Notes,

thanks again for sharing your acquired wisdom. I completely agree with all of the points you make. But its worth noting that you speak from the position of a guy who has been doing this for a lifetuime, and you have thousands of song to draw from.

My point in this thread wasn't so much to talk about my own goal, but to plant a seed in the minds of many BIAB users who are enjoying their music, but aren't performing because they believe the music scene has passed them by.

Many of them are like me, ready and willing, but lacking a set of songs. Speaking for myself, I suffer from "option paralysis" ... too many possibilities usually means I can't move in any direction. If I make the task too complicated, I won't succeed in breaking it down to small achievable steps.

So the focus in this thread has been to simply lay an uncluttered track to run on for anyone who looks at the evidence and thinks its worth a try.

Another tie in to many of your previous points about playing what the audience wants to hear rather than what *the musician* wants to play... I graduated in 1971, which puts my favored songs out of synch with what the current batch of retirees probably wants to hear. (In 1971 Led Zeppelin was the hot band, and we already know your thoughts on that... )

If not for a reasonably structured approach to zeroing in on my core audience's preferences, I would almost certainly learn a bunch of songs that could alienate the very group I want to win.

I agree that it would be better to bring EVERYTHING to the table and only serve up what the audience wants. But for those of us without that broad preparation, we have to start SOMEWHERE. The goal of accumulating the number and variety of songs you have at your disposal is too large a task for me and probably for many others.

Which partly explains why you stand head and shoulders over your competition. Bands come and go, and they usually learn enough songs to fill a niche. Your staying power has given you a head start that is virtually unassailable by most of the people who want to steal your gigs.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ey71h8ep047758h/AAC12jNM0Hz9Q8zsh5iDeqNHa?dl=0