In our latest Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll continue to explore how to sing and play at the same time, using “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” as our example.

This time out, we’ll look at a new strumming pattern and the begin to add fills, working with a cool D to G bass run very much in the style of the Beatles’ “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.” And it’s a lot easier to play than it sounds. No lie.

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun. And, again as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

In our latest Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll take a look at getting comfortable with strumming with an eye toward being able to sing and play at the same time. We start with a new song, the iconic “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” and we even have a cheat sheet for you:

We’ll spend most of this podcast getting good at a couple of strumming patterns so that we can tackle it in earnest next week.

As always, I’ll be walking you through each step, so come on along and join in the fun. And, again as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Juliet, played by Heidi Klum, (which is OK in this production because she doesn’t have anything to say) stands on her balcony. Romeo, played by your choice of the robot on Lost in Space, a Dalek from Doctor Who or Hal from 2001, enters. He sees her and says:

But… soft… what… light… through… yonder… window… breaks…

I would also speak like that gazing up at Heidi Klum, but you get the idea. The monotone ain’t gonna cut it for delivering the message of Romeo’s awestruck love.

Hello?

Hey! Pay attention or I’m changing Juliet to the Cafeteria lady with hair net and moustache.

What I’m trying to say here is words are just words. It is up to you to invest meaning and emotion. When your band mates have basic mastery of a song they start to add the little touches that make it their own. The hammer-on here, a little arpeggio before the chorus, distortion on or off, chorus effect here but not there, maybe reverb at three instead of two. Should I add the 7th to that chord? They make a number of choices to affect the phrasing and tone of every song.

As the lead singer, you have an obligation to do the same thing. Make the song yours. If you don’t, you might as well get Robbie the Robot to take your place.

“But I can’t do that.” You say. Why not? Most people are afraid to make these choices because they lack confidence. Why would you lack confidence?

Imagine this:

“Come on Honey, get the kids. We’re going on vacation.”

“Where, Dear? I didn’t take any time off from work. The kids are still in school. We haven’t booked a hotel, cancelled the paper or called someone to feed the dogs.”

You can’t feel really confident this vacation is going to go off without a hitch, now can you?

Shift that into the music world:

“Come on guys. I’m gonna sing a song in front of a bunch of complete strangers without any preparation.”

“Dude, what you been smokin’?”

As the saying goes, if you don’t know your destination, you will never get there.

When I was an actor, I used to be plagued by the actor’s nightmare. It goes like this: you are out on stage in front of a large audience and you have no idea what your lines are. It still gives me the willies to think about it. It’s terrifying.

If you don’t know what you are going to do with every word you are about to sing, you are about to have a real life version of that nightmare. That will shake anyone’s confidence. It’s a Catch-22. If you don’t have the confidence, you can’t make the plan. If you can’t make the plan, you won’t get the confidence.

I’ve got a real life example for you. During the NFL pro-bowl several years ago, Hershey’s had a half-time promotion: if you could kick a 35-yard field goal from a tee, you’d get $1,000,000. Just you, the ball and tee, and 12 million people watching you. They had a drawing several months earlier and selected one guy to make the attempt.

You know what he did? He quit his job. Hired an ex-professional place kicker as a coach and practiced every day. He learned every nuance of placekicking. During half-time at the pro-bowl he became a millionaire.

Your situation is similar here. You get one shot with this audience and this song. You need to be so practiced, so familiar with what it is you have to do, that the pressure isn’t going to shake you.

If you do what I’m about to suggest, I guarantee your vocal performances and confidence will improve by 100% or your money back. If you act now, as an added bonus I’ll throw in a 100% better connection with your audience.

This lesson is going to teach you how to mark your lyrics for singing.

But first a little history lesson.

You know around the turn of the century there was no such thing as a microphone? (No, I don’t know this from personal experience. You guys think you are soooo funny.)

Where was I? Right, no microphones. So how did they record? Well, picture a large, “his master’s voice” style funnel that has a glass sphere attached to the narrow end. On the side of the glass sphere opposite the funnel was a needle; beneath the needle was a platter of wax. So the sound waves go into the funnel where they are amplified, down to the glass sphere, which vibrates and moves the needle, which etches the wax. Cool, huh?

There were some major drawbacks to this setup. First, there was only one take; everybody played at the same time in the same studio. Second, there were only two volume choices, loud and louder.

The volume issue led to some interesting early musical choices. The guitar was just too quiet, but banjo cut through. No way could you hear string bass over trumpets, so early bands opted for tubas. Try to picture Metallica with this setup.

