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(POLL) Do you sing and play bass?

Do you sing and play? What kind of singing do you do when you play bass?

  • Total voters
    299
#21
I've been playing bass for 40 years but I just started singing 2 years ago. I sing 4 songs currently:
Bad bad Leroy Brown
Mama Tried
Honey tonk woman
6 days on the road
None of those tunes require great vocal skills but it's getting easier and I'm really starting to enjoy the feeling.
Plus, I am the only other singer in the cover band and I am feeling the need to help the singer out on lead duties.
 
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#23
Man, I love to sing! The only problem is no one really wants to hear it haha. I can sing ok when I am doing so at lower volumes, but the minute I really try and project, ugh, it’s a mess. I have 3 brothers who are also musicians and they all sing, from very well to passable, so it was very frustrating to come to the conclusion that I didn’t have it. The nail in the coffin was when I was in a nice little band, and they talked me into doing back up vocals. They said I sounded fine. Problem was we practiced very low volume, and I relied on them to tell me I was fine. First gig we did, the sound guy had the backing vocals way too loud, and I felt for sure I was off. Afterwards, Listened back to the tape someone made, and I was nothing short of horrid! I would have just stopped if I had realized it was that bad. In my defense I was pretty young and this was my first go around at this skill, but I realized I just don’t have it. Most of my singing now is around the house in silly voices to make the wife laugh. Must work, we’ve been married 25 years.
 
#24
PaulS said:
Man, I love to sing! The only problem is no one really wants to hear it haha. I can sing ok when I am doing so at lower volumes, but the minute I really try and project, ugh, it’s a mess. I have 3 brothers who are also musicians and they all sing, from very well to passable, so it was very frustrating to come to the conclusion that I didn’t have it. The nail in the coffin was when I was in a nice little band, and they talked me into doing back up vocals. They said I sounded fine. Problem was we practiced very low volume, and I relied on them to tell me I was fine. First gig we did, the sound guy had the backing vocals way too loud, and I felt for sure I was off. Afterwards, Listened back to the tape someone made, and I was nothing short of horrid! I would have just stopped if I had realized it was that bad. In my defense I was pretty young and this was my first go around at this skill, but I realized I just don’t have it. Most of my singing now is around the house in silly voices to make the wife laugh. Must work, we’ve been married 25 years.
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Did you practice? Singing is just like anything else; if you don't work the muscles involved, you will never get very good at it. So many people think good singing just happens but you have to work at it just like any other instrument. Maybe don't give up, but try singing for 20 minutes a day and see if that helps get you closer to where you'd like to be.
 
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#25
Yes, at the time I was singing in band practice all the time, but being young and poor, we didn’t have any good way to really monitor ourselves. As I got older I kept at it, even recording originals of my own with me singing. And I would sing constantly during my 90 minutes in the car every day. But it never really got much better haha. Now with asthma, and bad acid reflux, my lungs and throat are a mess and it is even hard to sing just goofing around. Doesn’t help probably that I mostly played in instrumental bands, so I was never forced to develop it in a situation where others could help guide me. My wife is an amazing singer (we met in a band), and she has tried to help me, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not really a skill I have.
 
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#26
PaulS said:
Yes, at the time I was singing in band practice all the time, but being young and poor, we didn’t have any good way to really monitor ourselves. As I got older I kept at it, even recording originals of my own with me singing. And I would sing constantly during my 90 minutes in the car every day. But it never really got much better haha. Now with asthma, and bad acid reflux, my lungs and throat are a mess and it is even hard to sing just goofing around. Doesn’t help probably that I mostly played in instrumental bands, so I was never forced to develop it in a situation where others could help guide me. My wife is an amazing singer (we met in a band), and she has tried to help me, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not really a skill I have.
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My voice is nothing near what it was when I was younger, either. I stopped doing music entirely for close to a decade and when I decided to come back to it I really had to rehab my voice, and it's been a long haul to get there, mainly because I wasn't singing as much as I needed to in order to really get back into shape. I don't think I'll ever have 100% of what I used to have; getting old robs us of a lot. Acid reflux is definitely a factor for me, too.
 
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#27
Ric5 said:
I like to sing, but my natural talent for singing is a lot less than my talent for playing bass
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Honestly, I don't think natural talent is all that big of a deal. I'm not a natural lead singer, but I can do it only b/c I've worked on it a lot, just like learning any other instrument. Most people can't just instantly play/sing something, takes work. Unless your tone-def... then please, please stay away from the mic.
 
