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Easy Songs to Sing While Playing Bass
- Thread starter jasper76
- Start date
Quote Sting (Bass Player Magazine Interview with Karl Coryat) I think around 1999:
"it’s not that easy to sing and play bass. It’s easier to strum a guitar than play a line that goes against the melody. I learned to work out that little technical problem early on: I found I could learn to play and sing just about anything as long as I slowed it down to its constituent parts. You develop confidence when that works—and you can play something extremely complicated and sing against it as long as you start slowly and build up speed."
"it’s not that easy to sing and play bass. It’s easier to strum a guitar than play a line that goes against the melody. I learned to work out that little technical problem early on: I found I could learn to play and sing just about anything as long as I slowed it down to its constituent parts. You develop confidence when that works—and you can play something extremely complicated and sing against it as long as you start slowly and build up speed."
Well, we don't encourage scizophrenia by mixing these genres together in the same gig. The band sort of promotes itself as a "whatever kinda music you want us to play" band. Like we have an all-motown set, an all-classic rock set, etc. If we don't get any preference, we just play whatever we want to, that's where the punk and reggae stuff we play comes in from time to time...but by punk and reggae, they are really just rock arrangements of punk and reggae songs, if that makes sense.
I'm pretty much a hired gun with this group...quite happy to sit in the pocket and play whatever's within my abilities. It's a fun paycheck.
Lead singer will be out of town for a gig in two weeks, so rather than cancel the gig, the other guitarist and me agreed to split vocals for this one gig.
So far I got:
California Sun (Ramones)
Code of Silence (Springsteen)
Electric Ocean (The Cult)
I Won't Back Down (Petty)
American Nightmare (Misfits)
Love Aint for Keepin (The Who)
Fortunate Son (CCR)
Rain (Beatles)
Rock n' Roll (Zep)
Long Way to the Top (ACDC)
The band also has a couple originals I think I can pull off.
I think this should cover my end of the deal.
Thanks for all the tips!
This version of Summertime Blues goes down storm as well YouTube - Rush - Summertime Blues 8-18-2004
Working Man by Rush
Cheap Sunglasses, ZZ Top
Unsung by Helmet
The Red, Chevelle
Walking On The Moon by The Police
Sunshine Of Your Love, Cream
That's all I can think of right now, but those are pretty easy to play and sing.
Cheap Sunglasses, ZZ Top
Unsung by Helmet
The Red, Chevelle
Walking On The Moon by The Police
Sunshine Of Your Love, Cream
That's all I can think of right now, but those are pretty easy to play and sing.
I remember I was at a seminar/master class given by the bassist from Blue Oyster Colt, dont remember which one now, and he suggested starting with "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5. 
I agree it's tough to play bass and sing, particularly when the bass line is counter to the melody. But it can be done with muscle memory practice.
I worked for ages just getting the fingering down for All My Loving - by the Beatles until I could do the bass line in my sleep. From there the singing became easy to do as well.
That considered to be one of the tougher songs to sing and play bass with.
Sometimes it's actually the rhythms that get me a bit. I can sing Ain't No Sunshine like a pro, and I can play the bass line like a pro, I just have trouble doing them both at the same time for some odd reason. And that's not a tough song at all.
I worked for ages just getting the fingering down for All My Loving - by the Beatles until I could do the bass line in my sleep. From there the singing became easy to do as well.
That considered to be one of the tougher songs to sing and play bass with.
Sometimes it's actually the rhythms that get me a bit. I can sing Ain't No Sunshine like a pro, and I can play the bass line like a pro, I just have trouble doing them both at the same time for some odd reason. And that's not a tough song at all.
Yeah "American Idiot" works pretty well too since the bass and vocals don't mix a lot except the chorus, which is pretty straight forward anyway...
When I started singing and playing I just went through the set list and broke the covers down between easy, medium and hard. Easy were songs I could sing and play with no impact on my playing, medium were songs I stumbled on parts, and hard were the ones where I just though "no way".
There were some real "no brainer" bass lines that suddenly hit the "hard" list when I tried singing as well - Gone Away (Offspring) in the one I am currently struggling with.
Kings of Leon's Youth & Young Manhood is pretty do-able. Because of the 'raw' voices, a lot of people can sing it.
My first thought was Sunshine of Your Love. I think it was mentioned a few posts back. Worth checking out. Dead easy
I've found that the better you know the song you're playing bass on (like you can play it without thinking) then singing is easier. I had the hardest time learning The Beatles I Saw Her Standing There but once I got it, I got to the point...much to my surprise, that I could sing and play it, which I never thought I could have done.