Another problem is that the instruments had to be arranged by volume and proximity to the funnel. You can see some pictures of early recording sessions with some instruments gathered closely to the wall with the funnel, some people on barstools up high, some down low, and some against the back wall. Rumor has it that Louis Armstrong played so loud they had him stand in the hallway outside the studio.

But in the 1920s the microphone came along. Its effect was dramatic; the sound was much clearer. If you’ve ever heard a 78 rpm platter and compared it to the LP, that is about the same degree of difference in quality. Now volume choices could be made. Singers could suddenly sing directly to you, with feeling and intimacy, instead of competing to be heard over all the other instruments.

If you’d like to read more about this, check out this excellent series on recording and technology on the NPR website.

Now that you have a microphone, everyone can hear you. You have the opportunity to connect on a very personal level with every member of the audience.

How do you do it?

Here are a few terms you’ll see on sheet music that may have some relevance to us:

ACCELERANDO: get faster
ALLEGRO: a lively tempo that also reflects in your style
ALLEGRO VIVACE : even more lively
ANDANTE: a medium tempo
CRESCENDO: get louder gradually
DECRESCENDO: get softer gradually
FORTE: loud. The first of three loud dynamics, notated as “f.” on sheet music
FORTISSIMO: pretty darn loud, notated as “ff.” on sheet music
TRIPLE FORTE: Spinal Tap volume controls to 11
LEGATO: smoothly joined notes
PIANO: softly
PIANISSIMO: twice as soft as piano
LENTO: slow
PRESTO: fast
STACCATO: the opposite of legato

Do you need to know those terms? Yes. Well, it depends.

You absolutely need to be familiar with them if you want to communicate with other musicians. These terms have been around for a thousand years or so and they are the basis for marking our own lyrics. From a personal perspective you can use plain old English if you wish.

If we look at the list we can make three categories:

If we go a bit further and translate into English:

Hold on there, partner. I know what you’re thinking. You don’t need me anymore. But wait, there’s more.

You need to think about two more things before you put pencil to paper:

1. What is the story of the lyric? Or what is the point of the song?
2. What is the mood you are trying to convey?

Okay. On to the business of marking it up.

First, print out your lyrics double-spaced. You need plenty of room to write here. Put two sections at the top: “Mood I want to convey,” and “Point I want to get across.”

Let’s mark up a selection from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

Before we go any further:

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

I’m going to let you answer questions 1 and 2 for this one and move right into marking the lyrics. I handwrite my markings, so they appear here in red italics for clarity.

Start very personal, almost speaking, at moderate speed.
I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Faster, hard and loud, church choir style, slightly mocking, staccato, without feeling
He’s just a poor boy from a poor family
–>
Spare him his life from this monstrosity

Little build from the original volume, very personal, almost speaking, ask the question
Easy come easy go – will you let me go

Faster, hard and loud rock, Devils choir VS Angels Choir, staccato
Bismillah! No – we will not let you go – let him go
Bismillah! We will not let you go – let him go
Bismillah! We will not let you go – let me go
Will not let you go – —————let me go (never)

This must keep the argument feel of above, Staccato
Never let you go – let me go
Never let me go – ooo

Loud, short sharp, increase volume on each “no” to very loud
No, no, no, no, no, no, no -

Drop only halfway back to personal volume, with some desperation
Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go

Increase volume dramatically here soft to loud throughout the phrase
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me
for me
for me

Faster, hard driving rock, slightly staccato, metal, defiant
So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh baby – can’t do this to me baby
Just gotta get out – just gotta get right outta here

Back down to the initial tempo, tone and volume
Nothing really matters, anyone can see

Slight pause, Very smooth and connected to end
Nothing really matters
Slight pause
nothing really matters
Slight pause
to me

Whisper
Anyway the wind blows…

But you already knew that one. How about one you don’t know?

Taking one verse, the bridge and the chorus out of one of the songs I wrote in the Sunday Songwriters Club exercises, here is an example:

But first my disclaimer:
This file is actually my work and I have my permission to use it here. So there.

Mood I want to convey:

Kind of Hitchcock, eerie, even a little Exorcist, chilling, lonely

Point I want to get across:

You better make sure you kissed the wife and kids this morning. Are you putting off something for tomorrow?…don’t.

V3:
A jagged loud whisper
heart pounding

Normal voice to start
I pull my jacket to fight

Speed up slightly here all the way to the end of this verse
the bite of the air

Get louder through “glare” and back off on “street lights”
ducking the glare of streetlights

Big breath here to last all the way through “face”
Chorus:
Back to original speed, smoothly flowing, connect the lines
did I drift into the line of fire?

Build tension, faster, louder
did I happen to pick the wrong time?

more tension Faster, louder
did I wander into the wrong place?

