How did you manage the bass solo? The second half of it is the 1st half, tape ran backwards.
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Tough songs to sing and play
- Thread starter spydr
- Start date
There are probably other reasons not to do that, even though you'd have three very appreciative people following you around.This thread reminds me of why I never joined a Gentle Giant tribute band
When I was in high school a girl I knew wanted our band to play Bowie's Rebel Rebel. That was a tough one to pull off but it made her happy. 
Why is singing and playing bass difficult? Pick up an acoustic, play some chords and sing with no issue at all. Try to play a simple R-5, R-5 and sing Mary Had a Little Lamb (just the kid version, not SRV) and I'm fumbling around. I gotta work on it. Also, does it seem like women do a better job singing and playing bass? Rebecca Johnson comes to mind.
I sang the Lou Rawls harmonies to Bring It on Home to Me by Sam Cooke. Not a particularly hard bass line. The verses weren't hard, the phrasing of "bring it to me" took a little of time to get right, but the answering Yeah's, took me months to get right. Could nail them every time without the bass.
Anything other than Tom Petty or just hootin and hollerin.
Last band was a 3 piece and the singer/guitarist basically made me sing. It was definitely tough cuz it's not something I practice a lot. If the vocals don't match the bass pattern, forget it.
And The Boys Are Back in Town is literally the worst song ever so the couple of people in this thread struggling with it should probably not worry too much about it.
Last band was a 3 piece and the singer/guitarist basically made me sing. It was definitely tough cuz it's not something I practice a lot. If the vocals don't match the bass pattern, forget it.
And The Boys Are Back in Town is literally the worst song ever so the couple of people in this thread struggling with it should probably not worry too much about it.
devnulljp
Supporting Member
Yeah I know, I was just using pulling strings during that section instead of plucking and it was producing sort of a backward effect.I was challenged by my guitar player at the time to come up with the closest as the recording as possible and that was mine to do...
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The worst is to be able to separate the bass groove to the signing because they are completely different... I have done a lot of practice on my own before we got to play it in front of an audience for sure.
Calebmundy
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- Apr 5, 2007
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First it helps if you really like the song you're singing, because you're going to have to do it a lot. ... That said. ...
I first learn the bass line and that sets the groove and that never changes. ... You got to know it as strong as you can because, once you got it down you just have to repeat it. If you can play it once you can play it a million times. ... Now comes the other part. ... You learn the words and inflections and you sing it over and over with the music. ... The when you get to the point you can sing it in the car or walking in the park, without the music, you've got the singing down. ... Then you put the two of them together. ...
I believe it's much harder to learn both parts at the same time, sitting in front of the ipod/cd player trying to copy the original artist. ... You really need to learn the parts separate then bring the two parts together.
I first learn the bass line and that sets the groove and that never changes. ... You got to know it as strong as you can because, once you got it down you just have to repeat it. If you can play it once you can play it a million times. ... Now comes the other part. ... You learn the words and inflections and you sing it over and over with the music. ... The when you get to the point you can sing it in the car or walking in the park, without the music, you've got the singing down. ... Then you put the two of them together. ...
I believe it's much harder to learn both parts at the same time, sitting in front of the ipod/cd player trying to copy the original artist. ... You really need to learn the parts separate then bring the two parts together.
Interesting, and I mostly agree. I've posted this before, but I use a method I call "polling". Once I'm putting the bass and vocal together, I've trained my brain to go back and forth quicklybetween them to make sure each one is right. It sounds cumbersome but it becomes unconscious after a while. As a stage technique it allows you to sing/play songs you've never practiced or played before, something I do a lot.
The first verse of Sultans wasn't bad when I was learning it, but the other versus were more difficult so I played along with the drum machine in my Zoom B1 when I learned it.
I sang Under the bridge years ago and the chorus was a bit tricky playing and singing.
Yeah, this. My process generally tends to follow the same pattern:-
Step 1: Listen to song and think, "There's no way I'm ever going to pull that off".
Step 2: Listen to the song and learn to play it. When I'm not able to play, I listen to the song and learn to sing it. Really, the most important bit here is keep listening to the song until my brain knows where everything goes and when.
Step 3: Play along to song and mentally force myself to sing the words. Unless the song is easy, this will be a disaster.
Step 4: Repeat Step 3 till it's no longer a disaster. If it stays a disaster, it's probably not the right song for me.
Step 5: Take it back to the band and find it sounds nothing like it does when I was rehearsing it at home.
Step 6: Keep playing it with the band till it works. It'll never sound the way it did at home but it'll get to the point where it sounds right for the band. Or it won't, in which case it's probably not the right song for the band.
We do this in one of my bands. I'm actually the lead singer in this band but can attest that our bassist took a while to get the harmonies - and it was months before the whole band got the "Yeahs" right.
"I Saw Here Standing There" is an odd one for me. I can play it and sing it in original key of E but in one of my bands, we do it in C, to suit BL's voice. Due to it being that much more awkward to play in C, I have to simplify the bassline to sing the words.
"Sunshine Of Your Love", which sounds like it should be a nightmare to sing and play but is actually a piece of cake as, for the most part, the vocals and bass are following the same line.
Probably the biggest thing that helped me though was years of playing old rock 'n' roll standards and through sheer, endless repetition, being able to sing pretty much anything over a 12 bar walking bassline.
"Sunshine Of Your Love", which sounds like it should be a nightmare to sing and play but is actually a piece of cake as, for the most part, the vocals and bass are following the same line.
Probably the biggest thing that helped me though was years of playing old rock 'n' roll standards and through sheer, endless repetition, being able to sing pretty much anything over a 12 bar walking bassline.
