learn and memorize 3 to 5 folk, bluegrass, classic/alt. country, etc. songs or fiddle tunes every week in 2007

Darn it, this is a really good goal. But I can already tell that I’m not going to do it justice, and I’ve decided that I need to trim my list to goals I’ll actually accomplish, not just goals that seem like a good idea…

Darn it. Oh well. I’ll stick with my goal of practicing my violin 2x a week. That will allow me to learn new tunes, too.

I think I need to clarify this goal to myself just a bit further, i.e. define “learn and memorize”. The thing is, I know a lot of fiddle tunes, but I have a dickens of a time connecting them to their titles, and I confuse them with each other a lot (easy to do). Also, to really know a fiddle tune I feel that I need to know a few different ways of playing it. Most fiddlers do not just play every tune the same way each time through – the good ones have several different ‘breaks’ up their sleeves so they can change it up a bit. Once I’m really good, I can come up with new ‘breaks’ on the fly, but I’ll have to work them out a bit beforehand at this point.

As for the songs with lyrics: in this case, “learn and memorize” will mean that I know and can sing all the lyrics without referring to a cheat sheet; can play all the chords on the guitar; and can play at least one fiddle break on the verse, chorus, and if applicable, bridge.

Based on these definitions, tunes I’m already familiar with are fair game.

This week’s tunes:

June Apple
Dusty Miller
Bill Cheatham
(all of the above are instrumentals, I think)

I’m On My Way Back to the Old Home
Little Cabin Home on the Hill
(and both of those are Bill Monroe songs)

I’ll let you know how it goes! First step will be to copy down the lyrics into my notebook; writing them out certainly helps me remember.

Now I have an amazing resource to help me do this. I got this book
for Christmas. Over 500 tunes, so I could probably work just from this book and meet this goal (though I need to learn songs w/ lyrics too).

I’m so excited, and I highly reccommend this book for any fiddle player interested in this music.

I need a binder. To keep track of everything.

And I’m going to begin making a list of songs I already know well, as well as a list of songs I know I want to learn.

Well, maybe not 3 to 5 a week, but I was always learning songs. Writing down lyrics, figuring out chords. Singing. Playing. Expanding my brain.

I’ve been inspired to do this by the two older hippies I’ve been playing music with recently. Boy, do they know a lot of songs! Hundreds, I would say. And well, I know OF a lot of those songs, and can even hum along or sing the chorus to many of them. But I don’t know them inside and out. And I’d like to. I’d like to really KNOW a lot of songs, instead of knowing OF a lot of songs.

If I take this seriously, I will know 156 to 260 songs/tunes by Jan. 2008.