Release the tension, drop volume to a sad, soft wondering voice, original speed
Will I ever see my daughter’s face?

My son? My wife?

angry, but soft
If I win this twisted lottery,

Brief pause then almost a whisper again
send them my love.

Bridge:
Almost sing-songy, like a child’s jump-rope cadence through “in your head”
No scary monster hides under your bed
No evil creature lurks in your closet
when the lights go on that’s just in your head

Pause-Metallica whisper/roar
but this beast is real.

No music, no emotion here
The unseen, unknown loner
just drove in from Tacoma.

You may notice that I didn’t use all of the words in the English list and that I added some of my own. What matters is that you put down on paper a way for you to remember exactly how you want to sing. Practice it that way. Get to the point where you don’t have to look at the paper any more.

If you do this, you’ll connect with your audience in a wonderful new way. You will bridge the gap from wax recording to CD quality.

Then each person in the audience will think you are singing to him or her personally, not at him or her.

As we all know, dinosaurs had brains the size of a walnut; and no, that is not the common link in my thought process. But some of these critters were so big that they had a second brain at the base of their spine to control their tail. The theory goes that the signal from way up front would take way too long to take to get to the back and balance would be impossible. Where am I going with this you ask?

Think about what a drummer has to do: left foot, bass drum; right foot, high hat; left hand, cymbal; right hand, snare, often in syncopated rhythm. If I tried this I would spontaneously combust. Perhaps this is the real reason for the dinosaurs’ extinction: one of the smarter ones invented drums.

Wouldn’t things be so much easier if you had a right hand brain, a left-hand brain and a singing brain? I mean, fingerpicking and chord changes are hard enough. Try to add in singing while doing that.

But this is exactly what we’re going to do. Remember when you first learned to play a finger picked song? Odds are you chose to learn the right hand picking order ’til you had it down, then the left hand chords, finally adding in moving bass. Or, you used some variation on that theme. Order in this scenario is not that important.

So the right hand goes to work, over and over playing the picking pattern, and slowly it comes into focus. You may even get it up to performance speed. So it’s obvious you had the ability to play the right hand part all along. Why couldn’t you just play it right off the bat? You had to create a muscle memory. It’s like a golf swing, sleight of hand magic, or ballroom dancing. You ingrain a repeatable pattern into your brain and create a memory that you can call back.

So now you got to get that left hand going. Even though you could play the right hand pretty darn well by now, you had to slow it down to let your left hand learn new things. You may not notice this effect because it often doesn’t last that long. You’d expect the slower tempo to be a piece of cake for your right hand. Yet, its performance degrades slightly as you are forced to concentrate elsewhere.

Notice that you didn’t just stop the right hand and practice with only the left, fretting the notes without picking. You added the two together. With practice you got faster and faster with your left, until finally it could keep up to tempo and you could play.

Two things happened there: you developed muscle memory in each hand independently, and combined muscle memory. In other words, you memorized a joint, associated muscle memory. They became a single memory.

The best example showing muscle memory is from the Guitar Noise lessons. If you learned Blackbird first, then learned Scarborough Fair, you’ll notice that a couple of places in SF are the same as Blackbird. The first few times you try to play through SF, it just doesn’t fit. Your muscle memory is suddenly trying to play Blackbird rhythm. You have to create a new memory.

So now you have a single muscle memory of both hands. You have consolidated two into one. Okay, here we go into the meat of the lesson.

This consolidated memory is exactly what you have to do with singing and playing. Don’t treat your singing like the red headed stepchild of this group. Be patient with singing just like you are with your hands.

Go back and play slooooowly. Look at the words written under the chord changes and sing so slowly you can get them both going at the same time. Once you have a song down on guitar, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can bring the voice along for the ride. But you have to take the voice on the same ride you gave the hands. That is the only way to create a new joint memory.

Let’s take a look at the bridge from David’s Blackbird lesson:

We only want to look at the six words “black bird fly, black bird fly.” First let’s take some time to memorize them. Let me know when you’re done. I’m going to go practice Give A Little Bit.

Done already? Wow, you’re good.

Just play the two notes directly above the word “black.” Do you hear your starting pitch? It is the 10th fret on the D string.

Ready? Here we go. Do you have a fire extinguisher handy? Spontaneous combustion could happen, you know. You are going to play the two notes right above “black.” Stop playing but let it ring. Now sing the word “black,” just the one pitch.

Whooo hoooo, you are on your way now.

Notice in the tab there are two beats and two pedal notes before you get to “bird.” Try this: pluck the two fingerpicked notes and sing “black” at the same time. Don’t stop singing the word “black.” Just hold it out, same note, no change, and play all the way to “bird.” Congratulations.

