How long does a song stick around?

[neurotictim]

I have two folders on my desktop with music in them. One is strictly current band setlist stuff - all the covers we do, plus any originals we have recorded. This folder is for dropping into Winamp for practice, to keep fresh on the songs the band plays.

The other folder is a personal playlist, containing hundreds of songs, pretty much everything I know how to play from 15 years of playing. Lots of various stuff in there, including songs I want to learn or have expressed interest in learning. I usually drop this folder into Winamp once or twice a week, just to have something other than the band setlist to jam with. I just drop that in Winamp, hit shuffle, and go with it. Everything from Metallica to Brad Paisley and in between - I'm pretty varied musically.

I have a third folder with jazz standards for DB that I'm learning on my EUB, but we'll skip that for the time being.

I noticed something last night while playing along with some of the songs from the second folder. I haven't played along with my personal "playalong" folder in a while - house stuff keeping me busy - and there were quite a few songs that I just couldn't remember!

It wasn't like I'd never learned them, more like I wasn't quite sure what went where. Songs that I've played ad nauseum were fine, but stuff I've only ever played by myself - think Roundabout, Distant Early Warning, and a couple of others - were just rusty as all get-out. After going through them a few times I knocked (most) of the dust off, but it got me wondering -

How long does a song stick around in your head? Can you play a song once through and forevermore be able to play it, or do you have to "keep fresh" on it?

For me, it's pretty dependent on how many times I've played it. I could play a lot of stuff half-asleep at this point, but if I haven't played it out a bunch, odds are pretty good that within a couple of weeks I'll have to more or less figure it out all over again, or refer to my notes.

So what is the TB average on remembering tunes? Do you have a limit for how many songs you can remember before some start dropping off?

[slaps76]

I was in a tribute band two years ago, we had about 30 songs in our set list. I could probably play 10 right now, an there are probably 10 that I have almost no memory of how to play...and it's not like the songs are difficult at all.

[pklima]

There's stuff I've played literally hundreds of times and don't remember because I never needed to - always had a chart. But once I get something down well enough to play it in front of an audience without needing a cheat sheet, it'll stay around for a few months on average. Some songs stick seemingly forever, though... "Moliendo cafe" for example.

[Phalex]

I went for the "Never forgotten" option. Not necessarily true, but it was the best fit. I may be rusty as hell on a tune I haven't played in 20 years and require some practice to get it presentable, but at my original (as in first) band reunion we had last year, I remembered the key of every tune we ever played. The progression may be rusty, and I may not remember all the changes, but by golly, I can tell you what key we played it in!!

[neurotictim]

Originally Posted by pklima

Some songs stick seemingly forever, though... "Moliendo cafe" for example.

Yeah, I imagine that's what it's like for most of us - there are some songs I'll never forget, either as a result of playing them a million times or because they're just that easy - but I'm just curious about the ones that don't fall into that category - like you, mine tend to "stick" in my head for a few months and then just sorta fall off.

[neurotictim]

Originally Posted by Phalex

I went for the "Never forgotten" option. Not necessarily true, but it was the best fit. I may be rusty as hell on a tune I haven't played in 20 years and require some practice to get it presentable, but at my original (as in first) band reunion we had last year, I remembered the key of every tune we ever played. The progression may be rusty, and I may not remember all the changes, but by golly, I can tell you what key we played it in!!

That's pretty impressive, all by itself. I barely remember the name of my first band.

(Although, to be fair, I do remember most of the tunes - probably because Nirvana, Bush, the Offspring, and stuff like them is about as simple as it gets)