Can anyone give me some advice on how to be able to sing and play at the same time. Ive been playin guitar for years but have never really tried to sing at the same time. Now, playing alone is boring and I want to sing but its like im learning everything all over again and my guitar skills get warped back to day 1 when I start to sing at the same time

Try not to troll too hard. I am looking for some real advice. Is this something that you build up over time? I feel like none of my other guitar friends have trouble doin it

I can't do it either dude - tried, failed - gave up xD

However - Total Guitar did teach me what I believe to be the best technique to it.

First, learn the song on guitar.

Secondly, make sure you can play it flawlessly over and over again. This is very important so you don't have to spend too much time thinking about what your hands are doing.

Thirdly, learn the song word for word. Be able to sing the entire song without any thinking about lyrics.

Once you know both guitar and vocal for the song, start meshing them together.

Key point here is you MUST be able to flawlessly play the song without thinking about it. No pause, no gaps, be perfect.

I think the TG guide was based on James Hetfield so I take it seriously


The other alternative is to learn shitty acoustic songs like koombuyaa or something, and play and sing that. It's only chords so there's nothing complicated there

This post was edited by bob(Cs2) on Mar 7 2011 03:46am

I can't play guitar and sing, but I can play piano and sing. What helps me is that you just learn the piece SO well, you can play it with your eyes shut and while talking to people.
After that, when you relearn it by adding singing to it too, the way I think of it is the piano (left hand + right hand) is one voice, and then like... my voice is like another left hand? So the rhyhtm is going to be different so itm akes it hard you have to isolate the rhythms and know what moment you sing what at what moment you play what, if you know what I mean.
Good luck!

Cheers
-JaySongs

Also helps if you can play the same melody you are singing.

So if you are singing a line with 3 notes resembling lets say:


E| ---- 5----7-----8-----

Play along with what you are singing.

The BEST example of this is the following:




1.20 - First verse.

Notice he plays what he's singing, then zooms straight back into the rhythm?

THAT is the most impressive thing IMO - being able to switch between lead/rhythm without any sort of gap or break - pure skill.

If you sing the same melody you are playing, it makes everything a lot easier, but I would say it's kind of "cheating" but not necessarily unless it's part of the song I guess, but most songs I cover, the piano and the voice, don't cover the same notes because they are suppose to harmonize

Cheers
-JaySongs

I'd say it's only cheating if you play the entire song as melody. Obviously, it takes more talent and skill to find the happy medium of the 2 by playing melody in between the rhythm.

Thats why Hendrix/Clapton/Vaughan are so incredible

I find it helpful to be able to hum two rhytmic patterns at the same time.

For example, if the rhytm-line for guitar would be --.-. / --.-. / and rhytm for vocals would be -.---. / -.---. /, the goal would be to " hear the both rhytms" at the same time.
For some reason i just need the differing rhytms to be clear in my head, then its all pretty easy.

Start with simple guitar rhythms like D D D D... then do DUDUDUDU
Start out slow if you have to... work on that until it's second nature.
Then you can start harder rhythms. It just takes practice!

I was singing with simple DUDUDUDU rhythms for months before I was able to sing while strumming complicated rhythms!

i have trouble singing and playing other musicians music but not my own. i dont know how to explain it but when its my own music and lyrics ive created, it comes to me instantly. but as far as getting down id suggest what everyone else has, just learn the music and lyrics to a near perfect level separately then try to combine the two.