Now do the same thing with “bird.” The note you are looking for is the 5th fret on D. If you have a problem with the transition, go back and work slowly through it, just like you did with your hands.

Does this seem just a tad simplistic to you? Well, it is just that simple. Imagine you were trying to tell someone how to make your left-hand work with your right. It would sound about the same. But the principle is sound. If you want to sing and play, you have to put in the work to merge the memories.

Someone once asked about how to sing during solos. Personally, I take the B.B. King approach to singing during solos: I don’t. Sing, solo, sing, solo. It works for him, it works for me. Besides, you only want to show off one thing at a time or the rest of the band will hate you.

But if you want to be like Hendrix and do both, just take the time, fix that associated memory between voice and hands and you can do just about anything.

And sorry, but I can’t help you sing solos while you play with your teeth.

Think your voice is grating? Does it scare the children and cats? Do dogs like to sing along?

Let me just say this about that: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Dr. Hook, Brittany Spears and many more. Now, not everybody has a voice that demands to be listened to, but everyone can improve what they have.

I’m going to give you a brief overview of singing here, but the best thing you can do for yourself is find a teacher and take a lesson. Waste of time you say? Would you say a guitar lesson is a waste? I didn’t think so. Your voice as an instrument is amazingly similar to a guitar, and just as complex. But with just a couple of lessons, you can make a dramatic improvement in your voice. Think of the great leap you made as an absolute beginner playing guitar. Day one, you couldn’t play anything. Day two, you could play several chords. In a couple of weeks, how much more did you accomplish? You can make the same kind of dramatic improvement singing.

I don’t know why this is especially so for voice lessons, but people have the misguided idea that voice lessons are for people who are already great singers. Well, this is absolutely wrong. That’s like saying if you’re a beginning guitarist, you shouldn’t take lessons because you’re not good enough yet. It makes no sense at all.

“Really?” you say. “Well how would I go about starting?”

I’m glad you asked.

Your first step is to find a teacher who can teach the style you want to sing. Although the basics are the same from style to style, if you’re being taught opera, but want to sing thrash… well you get the idea. Just talk to the teacher and make sure he or she can get you on the road to your vocal destination.

While you’re talking, find out the teacher’s hourly and half hourly rates. Rates vary all over the board, but for a beginning lesson you can estimate $25 for a half hour. You can find a voice teacher posted on a bulletin board at your local guitar shop, at the local community college, and the yellow pages. You can ask a singing friend for names and numbers of good teachers or check with your local choir director. Don’t forget the music teachers at your local schools.

Make sure you take a tape recorder to your lesson. You’ll get a history of where you started, you can play the lesson over and over, and you can record the teacher playing your homework. Listen to it in the car and sing along. The nice thing about being a singer is the equipment is so easy to carry. You can sing just about anywhere.

No social commentary here, but if you smoke, don’t do it before your lesson. Besides your voice teacher giving you endless grief, it dries out your sinuses and throat, it cuts the amount of air you can breathe in, and causes all the other nasty things printed on the side of the package.

The first lesson will go something like this:

1. You’ll be told to sit up straight for the first of many times.
2. You’ll be told the mechanics of how your voice works.
3. Your teacher will play some simple 3 or 4 note partial scales and ask you to duplicate them.
4. You’ll be told to sit up straight again.
5. Then you’ll get some direction about what muscles to use to support your voice.
6. Next, you’ll learn some imagery about how to free up and project the voice.
7. Why aren’t you sitting up straight?
8. Let’s try those scales again using your new-found knowledge.
9. Then you’ll get some exercises to practice for homework.

It is actually painless. Even after this basic lesson, you should be able to see the building blocks forming.

Practice and Anatomy

Now, a word about practice. Singing isn’t difficult. But, like anything else, it takes practice and repetition to become proficient. When you are learning to play a new song, do you just play it through once and then announce, “Ready to go”? No. You play it over and over until it sounds good enough to take on the road. Same thing applies here. Take those exercises and drill ‘em.

Well, that is the lesson pitch portion of this column. Let’s move on to Anatomy 101.

It’s analogy time. Remember I said the voice is amazingly like the guitar? Let’s think of the parts of your body that make up your voice as the parts of a guitar.

Larynx membranes (vocal cords) are the strings.
Larynx muscles are the fretboard.
Your throat is the sound hole.
Your diaphragm/stomach is the guitar body.
Your sinuses are the type of wood used in the guitar.

