How many songs do you currently know?

[tapper mike]

It's not uncommon for a classically trained musician who primarily is playing an instrument which either cannot or can in only limited degrees produce harmony. They usually only get sheets in notation for the single note lines of which they are intended to play.

On the other hand I've seen quite a number of itinerant musicians who survived by ear alone. Listen to it and then try to repeat it. They are near useless when it comes to actual writing or improvising.

I do not have fond memories of working with people who by mere whim of wanting to sing or write songs think they can without any sensibility to timing/rhythm rhyme or reason and yet they think they are singers/songwriters. Some can learn a little along the way and some can learn nothing.

These days I'm happy when I get to explain something about general music knowledge and specific guitar music knowledge.

[pekbro]

I only have musical ability, no actual skill. I believe my ability is quite capable of anything. Not the norm though, for sure. My brain has the skills built in, it's a mechanical ability actually, i can do anything mechanical. I am unusually artistic as well, so that covers the improv I guess.

This may sound like bragging, but it's not really. It's hard for me to focus on stuff like
the guitar or the piano or whatever, they are are practically the same to me. I also
don't really listen to music, since it's difficult not to memorize or be influenced by it.
By that I mean it can be hard to tell if I wrote something or heard it somewhere and
then reproduced it. I don't have a musical staff in my head, I have a full keyboard or
guitar fingerboard, they are 1:1 with their RL counterparts and that's it.

Most of the really successful musicians I know, know surprisingly little about music actually.
Not all of them, but the really successful ones definitely.

[Download SOphist]

at my age, when I learn a new song I forget an old one. so it´s actually one song at any given time.

[tapper mike]

Using chord progressions as a starting point isn't the only way I write. That being said having an idea of what key a particular melodic line is in allows me to create or borrow chord progressions that move the song along.
Basslines are generally based on chord progressions. It's a heck of a lot easier to give body to a general melodic idea when you can write a progression that somehow aligns to the melody.

Chorale writing is a common classical technique where you harmonize a melody. Though it's not common at all in any "popular" styles of music and is considerably less popular as a means of arrangement.

When I first started playing I learned a few chords and could count out the beat and play along with that beat. Learning keys and the chords that fit those keys shaped how I learned songs and how I wrote them. It also made it more possible to translate my ideas to other musicians. With slight variation of rhythms and tempos and keys a single chord progression can aid in learning 100's of songs and can also be used for writing complete songs.

[Ranseri]

Depends on how you define "knowing" a song. I'd say that right now I could maybe play around 20 songs from beginning to the end without chords or tabs, but there are numerous songs which I've known how to play, but don't remember right now. However, if I played them once or twice, I think I could play them just fine.

So 20 or 200, I don't know.

[jamcat]

I know thousands of songs. But I can't play any of them.

[jens]

Zero - and that includes my own ones.

[jens]

I also
don't really listen to music, since it's difficult not to memorize or be influenced by it.
By that I mean it can be hard to tell if I wrote something or heard it somewhere and
then reproduced it.

That sounds really painful to me.

Most of the really successful musicians I know, know surprisingly little about music actually.
Not all of them, but the really successful ones definitely.

Personally I try to know as little as possible. First of all I want to be able to really keep enjoying listening to the music of others (not by analyzing it but enjoying the magic the way it's been intended) and then I also want to be able to distance myself from my own music (listening to older stuff I often think something along the lines of "wow - couldn't do that")

[tapper mike]

I've never felt that learning a song diminished the performance of it by those who recorded it originally. If anything it helped me to appreciate the hard work that went into writing and recording it.

[jens]

I've never felt that learning a song diminished the performance of it by those who recorded it originally. If anything it helped me to appreciate the hard work that went into writing and recording it.

If that is meant as a reply to me then it seems you completely misunderstood me. I was talking abotu the magic of the music as a whole piece of art... for me the performance and work is always secondary to the result. If one piece is nigh unplayable but doesn't touch me (and chances are it won't) and another one does so deeply but could be played by a group of drunken five year olds, I certainly vastly prefer the latter over the former. And for this reason I don't really need to know how it's done. (Knowing it could never diminish my opinion of it, but it might make my brain listen to individual performances when I should hear the whole piece for it to be able to do its trick.) They have their methods and I have mine.

I pressume you and me both approach music/music-making from opposing angles. I can often tell it was you who started a thread just from reading its title and I... I have troubles putting this into words but let's just say I don't think our interests seem to align very much at all even if we might both enjoy the same piece of music and even though we are both guitar players. But that'S just my impression and I might be completely wrong.

[jens]

Basslines are generally based on chord progressions.

Not if they for instance are based on pedal point.

[lfm]

I was talking abotu the magic of the music as a whole piece of art... for me the performance and work is always secondary to the result. If one piece is nigh unplayable but doesn't touch me (and chances are it won't) and another one does so deeply but could be played by a group of drunken five year olds, I certainly vastly prefer the latter over the former.

If I read you right, it seems you equal performance with difficulty and virtuoso?
- if about difficulty I agree with you, does not matter

I see performace though as a joint venture of energy and dedication, or how to express it. Tight could be one component.

Dave Grohl, Foofighters, always talk about performance in this way and you hear it in their music. I have a couple of live or semilive as recording sessions and it's incredible.
- I don't consider either in the band as virtuosos

I am impressed by the technique of someone like Yngwie Malmsteen, but not once felt anything that made me get a record of him. You're impressed a couple of minutes, but then "meh".

[tapper mike]

My biggest gripe with Malmsteen is abuse of the Harmonic Minor scale of which he attributes to his love of Beethoven. It's not that I can't harmonize it and create progressions nor is it that I can't play it in any key across the neck. It's just that I hate the sound of it.

[mystran]

My biggest gripe with Malmsteen is abuse of the Harmonic Minor scale of which he attributes to his love of Beethoven. It's not that I can't harmonize it and create progressions nor is it that I can't play it in any key across the neck. It's just that I hate the sound of it.

It is an acquired taste. For me a natural minor sounds kinda like food without any spice.

[tapper mike]

Dynamics harmonic structure (chord progressions) rhythmic flow can enhance the experience.

Malmsteen wrote as a classical composer would he took his cues from Beethoven and others. Because of that structuring it's actually easier for classical arrangers to translate his playing into an orchestral arrangement.



It's not just for classical music