Thanks again, everyone, good responses to my original post. Since then of course I tried to address this with the "21 week challenge" which has worked quite well in methodically adding additional tunes slowly over time. Just a few more weeks to go. Then, consolidation by identifying and working out those tunes that can't be played well enough in public, and replacing those that didn't quite work out.
I'm pretty much convinced that at my age and late start I won't be able to memorize endless amounts (ie 3 - 4 hours) of music and will have to bring music to the gigs to maintain variety. So, to increase the length of repertoire it will either come down to learning to read at playing speed and/or slowly adding repertoire I can play on occasion from the sheet music.
As far as playing with emotion, you're spot on (as they say over there). I believe I do achieve this with tunes that I know very well, and definitely try to do. I like to make changes to the tunes, but keep my improve within bounds. The tricks to extend the tunes work well, thanks.
Thanks and good luck to everyone out there, keep on keeping on!
I'm pretty much convinced that at my age and late start I won't be able to memorize endless amounts (ie 3 - 4 hours) of music and will have to bring music to the gigs to maintain variety. So, to increase the length of repertoire it will either come down to learning to read at playing speed and/or slowly adding repertoire I can play on occasion from the sheet music.
As far as playing with emotion, you're spot on (as they say over there). I believe I do achieve this with tunes that I know very well, and definitely try to do. I like to make changes to the tunes, but keep my improve within bounds. The tricks to extend the tunes work well, thanks.
Thanks and good luck to everyone out there, keep on keeping on!