So what happens when you sing or talk? Just about everyone knows that you make sound by passing air over your larynx. When you speak or sing, you exhale and push air up your throat to the larynx. The larynx has two membranes stretched across it that vibrate in the rushing air to produce sound waves. By changing the tension on those membranes, you produce higher and lower tones.

Piece of cake so far, right? Well, here is where you get the difference between the $100 guitar and the $10,000 guitar.

Think of your body as the body of the guitar. If you only use your upper body and throat to make a sound, you get the thin, reedy sound of a Martin backpacker. Don’t get me wrong; I love my Backpacker. I keep it at work and practice at lunch. But I wouldn’t play it in concert. Now, if you breathe correctly and support the sound from way down low, you open up a deep resonating chamber and you get the full-bodied, dreadnought sound.

Check out how your body is breathing right now. When you breathe in does your chest rise and do your shoulders rotate back a little? Great. That’s all wrong, but very easy to fix. Try this: find a place to get flat on your back. Note: If you are reading this during work, now is probably not the time. Anyway, watch your body as you breathe on your back. Your stomach rises, yes? Your chest stays still, yes? That is because you are filling your lungs to the depths. That is how you want to breathe while singing.

Your diaphragm is moving down and creating a vacuum that pulls air into your lungs. When your diaphragm pushes up, air is expelled. This muscle is the lynchpin of singing. You use it to support your voice like the bag on a bagpipe. You squeeze it and the air goes up. If you have trouble staying on pitch when you sing a note, here is the culprit. You must maintain the muscular support from way down here to keep the note steady way up there.

A little old lady voice teacher once told me,

“When you are supporting the note correctly, your stomach muscles will feel like you are taking a dump.”

I kid you not.

Let’s look at your vocal chords – the “guitar strings” of your voice. Problem is, you can’t change ‘em when they get worn. Drink water before, during and after singing. Room temperature is best before and during, cold after. This keeps everything lubricated and allows for better vibration and sound wave creation.

The throat/sound hole and the sinuses/wood work together. They both color the sound. The sound hole allows a specific volume of air to pass, which pushes along the sound waves. Your throat does the same thing, and you want it to be as relaxed and open as possible. Be aware of the muscles of your throat and make sure they are not tensed up. This is not where sound comes from; it is the path the sound travels along. Closing the path simply lessens the sound quality.

The number one influence on sound is the sinuses or head cavity. I made this the equivalent of the type of wood, but maybe it should be type of wood, quality of workmanship and quality of materials. It is that important. Think about what you sound like with a head cold. None of the other areas mentioned above are affected, just the sinuses.

What happens to your voice? It is muffled, unintelligible and without depth or volume. So it is crucial you keep this area relaxed and clear. When I’m performing, I take a little bottle of baby saline nose drops and use them if I feel even slightly congested.

Here are three brief exercises for the sinuses:

1. Hum a song and try to make the humming sound emanate from the area directly between your eyes. Concentrate on the feeling. When you sing, try to make your voice go up from your body, past the larynx and out through that same area.
2. Buzz your lips together loosely. You know, make a motorboat sound. See how the sound seems to be generated just in front of your mouth. Try to get your singing voice to start out there too. The idea is to make sure that your head and throat are not pinching the sound down, but allowing it to resonate and add richness.
3. Visualize a basketball player shooting a foul shot. He starts by bending his knees, then straightening them to add power. He then moves his arms up and shoots the ball in a graceful arc toward the basket. This is the way the voice should work. The diaphragm provides the leg power and the voice gracefully arcs up and out toward the target.

So, you’ve gotten this far. Congratulations. Let me give you four more little hints.

Listen to singers that sing like you’d like to sound. Copy them. You can hear intonation, breathing, volume choices and many more things on a recording.

Print out the lyrics and mark them up to indicate where you want to breathe, what words you want to emphasize, and which notes are slurred, loud or soft.

When you see someone hop up, take the microphone and burst into song in a movie or on TV, laugh heartily out loud. It doesn’t work that way. You have to woodshed it first.

If you are playing and singing, as soon as you can play the song through, and before you add polish to it, start singing along as you play. This helps you to associate the lyrics with muscle changes in your hands.

This hopefully clarifies some misconceptions and provides an overall picture of what is going on when you sing. Voice is not hard to improve. You just need to be willing to invest a little time and practice.

Here is a recap:

1. Singing is a physical activity and can be improved through proper practice.
2. Think about releasing the voice through your head. Don’t push or pinch. Send it merrily on its way from the depths of your body up and out through your head.
3. Show no fear. If you start to worry what you sound like, you’ll tense up. You’ll get up to sing and a little flat squeak will escape. Get up there and show them! Belt it out! Be confident!
4. Did I say take a lesson?

