This is an interesting thread but I notice there is an important concept that hasn't been mentioned . . . Quality.

I see:
I have memorized xyz number of songs
I know abc number of songs
I can play this or that song
I have learned this or that number of songs
Etc.

But what about the quality?

Some rhetorical questions:
How well can these songs be played with the aid of lines on a page vs what is memorized?
When we say any of the above are we saying we can play the songs perfect? What is perfection?
Can anyone play the same song back-to-back multiple times exactly the same? If you are reading this and are flesh and blood I doubt it. A machine, perhaps.

Who decides if perfection is reached; the player? The band? The audience? The marketplace? Your instrutor? No one?

I would say that at a minimum the song would need to be recorded and then analyzed by someone/something in order to judge the level of quality. We all may think we are better than we really are.

As a novice, I set the bar at "is it good enough for me"? [Sometimes not a very high bar].
If I'm playing to tab, and I miss a note or play an incorrect note, I will know it immediately, otherwise if the "feel" is "good" I claim good enough. If I wrote the instrumental, then I judge it by the feel.

But for any song played by anyone, could it be improved with say a little more swing? Or a little less swing? Or more push or less push, or more emotion in the vocals or less emotion? Or a different voice inflection?

This in part, is why I'm captivated by music; it's infinite and perhaps an unobtainable and shifting emotional goal in the clouds of our minds that one can only strive for but never obtain in the truest sense.


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BiaB 2025 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.