How many songs can you play on the guitar?

I honestly have no idea.

Yes, there was a time - a long, long time ago, when I actually knew exactly just how many songs I knew how to play on the guitar. The reason I knew this was because I wrote them all out in a spiral notebook. It was a few dozen songs. I had a hard time remembering lyrics to songs, so I would write them out, word-for-word with the chords. That way I'd have them with me at all times. After a while, carrying this notebook around with my guitar was becoming inconvenient. Some of the pages were falling out of the book, some were torn, and some disappeared all together. There had to be another way to remember songs.

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I believe that everything changed for me in 1978 when I picked up the bass guitar for the first time. The bass just made perfect sense to me, almost immediately. I understood that listening for the lowest note of a chord would help me also understand the common progressions of hundreds of songs. There were patterns that appeared to me. These patterns were all in shapes on the fretboard. I understood the importance of knowing keys and all of the notes on the fretboard as well as 4th's and 5th's. I learned about guiding the heartbeat of the song and the progression of the chords. I didn't actually know music theory like I do know, but I could definitely hear what was important.

All of this translated back to the guitar, and remembering those same patterns in chords on the guitar. When I listened to a song I've never heard before, I immediately listen for the lowest notes of the chords, then I listen for the repeated patterns. After that has been established, I listen for how many different patterns are in the song and where they all belong in the structure of the song. This approach to learning and remembering thousands of songs has worked very well for me.

It helps a great deal to know music theory, and then applying it to learning and memorizing songs. There are many common patterns in music that help take away the guesswork in learning any song. Rock, country and blues are all very easy to figure out. All of those genres of music have the same exact patterns; and most of them use the same common chord progressions. If you know your keys in music and can apply some of these common patterns, you can usually figure out most songs.

Okay so, what about the songs I have memorized for many years? Well, there simply is no substitution for practice. In those early days, I used to practice entire albums, sometimes two or three at a time. I didn't just practice one song. I practiced entire albums. For me, it was much easier to do this on the bass guitar because I didn't actually have to play the chords or the melody. This approach allowed me to easily learn and memorize hundreds of songs. Now, think in terms of playing both guitar and bass guitar for nearly 50 years. How many songs can I play now? It’s probably into the thousands.

The thing that happened about twenty years ago, kind of took me by surprise. I sort of stopped learning new songs. Why? Well, for a number of reasons. When the internet changed everything in the music industry, the music changed too. I didn't have any real connection with new music, so I stopped listening to it. I honestly didn't really need it in my world, since I had my own soundtrack of millions of songs to listen to. You gotta understand that I was born in 1963. I was a little kid when the Beatles came to America. I grew up in the 1960's and 70's, when all of the absolute best music ever written was recorded and put to the airwaves. I grew up when classic rock was just regular rock music, and when progressive rock was still called "theater rock". That music was what I grew up with. It is the music of my life.

It occurred to me that just about everything that has ever been written and recorded in popular, rock, country and blues music, had already been done. If there was anything left, it just wasn't important enough to stand on its own. That's why today's music means so little to me. I've already heard it before. When one of my students wants me to listen to a song from a new artist, I will almost immediately hear the music that artist was influenced by and reference a similar song. This again, is just me hearing those same old patterns again. The only differences are the lyrics and the singer. 

I grew up learning how to play everything from The Eagles to John Denver, Heart to America, Frampton to Yes, Ted Nugent to Abba. The list goes on. I was tested beyond my comfort zone to understand the importance of music and learning how to practice and play thousands upon thousands of songs from every genre in American music. This is why I can play so many songs. This is why I have no idea how many songs I actually know. It has been a lifetime process that started when I was a kid. I am a 60-year-old man now. The list continues to grow.

I reached a point in my learning a few years ago, where I wanted to start learning more about traditional jazz guitar. This genre of music is incredibly complicated and endlessly interesting. The mathematics alone will intimate even the most seasoned players. I love that! So, even at my age, I still have so much more to learn. I may be a walking jukebox, but it is only because music is the air that I breathe. Without it, I would not be truly alive.