And whatever you do, make sure you sit up straight.

Reality check: most live albums you listen to are not really live. A live recording is used, then the instruments are dubbed in the studio. Meaning that a guitar track that’s not as full as the guitarist or producer would like, will be re-recorded in the studio. This goes for all instruments and voices, so that the end result is an album that’s not really live. Over 95% of live albums are done this way.

I know of some that are really the live product, these would include all live albums by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, Steve Hackett and the Rolling Stones. These ones are plainly obvious as you can hear the mistakes that are made. Let’s face it: everyone makes mistakes live, even the best. There are certainly more than the ones mentioned here, but remember that most are not live.

So, by listening to live albums and trying to perform the songs yourself the same way, you wonder why it is you can’t play a complicated solo while singing. Often this can lead to doubting your own abilities. It shouldn’t.

A year or two ago I read an interview in Canadian Musician with Geddy Lee (Bass and lead vocals for Rush). Geddy was talking about just this point. He mentioned that first of all, once the album was recorded, the guys took two weeks off to learn the songs. And learn to play them live. This is because, on a studio recording, you might have five guitar tracks in a song. Unless you have five guitarists on stage, you won’t be able to reproduce this live. What you need to do is create one track which is playable for one guitarist. And then adapt it to vocals.

As a bass player, Geddy was explaining that it was very difficult to play bass and sing at the same time. It would be sort of like playing a solo while singing, you can easily imagine the difficulties involved. So, he resorted to playing, essentially, chord lines while singing.

There are some musicians, although extremely rare, who can play a solo like Jimmy Paige, and sing something entirely unrelated at the same time. If you watch Pendragon’s video Live at Last, it’s amazing to see Nick Barrett soloing and singing at the same time. But, as I said, people like this are exceptions.

The first thing to do, whether you are playing your own song or someone else’s is to adapt the guitar track to the voice. Meaning, no solos while you’re singing. Also watch out for picking. You may not, in certain instances, be able to pick and sing simultaneously.

Suppose your picking is played in full times: 4 notes per measure in a 4/4. Now suppose your vocal line has five syllables (for singing, always think in terms of syllables). This means that you will have to sing five notes in that measure while picking four notes on the guitar. Once is no big deal, but if you’re picking 18 measures like this while never singing 4 syllables in a measure, you will be running into trouble. Depending on your abilities, it may or may not be done. You can adjust this by changing the picking pattern. It could mean turning a finger-picking into a pick-picking or vice-versa. It could meant the addition or subtraction of a not in the picking line.

If you’re using a distortion guitar, then you can make use of punches while singing. Instead of playing a steady rhythm, you can hit the chords only once, on the first beat and let it fade by itself. This is fairly simple and can add a lot of power to a song or a part of a song.

Also very important is to know your drummer well. I remember one situation where we were trying out a new drummer. He insisted on playing everything in 4/4 while letting me play my 3/4s and 6/8s through his beats. It works, but it’s an added difficulty. Playing with a new drummer takes a lot of getting use to. It can take a few weeks before you fall into synch with him when you’re playing an instrument and singing. This guy told me to start counting the beats. So I’m playing the guitar and singing and I should be counting? All at the same time? I told him to get lost.

This is to illustrate a point: you can do two things at once, but doing a third one is nearly impossible. What you have to do is learn to play without counting or tapping your foot. You need to get your playing completely in tune with what the drummer is doing. You’ll realize after a time that if he makes a mistake, you’ll be making the same mistake. But that’s cool, because if he makes a mistake live, people are less susceptible to notice it. And you should not be making any timing mistakes this way. Remember that, first and foremost, your drummer is there to count for you. Practice playing your guitar with him as much as possible.

So, you’re basically laying your guitar track on his drum track. Then you lay your vocal track on the guitar track which has been previously adapted to the vocals, I know it sounds funny, but that’s the way to do it. Once you’re playing your guitar track without thinking about such things as counting, you’ll be better able to sing.

A mistake most beginners make is to expect their live product to sound close to the original. If a song has been recorded using 16 tracks, there’s no way you can reproduce this with four musicians. Everyone would have to be playing four instruments at the same time. The trick is to do the most you can with what you have. Four musicians means four tracks, plus a sixth for vocals.

Also, remember that most people record their albums before having played the songs with their bands. Meaning that everybody learns the song while in the studio, usually, without playing together. The guitarist who is also lead vocalist can play anything he wants as he’s not singing at the same time.

Once an album is complete, everyone goes home and learns their parts for the live show. That’s how it’s normally done and that’s how you should do it to.

