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Bassist-Lead singers

#43
Can't believe I forgot Esperanza Spalding! She is killer. And I've been getting down to this video of the Policemen from 1979:

http://youtube.com/#/watch?v=_MwKstla6w0&desktop_uri=/watch?v=_MwKstla6w0

Sting plays a fretless! That would be so damn hard to play while singing...

As for Lynott, I base that claim from a video of them live at Rockpalast from back in the day, he was pretty much just strumming the whole time...
 
#49
Dash Rantic said:
I've been starting to do lead vocal duty on a couple tunes in my band--quite the challenge! Slowly been improving though :)

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Click to expand...

Same here. The biggest challenge for me has been letting go of any perfectionism on the bass; if the singing is going to be the focal point (which it will be for the audience, naturally), I'm going to be dropping the ball on the bass, here and there.
(The guys mentioned so far on this thread don't seem to have to make this compromise. :) )
 
#50
You don't either. You are looking at singing and playing as two different things. They will eventually be one if you do it for very long. The key to keeping the bass part as you have been playing it is to realize the exact bass note the vocal starts on. Once you understand where the singing starts it makes it much easier. It will all be one thing soon and doing one without doing the other will be hard.
 
#52
Moe Monsarrat said:
You don't either. You are looking at singing and playing as two different things. They will eventually be one if you do it for very long. The key to keeping the bass part as you have been playing it is to realize the exact bass note the vocal starts on. Once you understand where the singing starts it makes it much easier. It will all be one thing soon and doing one without doing the other will be hard.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. I played for years with an excellent singer/songwriter/acoustic guitarist who found it nearly impossible to play his guitar parts without singing, and vice versa.
 
#53
After you've done it a while it becomes second nature. I sing about half our leads and harmonies on all the other songs and I even got used to playing keys with one hand, hammering bass notes with the other, and singing on some of our songs... The key for me when learning a new song is getting the bassline down and playing it a bunch of times slower than normal while singing my parts.
 
#55
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
Phil Lynott
 

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