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#28
Sang lead and/or harmony quite happily for years playing guitar (and in far too much musical theatre). It never occurred to me before I tried it that singing and playing bass at the same time would be an issue. Then, blammo!

Having worked at it, I'm now kinda comfortable singing lead or harmony while playing. Danger areas are if either the vocals or the bass are accented differently (when singing lead), or on the occasions that I've learned the bass line by singing it (really gets in the way when I then try to sing harmony).
 
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#29
I used to do lead vocals while playing guitar or bass depending on the band. I have more experience doing them with guitar. This was in black metal and death metal bands, so the vocals were predominantly harsh (growled/screamed) - physically demanding, requiring good rhythm and breath control, but nowhere near as nuanced as what's needed for good clean singing. There were some clean parts but I never felt good about them in a live setting. Some of the problem was whatever PA we had, some of it was clean vocals being jarring in that context, most of it was me.

I do love singing clean parts and I'm an especially big fan of chanting, but I mostly use it for texture in recordings. I'm working on integrating chanting parts as background in my current band's live set (with a different harsh vocalist), but the mix is going to take quite a bit of work to get right. So, for now, I voted for "harmony only", although that's not quite accurate.
 
#32
I chose "carrots" because none of the other choices seems to adequately describe my relationship to singing-while-playing.

When I first started playing bass in 1974 I also sang. Wound up being lead singer in a few bands, and at least contributed background vocals in the others...all the way up until 1989.
And then something happened that year, and for inexplicable reasons I completely lost my ability to sing and play simultaneously.
If there had been a significant event -- e.g., a car accident, a concussion, some trauma -- that precipitated this I would fully understand. But there wasn't. It was like I woke up one day, went to rehearsal, they asked me if I could chime in on the chorus, and my brain/hands just said "ah, nope, not happening."

I still sing in the studio -- in fact, there are a couple of producers I've worked with over the years who still hire me as a session singer...there's no accounting for taste. :)
But for the past ~30 years when I'm playing bass and someone asks if I can also sing I politely decline.
 
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#33
I've sung harmony vocals for as long as I've been playing bass (someone had to do it) but rarely sang lead. In the last three years however that shifted and now I do a lot of lead vocals. The more I've done it the easier and more enjoyable it's become. I don't think I have a very good voice but, to my surprise, I often get compliments on it from audience members and bandmates.
 
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#34
I used to do a lot of Billy Idol in the day and still do Tom Petty and Dire Straits tunes. Some songs from the past include: Under the Bridge, Wicked Games, Every Rose, Enjoy the Silence, La Grange, Born to Be Wild, Suzie Q, 21 Guns, OAR's Shattered.
Still do Fast As You, Break Up Song and some others.
I sing mostly a lower harmony.
 
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#37
I do limited backups, but I definitely do not consider myself a singer. My goal is to be in tune and on time and compliment what the lead vocal is doing.

My ability to do decent backups is entirely dependant on what the bass is doing in a particular song. If the bass line is too syncopated or rhythmically difficult against the vocal line, I can't do much.
 
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#38
I grew up singing in our church, then men's chorus and mixed chorus in school. Didn't think much about it then, but it created a foundation for hearing harmonies. I was often the only one who could hit the high notes in the 70's and 80's bands I played in, but I've found I can find those middle notes that bring texture to 3 part harmonies so I often sing those to make the band sound better if we have someone to cover the top parts. Occasionally some bass parts limit my singing due to the timing, but I can woodshed and figure it out. If I can drop a bass note to make the singing easier I'll do that, as the vocals are usually noticed more than the bass line.
I echo bikeplate in saying being able to sing will definitely get you more gigs.
 
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#39
AGCurry said:
I've been singing and playing bass for almost 50 years ... lead and harmonies in Soul, Blues, Bluegrass, Swing, Jazz, Country & Western. For the last couple of decades I've been singing Hebrew while playing. Now THAT's fun!
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Sometimes, when I get confused on the lyrics because playing and singing sometimes still confuddles me even though I do it all the time, my words sound sorta like fake Yiddish. That's as close as il come to singing in another language these days lol
 
#40
Right now I’m singing Backup only in 2 bands. I’m a pretty confident lead singer with acoustic rhythm guitar, but I find it more difficult with bass. I want to bust into the “lead singing bass player” zone; I have recently picked out 2 songs to sing with my country/bluegrass band and we just started working on them. Exciting! :woot:
 
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