If you will be playing a cover song, it’s OK to learn the actual guitar tracks, but it’s better if you don’t. See what’s happening and figure how you can do this live. If in an instrumental section you have a rhythm guitar happening and a solo, you obviously can’t play both at the same time. If you have a keyboard player, then the two of you should work at exchanging solos and rhythm patterns. If you don’t then the bass player should cover as much chord territory as is possible while you’re playing a solo.

The same goes for singing. You can’t play as much as would like, so the other musicians in the band should cover your guitar parts as much as possible so that the song doesn’t sound too empty.

Of course, and I know I’ve said this a lot in the past, but it’s a simple fact that the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it.

Also check out… Singing in a New Year

Some recent questions via both email and the Guitar Forums (IMPORTANT ASIDE: please take the time to check out the new Forum pages!!! Paul has (yet again) done a great job of reformatting the Forum into various pertinent topics of discussion. Of course, it’s all for naught unless we take advantage of it!) were probably steering me to this particular topic, but I think what really iced it was a discussion I had a few weeks ago with one of my students.

We’d been talking about setting out some goals for the upcoming year (and yes, I try to do that with my students). He expressed a real interest in working out arrangements – meaning that he wanted to come up with new and interesting ways to use the guitar sort of like a piano, more as an accompaniment for his voice than strictly as a rhythm instrument. He does have a good voice, by the way. That always helps.

I don’t. Oh, it’s not a terrible voice by any means. I can hold a tune. But, as I’ve said before (and as you’ll be able to judge for yourself if A-J ever gets my tapes online!), it has been best described as “an acquired taste.” I can live with that.

But one thing that my student was interested in pointing out was that I have tailored my playing to work with my voice, often using the guitar to almost disguise its shortcomings and also to strengthen it in places.You can, in effect, learn to arrange your playing in order to help your singing.

Today we’ll examine this technique as well as take on those always scary “playing and singing at the same time” jitters. What I hope to do is to help each of you who feels ill at ease about your singing find a starting point, a place where you can be comfortable and learn to be honest about what you can and can’t do. Singing requires, in many respects, the same sort of attitude we bring to the guitar. The more realistic we are in our approach, the better our chances of being happy with our performances. Not everyone has a great voice, but just about everyone has the ability to develop a passable one.

And, before I forget…

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of these songs. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Walking And Chewing Gum

Many people starting out are, frankly, so freaked at trying to remember everything they can about playing that they don’t believe it’s possible to sing and play the guitar at the same time. It can be daunting.

And then there’s that little matter of rhythm…

Needless to say (and why does it always seem needless to say, “needless to say?”), there are a lot of ways to tackle learning to sing and strum at the same time. Some people concentrate on the strumming rhythm and let the singing fall where it may, others concentrate on the singing and hope that the guitar falls close enough into line so as not to be a distraction. Both of these ways, by the way, could be taken as stylistic quirks.

But if you want to do your best at both, you’re going to have to work at it. And, as always, it’s easiest to start out as simply as possible and gradually take on more and more complex patterns as your skills improve. I find that the earlier and the easier you begin concentrating on this the better.

Some of you may, in fact, find this ridiculously easy. That’s okay. Let’s pick a simple song with a very simple melody, preferably something in straight quarter notes, half notes and whole notes. The idea is that we are going to strum the rhythm of the melody so that there will be no difference between the rhythm we are strumming and the rhythm of the melody line. This is probably the easiest example of this I know:

As always, start out as slowly as you have to in order to keep a steady rhythm (yes, you might want to use a metronome to check). Since this is fairly easy, though, you’ll probably be ready to take the next step relatively quickly. This is where you start “filling in” the missing beats. First try using a strumming pattern of steady eighth notes and then you might want to vary things a little bit:

Another beginning step is to take a song with a melody you have absolutely down pat (and one where the melody line contains rhythms markedly different than what you’d strum) and, essentially, do the opposite of what we were just doing. Strum a steady beat of quarter notes (just on the first, second and fourth beats if it’s a fast song) while you sing. Even though these songs have just gone out of season, they are good ones to work with, again because you can do the melody in your sleep.

Again, and I know that I am really beating this into the ground here, these may seem like incredibly easy examples, but that is precisely the point. If this is not something that comes naturally to you (and it doesn’t for a lot of people), and if it something that you want to develop, then you have to start out as simply as possible. Otherwise you are in for a world of frustration. It is hardly worth it.

Clues And Cues

The guitarist as singer/songwriter is a powerful image, one that transcends cultures as well as history. We think of wandering minstrels spellbinding the gathered crowds as they pass on their tales of love, of loss and redemption, of valor of epic proportion.

