Singing While You're Playing

[4001]

Here's a good article from Fender.com about what Geddy Lee and Chris Squire make look so easy night after night......

http://fender.com/news/index.php?display_article=454

Singing While You're Playing

There are a bunch of good reasons why you should try to learn to sing while you play:


It's impressive. It really is.
It's good for you musically. Singing while you're playing is one of the best ways to learn when to do what on your instrument. Wanna stop overplaying? Try singing lead vocals or backup parts and see what a shot in the arm it'll be for your phrasing, your timing and your general musicality.
It's good for your brain. Training yourself to perform two complex artistic functions at once is the mental equivalent of going to the gym.
It's almost always preferable. If the audition is down to two really good guitarists, but one sings and the other doesn't, the one who can sing while playing usually gets the gig. This naturally leads to the next point ...
It's bankable. Being able to sing while you play almost guarantees that you'll get work. Especially if you're a bass player. The best-paying gigs usually go to bands with impressive vocals.
It looks cool. Studies show that there is no cool stance with a guitar or bass that doesn't look at least 25 percent cooler when you do it with a mic stand in front of you.
It's fun. It really is.

Now, if you're one of those who would protest, "But I can't sing," let us stop you right there. Yes you can.

Before you start trying to sing and play at the same time, you have to know that you can sing in the first place. Which you can, even if it's only a little. Everyone can sing. Everyone should sing. Singing is good for you. Granted, not everyone has the voice of an angel (or Bono, anyway), and there are bound to be a few who just couldn't carry a tune even if it had handles. For our purposes, however, you're not one of them. You can sing a song.

To do so, you don't have to have a great voice—you just have to have a little control over the voice that you have. Rock and pop are full of successful singers who don't have technically stellar singing voices; just look at David Lee Roth (who we love to pieces). Most of them, in fact, are not formally trained singers. But that never stopped them, so don't let it stop you. It is true that singing is an innate talent for a relative few, but for everybody, singing is also a learned craft and skill that can be worked on and improved. Greats vocalists such as Sinatra, Sting and Pavarotti were all naturally gifted singers in the first place, but they had to work on it, too.

The best way to get a little control over your singing voice is to just start doing it. Start singing. Imitate your influences. Consciously dissect the material you like and see how the range, phrasing and timing work. Pay attention to what you're doing, and you'll discover what your vocal strengths and weaknesses are.

To reiterate, you can sing. And if you can sing by yourself, you can sing while you're playing. Again, the best way to learn to do it is to just start doing it.

Look at it this way—you didn't learn to ride a bike by sitting around studying and reading about how to ride a bike. You learned by getting on a bike and doing it. You started slowly, you saw other people riding bikes, you had help, and maybe you had training wheels for a little while, but you learned to ride a bike by riding a bike. It was shaky at first and you fell a couple times, but you kept at it and pretty soon it was as natural as walking (which, it bears remembering, you also had to learn).

Start slow. And start simple—you might want to try something a bit more modest than "Bohemian Rhapsody" right off the bat. Again, imitate your influences. Splitting your attention between what you're playing and what you're singing can be tricky at first, but it does get easier and it can quickly become second nature. And once you've got it, you've got it for good—just like riding a bike, you can't really forget how to do it. You might get rusty if you don't keep doing it, but you'll never unlearn it. You might even find that you enjoy making music even more once you've learned to sing while playing.

So grab you guitar and give it a shot. You can do it. We'll even count you in: And a one, and a two ...

[sleepytime]

fuhgeddaboudit

[sleepytime]

Actually, maybe I'll try it when I'm practicing. Who knows where it will lead?

[polyrhythmia]

I imagine it would be more difficult if you have only been playing for a few months, but it's definitely something I would like to go for. Another benefit is that you have one less body to share the revenue with... It took me a good four years to get the hang of playing polyrhythms naturally, this being on the piano. Right now, I still have to think consciously about what I am playing on the bass. I had a late start on learning the bass, being 50 years old, so it will be interesting to see whether playing bass can become natural.

[Dr. Love]

You don't even really need to have a "lead" voice, the ability to sing backups and harmony as a bass player is a very employable skill.

