Building song vocabulary

[jamaulford]

So i am new to the city of Houston but its been pretty cool living here. I have meet a lot of people and have developed so great connection.I have been playing for about four and a half year and im kind of at a weird place in my playing. Because I started plying bass during the time that youtube became popular my ability to play far surpasses my knowledge of songs. I am auditioning at major churches and its been pretty cool but i feel as if i don't have the song repertoire that many of the churches are looking for. Dont get me wrong, if you give the the music before hand weather its a week or a few hours i will play it like it is done on record. I just need a starting place in building my song vocabulary.I want to have more songs at my disposal.

[under13]

Start visiting different churches and concerts and record the services with a voice recorder. For me,  many times the pastor or PnW leader has  busted out with some random song and because I heard it once somewhere else I was able to play it w/o a problem.

Ask the other musicians in your area what songs they are doing, and learn them.

But I think that a church should be able to give you a list of the songs that they do and give you time to learn it

[mjl422]

It also depends on what type of church you are playing for (there really is no standard list).

Practice playing through popular chord progressions so that when you hear them, you'll be able to "fake" your way through them.  For instance: Playing in COGIC, you can get anything thrown at you at anytime. 

For years I spent all my time learning songs but, couldn't play any song that I hadn't learned ahead of time.  I used to wonder how people remembered all these songs.  It wasn't till years later that found out that they were playing progressions and not songs (if you know what I mean).  Being self taught can be a drag sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, there are some songs that you have to know but, the majority of them, if you can recognize the changes you'll be fine.