But, truth be told, few of our guitar heroes, male or female, are phenomenal singers. They do, however, manage to intelligently write and arrange music in accordance to the various strengths and nuances of their particular voices. And so can you.

Right off the bat, though, you have to resolve to be up front and honest with yourself. This cuts both ways – you have to accept and live within your limitations and you have to learn to appreciate the good things (and yes, everyone has some!) about your given voice.

And this might be a good time to point out something that might not be obvious – if possible, you should record yourself singing something. It can be on a cheap cassette deck or even the message tape on your answering machine! The reason for this is very simple – you should know what you actually sound like, not what you think you sound like. When we first hear our own voices, it tends to be something of a shock. That is because even though we hear ourselves all the time, what we hear is not what the outside world is hearing. And if you think there is a discrepancy in your speaking voice, wait ’til you hear yourself singing!

Once you’ve gotten used to (or gotten over!) what you sound like, then you should try to figure a few other things out. And yes, again, making use of a recorder of some sort would be a good idea. First, you need to figure out the “range” of your voice. A “range” is exactly what you probably think it is – the various notes you are capable of singing from the lowest note to the highest. And we’re talking about singing comfortably, about hitting notes cleanly and accurately, not about the notes that you can get by scrunching yourself all up in your best Joe Cocker impression. Most people have ranges from one to two octaves, usually one solid octave (say C to C) and a few notes on either side.

Having found your range, you should take the additional step of exploring the various qualities of your voice within that range. Is it stronger on the higher notes or the lower ones? Perhaps “stronger” is the wrong word because some people’s voices take on a, I don’t know, let’s call it a “quality” at certain points of their range. It’s this “quality” that gives some singers a distinctive trademark.

Knowing where your range is and where your voice is strongest also gives you the ability to arrange a song accordingly. I have a higher (but not as high as I think) range than a lot of the singers I admire and I find myself often having to play their songs with my capo on the second or third fret of my guitar in order to accommodate my voice.

But one of the most useful things you can do to help yourself out is to arrange your playing to give yourself musical cues at various points of a song. Usually this means no more than picking out a note here and there in order to help your maintain your tone. This is especially beneficial either during songs where you want the melodies to be very precise or if you are uncertain of your ability to sing the intervals between the notes with any semblance of finesse. Let’s go back to Twinkle, Twinkle to see this in action.

I will admit that this is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is simply to prove a point. When you get good at this you can “hide” your cues within your strumming. You’ll also note that you have to know where your notes are on the fret board in order to do this; you also need to know various chord voicings and when not to play all six strings at once. Yes, I know that this is a sneaky way to get you to realise that there’s something to learning a bit of theory after all…

Here I’ve charted out the first line of Neil Young’s Like A Hurricane, which is again a simple way to illustrate how this technique can provide you with enough notes (in this case the entire melody line) to sing with more confidence. Later this spring, when we go into arrangements in a little more depth, we’ll see some more subtle ways of using this method of leaving yourself melodic clues.

Of course, having gone through all of this, let’s not overlook the obvious: if you ever have the chance to take voice lessons of any kind, whether it be a private tutor or some words of advice from the leader of your church choir or school’s chorus. Or any of your friends that seriously studies singing. Never, ever, pass up the opportunity to learn from someone who has experience.

And even more obvious, this is something that has to be worked on. Practice and patience are key, but so, as I’ve said, is honesty. Not everyone has a great (or even a good) voice, but as long as you have a realistic idea of what you can and can’t do, you should be able to get by. More importantly, you’ll be able to provide smart accompaniment with which to accommodate your singing.

As we’ve said on numerous occasions, you should never feel as though you have to be a clone of each and every song you do. You should feel free to take some liberties with the timing of a song’s melody, especially if it is giving you waaay too hard of a time. But do remember, someone else created this and when ever you perform another person’s song you should try to do it in honor of having the opportunity to share in what it means to you. Yes, I’m certain that that sounds absolutely corny, but it is nonetheless true. Do the best with what you can. Even if it means simply joining in on the chorus, adding one single line of harmony or even doing no more then chiming in on the “ooo ooo’s” during “Sympathy For The Devil,” give it everything you’ve got.

When hundreds of people are singing, it’s never out of tune.

I’d especially like to thank Jimmy Hudson and the person who goes by the name of “Picker” on the forum pages for their input concerning this week’s column.

As always, please feel free to write in with any questions, comments, concerns or topics you’d like to see covered in a future column. You can either drop off a note at any of the newly revamped Forum pages or email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com.

Until next week…

Peace

You can more help and tips on playing and singing at the same time in A-J Charron’s lesson Playing the Guitar while Singing.