It helps if you can get one of the parts (words or bassline) to the point where you can go on autopilot and not think about it too much. On tough stuff, I'll look at the points where the two lines "hit" together and aim for those points and the rest of it kinda falls into place in between. It's half physical and half mental coordination.

Also, it can get you from that back corner nearly off the stage where some bands like to hide the bass player to the front because audience members focus on the band members who sing.

[tZer]

One (of many) critical factors in being able to play and sing is to know both parts very well. If you've got your bass part down cold and know your vocal part really well, it's just a matter of doing it a few times and 'getting the feel' of how the two parts go together before you're crooning and jamming.

[pasta4lnch]

I'm auditioning for a band next week where I'm expected to sing . . . needless to say I'm hoping my bass skills will knock them out - because my singing skills will surely knock them out, just not in a good way

I can do it on guitar, but bass is really hard... still trying

[DeluxeRed]

Yes, you can sing. Rock is like that: there's room for everybody, as long as have the right song and you do it with feeling. Just ask Joe Cocker, or Bob Seager, or or or...

The song is a critical factor on singing and playing, too. Bass lives usually on the beat, and the soul in a vocal is off the beat. So a song with the vocals falling on the beat (Rush or whatever) are easier to sing and play than, say, some R&B song where the vocals slide all over. That's why background vocals are often a good fit for a bass player, because they also are usually on the beat (which allows the lead vocal to slide around).

So...find/write a song that fits your style and sticks to the beat, and learn it inside and out, and, you, too, can be a rock star...

[Minotauros]

I watched Paul McCartney in a performance last night. He was playing bass and singing, and playing the bass like it was just another guitar. Blew me away because I never really paid attention to his playing before. OK, so he's been playing for 50 years and has a little experience. But it was incredible to watch.

[whitespike]

I have always played while I sing as I have always been one of two lead vocalists in all my bands.

[4001]

Add the incredibly underrated and sadly almost unknown Glenn Hughes to the list.

[wyldryce]

+1 on the autopilot comment. I started out as a mediocre guitar player in high school, but vocals were always my "best" instrument by far. It was certainly easier to sing and play guitar parts, especially chordal parts as opposed to lead lines. When I picked up bass a few years later (was always pulled to Squire and Geddy anyways) it was a natural fit. When I joined my first real band, I was a pretty rank amateur bassist, with a super strong ear, and the willingness to try and sing nice CSNY-style harmonies on our own original songs we wrote collaboratively. It's so rewarding to sing and play!

Years later, I still am a rotten sight reader on the piano, and can't read music for bass at all, still relying on the crutch that is my good ear. I still have to write my bass parts first before I can start concentrating on the vocals, and as noted in the article, singing really helps in the editing process...There's no way I can be as "busy" when I am singing, but that's usually for the best.

It's so much harder for bass though, because basically you are playing a lead line in a lower register... The muscle memory isn't as easy as playing chords on a guitar and singing.

But just start putting one foot in front of the other. It's super awkward at first. But it will come!

[Jehos]

I like to think that if Les Claypool can do it, you can do it. He's got an awful voice, plays insanely complicated bass lines in perfect time, and is the lead singer for his various bands.

I remember reading in an interview with him once that the trick to being able to sing on top of his bass lines is that he practices the bass lines until he can do them in his sleep. Then he can focus on the singing.

[Zegie]

Great thread. 100% agree - everybody can sing and everybody should sing....

... and watch the world become a better place.

Z.

[St Drogo]

And if Robert Zimmerman can do it, so can you. At least, that's what Jimi thought. :P


So, what songs did you guys first learn/practice singing and playing bass with?

[joebar]

something i discovered a few weeks ago in my band-
it is easier to play guitar and sing then to play bass and sing.
when i reentered the music arena two months ago, i could barely chew gum and play together never mind sing and play. i have made leaps and bounds; just keep doing it and you will get better. once you do it enough, it can actually be fun.

[sleepytime]

Originally Posted by St Drogo

And if Robert Zimmerman can do it, so can you. At least, that's what Jimi thought. :P


So, what songs did you guys first learn/practice singing and playing bass with?

And if you have millions imitating you, all the better.

[St Drogo]

Originally Posted by sleepytime

And if you have millions imitating you, all the better.

Not when you have his voice, but not his soul though...