Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

As a relative new player I was hoping some experienced players could talk on subject of song memorization. For instance, I’m assuming a person with a long playing life can not possibly memorize every note and decoration of every song over the years. So, is it just a matter of having in memory your current playlist and let the others come and go, obviously holding on to your favorites? How many tunes if you had to guess do you think you have memorized over the years?

On a side, I have recently started playing King Of The Fairies, and have found it to have all sorts of flicks and triplets built in! No decorations needed! A fun song to get through. With that, I’m down to learning the polkas in your book Brendan. I saved for last, looks intimidating.

If you play sessions regularly you can retain many tunes in your memory but, as with anything else, if you play infrequently the number of tunes will be far less of course.

I'm glad you're enjoying the book

Repetition and practice are the key here, if you don't have a natively performant memory, of course.