• Registered: 2010-02-01
  • Posts: 175

Topic: Tips for singing whilst playing

After twenty odd years of play in bands (mostly 70's & 80's classic rock) I've finally decided to make a long time planned move to blues / rock and also to hopefully front the band rather than my default setting of lead guitarist in a band scenario.

I've spent the last 30 months or so totally refocusing my playing into that style so that's hopefully almost in the bag. However the singing whilst playing really isn't coming together at all for me. I've got a drummer and bass player interested in the project and one of them also has a decent PA. So I guess the pressure is on to finally get this skill to snap into place or look for a singist !

I'd appreciate any tips from others who have overcome this hurdle as to how they approached it.

2 Reply by gsj (edited by gsj 2011-10-02 12:48:18)

  • gsj
  • gsj
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  • From: North Essex, England
  • Registered: 2006-09-21
  • Posts: 2,149

Re: Tips for singing whilst playing

Yep, it's diificult isn't it Dave  smile . I've spent 30+ years as a guitarist doing backing vocals in a few bands and now find I have to consider singing lead vox in a 3 piece band too. I'm still struggling with it but for what it's worth I'd suggest that you find the material that suits you rather than what anyone else wants to play, as long as they like your choice too. If you feel comfortable with a particular song and can slot the vocals and guitar together naturally then that's half the battle won. Choose the key that fits your vocal range too but obviously give consideration to where you are on the guitar as well (Bb isn't a good key is it big_smile ). And make sure you don't have to shout to be heard.....turn down a bit at rehearsals and/or use a bloody good PA........but I reckon you already know all this so just go for it!!! I wish you all the best mate.....I'm working on this too  wink

Of course, there is someone on this site who sings and plays guitar quite often, maybe he can help  big_smile

Geoff

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  • From: Detroit
  • Registered: 2006-06-02
  • Posts: 5,807

Re: Tips for singing whilst playing

Find a song you could play on guitar in your sleep, and learn to sing it at the same time. that's how I started. Then the playing goes to auto-pilot, and I can concentrate on the singing half. It took a good 6 months of doing this for me to really start singing gigs.

good luck!

I never really wanted to sing, but I had to. All the bands I was in didn't have a singer. I knew most all the words anyway. I was playing in my band at open mic nights, and nobody was singing. After a song people were like "dude, this sounds good, but are you going to sing at all?" I was like, "no, I know the words but I don't sing." they were like "well just yell the words - we don't care... we're all drunk anyways!" ... so I started "singing" and just started getting better at it.

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
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  • From: North Carolina
  • Registered: 2008-10-26
  • Posts: 2,926

Re: Tips for singing whilst playing

For me when I'm learning new songs I would always try to sing the song to keep time.  For the better part of my guitar playing days I've never had the chance to play with a decent drummer I had to sing to keep time in my head.  Later the foot tap came into play, then I got to jam with real people about 4 years ago.  Its sad when they all counted on me to keep the time for the songs but because I sang all those years I was able to play the tempo of the songs then the drummer could fall in.

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  • Registered: 2011-05-01
  • Posts: 113

Re: Tips for singing whilst playing

NPB_EST.1979 wrote:

Find a song you could play on guitar in your sleep, and learn to sing it at the same time. that's how I started. Then the playing goes to auto-pilot, and I can concentrate on the singing half. It took a good 6 months of doing this for me to really start singing gigs.

This was basically going to be my exact advice. Doing both at once on a brand new song is difficult, but getting the guitar part down with muscle memory and THEN concentrating on the singing helps a lot. I think I've even read of some pros who talk about writing guitar and singing parts in the studio that they could never play live. So even for pros it takes practice. Don't give up!

  • Registered: 2010-02-01
  • Posts: 175

Re: Tips for singing whilst playing

Thanks for the advice guys ..it's coming on slowly ..I've already noticed that I can't do this at all without a backing track so I presume having the beat there is a necessity for me ..as I know lot's of Joe's material I tried some of that against youtube vids and realised that for a good few songs there isn't a large amount of playing and singing at the same time eg. Quarryman, Three Times a Fool, Bridge to Better Days etc. ..I've committed to spend the majority of my practice time on this area for now.