Singing while playing

Hello everyone.

I'm sure not everyone was able to pick up a guitar and start singing their own songs right away, and I'm one of those people.

I'll start to sing but notice when I'm recording that my voice starts going along with my strumming pattern, and sounds very awkward. When I try to concentrate on it, my strumming gets all out of whack.

If you experienced this or any other problems involved with singing while playing, what did you do to get over it?

Thanks!

It takes, and comes in time. Your hand must move with its own will, without you thinking about it. I cannot sing and play except with a recording.

It takes, and comes in time.<...>

+1

I sing and play guitar, but started singing while playing bass (which is more difficult). The trick for me was to practice the guitar/bass part until I could play it without thinking about it, then practice singing the song without playing until I was comfortable with that, and then putting the two together.

It was difficult at first, but with each new song I learned, it got a little easier.

>> >> >> >> >> Fast Forward >> >> >> >>

Now unless the guitar part is very tricky, I don't even have to practice very much first and can often learn the guitar and vocal parts at the same time.

So hang in there, practice it, and eventually it will become second nature.

Insights and incites by Notes

I had a bit of an epiphany last night with this. I've been playing for about 3 months. It took me a couple weeks of constant practice to finally 'get' the easiest song in the world - Horse with no Name :)

I thought, GREAT... I love this song now that I can play it I'm ready to sing along. As soon as I opened my mouth everything else seemed to stop working. I mean it is ugly, I loose complete control of my strumming hand.

I can sing along to Three Little Birds and House of the Rising Sun no problem, but Horse with no Name... no way. I figured ok, those songs are on the beat and America's song is not, probably the problem.

So I read everything I could, and came to the conclusion it just takes time. I continued to practice daily trying to sing this song while playing. It's been 4-5 weeks now and I've made ZERO progress. Until yesterday...

I had been playing the song by just 'feeling' the rhythm. In other words I was playing the DDUDU, DUUUU by feel and not counting the one and two and... etc. So along with this I was not continuously moving my strumming hand. On the Em instead of moving my hand on the 'and 3' I was delaying it down there and only moving it (and playing) the 'and' after 3. I hope that makes sense, hard for me to explain.

Anyway, I went back and slowed way down and moved my hand on everything '1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and'... TA-DA, now I can sing it and my hand doesn't wig out!

Weird, but worked for me.

Yeah, keep that hand moving. If I try to syncopate the strumming by stopping my hand I foul it up too. :D

Hello everyone.

I'm sure not everyone was able to pick up a guitar and start singing their own songs right away, and I'm one of those people.

I'll start to sing but notice when I'm recording that my voice starts going along with my strumming pattern, and sounds very awkward. When I try to concentrate on it, my strumming gets all out of whack.

If you experienced this or any other problems involved with singing while playing, what did you do to get over it?

Thanks!
May I ask how long you've been playing? Or even more specifically, how long you've been playing the song. As people before me said, once you can play the song without thinking about it you are free to do whatever you want with your voice.

I agree that learning to play the song until it becomes "automatic" is a good approach. In my experience, I've found that playing and singing at the same time is a coordination skill that needs to be developed over time.

I had written a post about this on a (now defunct) guitar-based blog a few friends and I had running a few years ago. I resurrected that post and placed it on a new blog of ours that's centered around singing. You can find it here: http://www.howtosingbetternow.com/how-to-sing-better/learn-sing-play-guitar-time/

I hope it comes in handy.

When I worked on Cruise Ships I would go to San Juan Puerto Rico once a week. Since it was our long port, I got to listen to and meet many musicians there. The most amazing was a guy called Junior Laredo. He spoke about as much English as I do Spanish so we didn't get to talk very much, but this guy was amazing to listen to, I think he had 3 brains.

He did a single act playing keyboards and singing (no sequencing).

His left had would play those wonderful Salsa bass lines where the bass predominately plays on the "and" of 2 and 4 with occasional embellishments.

His right hand would play those wonderful syncopated piano figures

And some how either hand would fly up to a third synth to play horn figures and answer parts to the vocals , and also to hit fills on one of two drum machines.

And if that wasn't enough, he would sing at the same time.

If you ever get to San Juan, look him up.

Notes

Well i agree its very hard to sing while playing guitar but when somebody sings with guitar it gives a different experience and you feel like listening to it again and again.

Well i have watched one of the video where a guy was singing while playing guitar, and it was awesome... watch it

http://www.desitara.com/videos/view/31495/INDIAN_OCEAN_13_ROCK_BAND_SINGING_AT_WAVES_09

When I worked on Cruise Ships I would go to San Juan Puerto Rico once a week. Since it was our long port, I got to listen to and meet many musicians there. The most amazing was a guy called Junior Laredo. He spoke about as much English as I do Spanish so we didn't get to talk very much, but this guy was amazing to listen to, I think he had 3 brains.

He did a single act playing keyboards and singing (no sequencing).

His left had would play those wonderful Salsa bass lines where the bass predominately plays on the "and" of 2 and 4 with occasional embellishments.

His right hand would play those wonderful syncopated piano figures

And some how either hand would fly up to a third synth to play horn figures and answer parts to the vocals , and also to hit fills on one of two drum machines.

And if that wasn't enough, he would sing at the same time.

If you ever get to San Juan, look him up.

Notes

Wow, that sounds incredible!! Loads of talent for that!