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Singing and Playing

#22
I play (some) guitar and sing, as well as playing bass while singing. Bass is MUCH harder to sing with that guitar to me.

Here's what works for me. Learn the bass line so well you can do it in your sleep. Then TYPE out the vocal lines in large font so it is easy to keep your place. Play and sing while looking at the words the first few times. Then start looking away more and more. And parts that feel like doing long division in your head (with remainders) just slow them down until you get them.

It is slow going at first. But (like everything else) it gets better with practice.
 
#23
peledog said:
Great advice here. I am working on my background vocals. I may or may not have to sing lead on a couple songs - but I'm preparing just in case.

Mark King has always amazed me with his dexterity/ability



his finger style here is just money
Click to expand...


You'll probably noticed on that video that there is a sequencer bassline recorded also.
Compare the sound of the bass and how MK plays starting around 0:43.
 
#24
Oh that damn thing. I can't do it unless i play very simple bass lines. Bass rhythm is often too different from the singing rhythm and my brain just gets confused despite all my best efforts. Thankfully, with the years, i decided i didn't really want to sing after all even if i'm told i have a pretty good voice (ironic since the very reason i picked an instrument in the first place all these years ago was just so I could appear more valuable to a band than just a plain singer...it wasnt very long though before I realised i'd much much rather write and play the music than write and sing the lyrics... i've been told by pretty much everyone who knows me i should be a writer... but i'm somehow bad at songwriting plus while i CAN sing i'm terrible at coming up with good non-cliched vocal melodies)
 
#27
I have discovered that - oddly - if I am learning a tune knowing that I have to sing, I learn each along side each other from the beginning. That is, I won't play the line without singing, and I won't sing without playing. I have no issues at all with those songs. It's the ones that I have been playing for a long time that I try to add the vocals that I struggle with.

Also - again oddly - I actually started off playing DB on a gig that I had to sing a lot. I am a lot more comfortable playing DB and singing than I am on EBG, as I am very off and on singing with slab.
 
#28
NickeLaos said:
After a quick search for anything concerning singing and playing I turned up little to nothing.
Click to expand...

Typing "singing and playing" into the google search at the top of the page will yield a multitude of threads on this topic.:)

I'm not trying to scold you. Seriously, there is a lot of info. But it mostly boils down to practice.
 
#30
I play bass and scream in a metalcore band. What I've found that works the best is learning and knowing each part individually, then slowly start practicing them both together. Now, this next part may just be me, but here's what's happened: I learn both parts as well as I can, and I can take one of two paths.
1. from then on, I only practice them together, and all is well.
2. I sometimes go back to practicing them separately, which, for a reason I will never understand, throws me completely off and I can't play them together well at all. SO, if it turns out you're anything like me, once you've started playing both at the same time, don't practice them one at a time. Again, maybe that's just me. I'm weird.
 
#31
Milk said:
Bass rhythm is often too different from the singing rhythm and my brain just gets confused despite all my best efforts.
Click to expand...

This is the problem...

One solution is like zosoab70 said - foot tapping. That's it! well almost.

1) Play the bassline slowly while tapping your foot to the beat. Pay some attention to where the bass notes fall, relative to the taps. If you play with a pick (and singing and playing is possibly easier if you do), keep your arm going steadily up and down - may mean you will catch some notes on the upstroke. Practice this for a while until it's kind of automatic.

2) Sing the song while tapping your foot. again, perhaps a little slower than usual. pay some attention to where the bass notes fall, relative to the taps.

3) repeat 1) and 2) a couple of times

4) now bring them together. again, slowly at first. Tapping your foot, of course - the magic here should be that you are not needing to work out how the lyrics mesh with the bassline, because you already have in your head how each meshes with the basic pulse of the song (foot taps). There may be a couple of bits you still need to deconstruct - do this before you speed it up.

5) speed it up. May not be easy, but hopefully the gears aren't crunching too much.

So, rather than thinking of it as two things at a time (singing while playing), doing 3 things (tapping, singing and playing) might be easier...

...well it works sometimes.
 
#34
I always learn the bass line first: very well. Then the vocal melody. Then the lyric. In that order: but I've been playing bass a lot longer than I've been singing lead, so most basslines are pretty doable. It's just hard is all. Even then sometimes I have to pare down the bass a bit on occasion. You just have to work it out slowly (which bits to trim in which songs etc).
 
#35
Floyd Eye said:
Absolutely. You have to play the basslines over and over until you can play them without thinking.

It also helps very much to know the lyrics so completely that you don't think about it either. If you are playing a cover, you should be extremely familiar with it.
Click to expand...

The only way to do it it's to know the part so well that when you are singing you can hear the bass. I do Limelight, Cult of Personality and others, the only way I can do it, it's to practice so much that me hands run by themselves.
 
#38
I sing alot & perform with a (3) part harmony act..

For me it's all about keeping a steady tempo,
If I'm thinking i'm stinking..(Ross Valory said that once & I totally agree!)
I need to know the lyrics inside & out.

When learning new material I often stick to simple bass parts, follow the changes & only after I have the vocals/bass clicking do I embellish the bass line.
 

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