Pretty much talking about covers here, but I guess the same could apply to originals.

There is one guy I play music with that simply drives me up a wall as he breaks down and counts out almost every song we learn..

"Now it stays here on "A" for 4 measures, than transitions to "D" for 4 measures, than goes back to "A" for four measures...kind of an extreme example but you get the picture.  The guy will often times spend several minutes trying to explain stuff this way for almost every new song we play...

For some reason this kind of stuff drives me up the wall since I hardly ever count passages or sections of a song while playing it..I go off the melody of the song that is floating around in my head.  

Obviously there are exceptions to this....Such as musicals or jazz tunes where there are long passages that contain several rests, but this is rock n'roll.

I do as you do.  However, I will count in difficult rhythmic passages so I don't mess up.

My son's drum instructor says the pros count if they want to keep their jobs.  That may just be what he says to encourage my son to count or it may be true...

If I.had to think while I was playing I could not do what I do... I barely

Well the pro drummers kinda have to count.

Someone should find that video of Mike Portnoy showing his handwritten timing notes for a passage and having him count out all the changes.

I usually either cue off of things that I hear in the song or off go of feel. Sometimes I'll count, but that's only how many times I play a riff before changing.



And I never do any of that A B C D ect shit. It's Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Pre-Chorus, ect. Parts of songs do have names. lol.

Maybe he just needs to do that to learn songs?

Or maybe he is trying to be the all knowing teacher instructing and guiding you.  

It could be both of those...not really knocking the guy, it's just that his way makes my head hurt...

Counting is part of timing, which is a huge part of reading and writing music, I do this as well.

If you tell me what key and the timing, I'm usually good with just that, ie; key of A, 4/4.

I too play by feel but good musicians know how to lead into chord changes using 7th, 9th, diminished and augmented chords. I can't imagine having to count! Even when I was a kid playing piano and sight reading, I rarely counted unless the piece contained a difficult portion with rests and 1/8 notes, etc.