Sing Everything You Play

[EADG mx]

Why?

[Time Consumer]

This is easy, you sing what you play to help your ear, you can improvise and compose better if you know the notes. Thats why you sing when you play songs you know so that in the future if you have a song in your head, you can translate the notes in your head straight to your bass without trouble.

[Fender32]

What if you really can't hold a note (like me) ?

I know (in my head) what notes I want to hear, but I'm damned if I can get my body to produce them. That's why I play an instrument in the first place .

I always skip past that "sing it" advice, when I see it in books - it's too depressing .

[bobba66]

Practice makes perfect. Just because you cant do it yet doesnt mean you are doomed forever. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

[Deacon_Blues]

It's a really good way to learn to play what you hear in your head, and how certain intervals sound. An exercise I do from time to time is to sing and play a melody of completely random notes and try to avoid mistakes, i.e. playing a different note than the one I sing.

[HaVIC5]

It really forces you to play musically, for one. Ever sing something that would be considered musical wankery (sweep arpeggios, ridiculously fast scale runs)? Of course not. If you sing everything you play, you won't be tempted to descend into wankerville.

[onlyclave]

Originally Posted by HaVIC5

It really forces you to play musically, for one. Ever sing something that would be considered musical wankery (sweep arpeggios, ridiculously fast scale runs)? Of course not. If you sing everything you play, you won't be tempted to descend into wankerville.

+1

[DocBop]

Originally Posted by HaVIC5

It really forces you to play musically, for one. Ever sing something that would be considered musical wankery (sweep arpeggios, ridiculously fast scale runs)? Of course not. If you sing everything you play, you won't be tempted to descend into wankerville.

+10

You learn to phrase, it trains your ear-brain-hands combo. You eventually get to anything you can sing you can play. Listen to a lot of the Jazz greats they had voices like garbage disposals and you will hear in the background them growling away. You don't have to sing note for note, some sang the shape of lines or target tones. Also for many learning to sing a tune makes it easier to remember and transpose if necessary.

Like HaVIC5 points out music needs to breathe and if you are singing what you play then you will remember to put space into your playing. It's all about developing musicianship.

[bluerimedeyes]

Ironicaly, one of my main attractions to the bass is the fact that it's in the same register as my voice. Or at least, where my voice used to be. In high school, I was one of three guys that could sing a low D. Not very loud, but I could sing it. Now, after 4 years of not singing, and the fact I now smoke, doesn't help. I can still hit the E though, after a little warm up. Lost all my old chorus music, it was fun to play the bass parts ON the bass. Helped both my playing and learning the line to sing it.

[Oscar South]

I agree with all of the above, but theres nothing wrong with an occasional visit to wankerville.

[El-Bob]

Originally Posted by HaVIC5

It really forces you to play musically, for one. Ever sing something that would be considered musical wankery (sweep arpeggios, ridiculously fast scale runs)? Of course not. If you sing everything you play, you won't be tempted to descend into wankerville.

my guitarist tries to sing sweep arpeggios

[Shishkbob]

My guitarist always tries to drum this into my head. he says if you can sing it, you can play it. I have been working on it. it does really help, and i can't sing at all.

my first song using this method was the melody to seasame street. It was pretty amazing how fast you can figure stuff out. now my problem is when i try to do this my brain freezes and i can't think of anything.

[MarkTAW]

Drummers have it easy, they don't need to know the key changes :P

[onlyclave]

Originally Posted by Shishkbob

My guitarist always tries to drum this into my head. he says if you can sing it, you can play it. I have been working on it. it does really help, and i can't sing at all.

my first song using this method was the melody to seasame street. It was pretty amazing how fast you can figure stuff out. now my problem is when i try to do this my brain freezes and i can't think of anything.

Christmas tunes. You'll never forget Christmas tunes.

[JTE]

A critical factor is that if you sing EVERYTHING you play- arpeggios, scales, etc. and do it right (make sure you HEAR the note in your head BEFORE you play it), then it teaches all this ear-trainging stuff you need. Just running scales, arpeggios, and "excersizes" does nothing for teaching you how to play bass beyond the athletic aspect.

But if you force yourself to clearly hear the next note of that James Jamerson line in your head before your fingers get there, it's going to help your brain and fingers relate that sound with what your fingers do. So the next time you hear "that sound"- e.g. when you're trying to cop a line or hear it in your head while improvising, you'll be able to execute that sound more reaidly.

Plus it has the very good advantage of slowing you down to make you HEAR what you're playing instead of just wiggling your fingers.

jte

[manicbassman]

Originally Posted by MarkTAW

Drummers have it easy, they don't need to know the key changes :P

it's really annoying when they can't tune their drums up properly though...

[Martin Bormann]

Originally Posted by Shishkbob

My guitarist always tries to drum this into my head. he says if you can sing it, you can play it. I have been working on it. it does really help, and i can't sing at all.

my first song using this method was the melody to seasame street. It was pretty amazing how fast you can figure stuff out. now my problem is when i try to do this my brain freezes and i can't think of anything.

You might want to take a sight-singing/aural dictation course. But basically the way you start off is by learning to sing scales. Sing 32 major and 32 minor (natural minor, harmonic minor and melodic ascending/natural minor decending) scales a day, using solfege for each note. This is of course is just a foundation, but when you master this then you should start working on learning to sing what you play.

[barbarbass]

Because the human voice is the original instrument. All instruments (even percussion) imitate it.

[MarkTAW]

Originally Posted by manicbassman

it's really annoying when they can't tune their drums up properly though...

They have machines that do that now. You stick it on the drum head & I think it even turns the drum keys for you.

[Dave Muscato]

I do this, and so does my guitarist. It's incredible for your ears, and it really helps my playing as far as soloing/walking and getting the notes I want as I hear them in my head.