I couldn't figure out how to use standard musical notation in a text list -- I don't read very well anyway -- so I thought that ABC notation might be the way to do it. But I've never been motivated enough to learn the ABC system well enough. So I just try to play everything frequently enough to keep from losing tunes. I resort to ForScore when a tune is getting really faint i my memory. I hate to lose those stragglers...

As Anja, Quincy has noticed...seems like sometimes when you forget a lot of a tune you once played, and you figure it out again, you make improvements...that's a good thing! One positive about forgetting what you used to know how to play...lol. It's happened to me too.

I went through the sheet music I once used and forgot about, most tunes I found back today are fairly easy and just a look at the first notes was enough. I rediscovered stuff like The Black Rogue, The Eagle's Whistle, Sail Away Ladies, Maggie in the Woods, Swallowtail Jig, Egan's Polka and Pete's March and had a lot of fun adding stuff.
When I was playing Stam Wilum with third finger on the D string, I spontaneously tried same time second finger on the G, a chord! I don't know what this chord is called, but it was fun to use it and it gave more depth. I used to mess up these kinds of chords each attempt my fingers had to be placed in what felt as a 'weird' way.
It always seems like some things are just meant to show up spontaneously one day. You can try and practise before it's your time, but always -for me at least- the lesson learned is: you might think about flying when you first need to learn to crawl, but the hard truth is first you will crawl for a very long time.
GDAE is not necessarily boring, once you have found ways to make it more fiddley, it is a lot of fun. Said that before. But it's true, I was so wrong to skip GDAE in the past hehe.

I feel total freedom today, here I am going through a bunch of tunes without needing any of the boring theory. Adding stuff making it fiddley, varying on melody and rhythm without thinking of specific techniques I tried to get into my fingers in the past. Something like spontaneous comprehension.

I feel rich today, with my two fiddles and my four bows.

You are rich! (From Owner of one fiddle and one bow)

But I know what you mean…
my first tune was “pipe on the hob” and I play it so much better these days than when I learned it.

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Originally posted by groundhogpeggy

As Anja, Quincy has noticed...seems like sometimes when you forget a lot of a tune you once played, and you figure it out again, you make improvements...that's a good thing! One positive about forgetting what you used to know how to play...lol. It's happened to me too.

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Yes, you're right, Peggy. When that almost-forgotten tune comes back, sometimes it comes back fresh and better!

I could not play like this at all when I first learned these tunes. Example 1 and 2 are the same tune played somewhat different. Example 3 is Stam Willum. Maybe I gave up on these tunes because back then each time I tried to play them these tunes were all alike, just the notes as I could read them.

Different levels of confidence.

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Originally posted by DougD

Quincy, maybe you're not learning these tunes as well as you think. To really "know" a tune you have to get it "in your bones" so that it becomes part of you. Getting to the point where you can sort of get through it is not enough. I often have songs or tunes playing in my head while I'm doing other things - not usually fiddle tunes though. I don't know if you're getting that far in your learning process. Just a thought.

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This reminds me of sometimes a difference of what folks refer to knowing "how a tune goes?", or question of what are trying to remember/recall?

1. Instructions of how to play the tune; specific individual instructions of how to play that individual tune; often as linear sequence of notes, durations... the mechanical and technical aspects, which finger where, bow direction; perhaps as note names; graphics symbols; or some other visual aspects.

2. How the tune sounds. Audiation is a term describing sensation of mentally internally hearing or feeling sound when it is not physically present. Simply put, ability recalling and imagining the holistic mental aural image; and could sing/hum/diddle the tune. This is mostly just acquired through listening experiences.

These probably serve different basic foundation for learning, and ability to remembering tunes. 

When learning, it might seem natural to primarily focus on the former, linear/technical instruction part; esp if from notation/TAB. Might need to rely more on rote memorization effort and tools; chunking and chaining to help. 

For me, it's primarily the latter, sound/audiation first, that serves the long term memory and recall. Mostly, just involved spending time, having enough memorable holistic listening experience. Though some is just from passive listening, might often include more active engaged listening, like sing/hum/diddle along; and other aspects like paying attention to overall structure, musical story, parts/phrasing, pattern and such. 
 

oh yes! that's just the way it goes. I don't know where the tunes go to hide in the brain but they do hide somewhere. What's odd to me is that the day after I try to play a tune I've forgotten, it usually makes more of an appearance in my consciousness.

I find more difficult to remember tunes I learn from sheet music as opposed to those I learn by ear.

Years ago, I heard someone talk about how he would listen to a tune 50 times before he would try to play it, and play it for six months before he would play it in public.

Once I learn a tune, I like to record it with my iphone Voice Memos app. This way if I am practicing or in a jam, I can just click on the my recording, and once I hear 2-3 notes, I remember the entire tune. The title of the song and key are also easily retrieved this way.