Getting over the hump of singing while playing

[Herr Squid]

InToDeep, your learning experience sounds a lot like mine. There's lot of good advice in this thread, I think one key thing is to make sure that you have the guitar part (pick one that you want to sing over) down to the point where you can play in time with the recording without problems. Then work in the vocals, even if it's just a word here or there, bit by bit. Keep at it, and give yourself credit for every little success. Keep at it. I pace when I practice, and I have stumbled into walls while working on this. Keep at it. The first song is the hardest one, they'll all come more easily after that (unless you choose something stoopid hard!). After you get over the hump, you'll wonder why it seemed so hard before.

 

[93studiolite]

I have few songs that I can sing and play, but they are pretty basic songs. I was once told to just start singing when I play, it’ll be bad at first but just keep at it. It helps me to practice singing when no one is at home to hear how bad I am. Lol!

 

[11top]

I went to a Paul Gilbert clinic this past year. His most important tip? “STOMP YOUR FOOT!” I couldn’t agree more; It’s all about timing. If you can maintain your timing while you sing, you’ll overcome the biggest obstacle (assuming you can sing).

 

[InTooDeep]

I went to a Paul Gilbert clinic this past year. His most important tip? “STOMP YOUR FOOT!” I couldn’t agree more; It’s all about timing. If you can maintain your timing while you sing, you’ll overcome the biggest obstacle (assuming you can sing).

^^ Big assumption there haha! Not sure that I really can sing, but I want to, and I feel like it is what is next. I'm not wanting to sing in front of the masses, that's for sure!

I really appreciate all the advice given in this thread. You guys are awesome encouragement!

 

[merciful-evans]

Cant add anything to the good and comprehensive advice here.
I can play while singing ok but... I cant remember lyrics! Gotta have the words all written down first

 

[Glennyj]

Wow. One song that comes to mind is Southbound by the Allman Bros. I can not play the chorus clean and still improvise the vocals.
One good thought, make certain you always use a metronome to make your chords crisp clean and on time, when you practice. I have used one all the time. I can play chords and whatever tempo was set, it will be the same 5 minutes later. Great drummers are such a pleasure to work with.
To sing and play simple chords is not that hard. It just takes time.

 

[John Beef]

This was just me, but I started with some of the easiest stuff in the world, like Nirvana or Mudhoney (I started in the grunge days, obviously). Anything where the songs are simple and the guitarist is the singer. Get that down and then move on to more complicated stuff. I really improved by learning the entire Tool album Aenima. Since the guitarist is one guy whose riffs are simple enough to play, but rhythmically complicated, with a separate singer laying down his own rhythms, it was really hard and frequently I needed to take it as a very slow tempo. But once I got it down it was much easier for me to do anything.

 

[11top]

Frankly, it’s never been that hard for me to sing while playing chords (and I sing a fair amount in bands).
But, how in the #@*% does a good bass player pull it off? Mark King (monster bassist) has to have two brains!

Geddy, Sir Paul, Sting, etc.

 

[dmatthews]

Frankly, it’s never been that hard for me to sing while playing chords (and I sing a fair amount in bands).
But, how in the #@*% does a good bass player pull it off? Mark King has to have two brains!

Geddy, Sir Paul, Sting, etc.

No freakin' idea

 

[django49]

Strange as it may seem, I actually found it easier (to start) when I was filling in on bass. Somehow a tune came up no one else was prepared to sing......Not playing anything too extreme, but trying to complement the structure of the song. Somehow, that seemed to give me a better idea of the structure of the song (understanding and being able to play either the guitar or bass parts) and how the vocals then fit into that.
FWIW, I play fingerstyle for bass, mostly using a pick for guitar.

This is NOT to say i can carry a tune in a bucket vocally, but somehow it seems to work.....Nothing thrown at me. Yet.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Frankly, it’s never been that hard for me to sing while playing chords (and I sing a fair amount in bands).
But, how in the #@*% does a good bass player pull it off? Mark King (monster bassist) has to have two brains!

Geddy, Sir Paul, Sting, etc.

Lemmy?!

Love this when it gets to “Higher Ground”!

 

[Parralax view]

Since I was the "singer" in the band from highschool to the end of the 90's, I never gave it a thought, but now, without that constant practice of doing both at the same time, it's difficult.

 

[shinksma]

Frankly, it’s never been that hard for me to sing while playing chords (and I sing a fair amount in bands).
But, how in the #@*% does a good bass player pull it off? Mark King (monster bassist) has to have two brains!

Geddy, Sir Paul, Sting, etc.

I think it is like drumming (and adding on top of that singing while drumming) - your brain learns to disassociate the required sections so that your various limbs and voice all act independently yet maintain timing. When you first started playing guitar the hardest thing was probably figuring out how to move your fretting fingers at the right time to allow the plucking/strumming fingers to hit the strings cleanly. That's left hand vs right. Now extend that to your feet for drumming - four different limbs doing different things. Adding a voice to it is just the next level.

When I play and sing a song I know quite well, I'm not focused on the guitar playing nor the vocal timing - I just "do it". In fact, if I do focus, I am likely to screw up.

I believe I have heard the number of times you have to repeat something to master it is somewhere around 10,000 times. So practice, practice, practice.

 

[drdoom8793]

For me, the key is practicing each individually until you can do them without too much thought. Once you get to that point, start working on them together.

 

[JMintzer]

Practice leads to muscle memory...

Once you have that, it'll get easier...

 

[alantig]

Practice leads to muscle memory...

Once you have that, it'll get easier...

I never had muscles, so I’ll never have muscle memory. But since I can’t sing, that probably doesn’t matter.