How many sing while they play? Or only play with no singing?

[Silly Moustache]

I was a drummer. A good one. Ginger Baker told me so, so it must be true.
I met this girl, young dark, beautiful, loved "Folk" music (Eugh!)

She charmed my into taking her to a folk festival.
We only went there to see an American folk singer. his name was (and still is) Tom Rush.
I saw him standing on a podium with one mic and an Epiphone Texan and charm the crowd.

I thought "I want to do that!"

I was getting tired of the increasing volume of the amps beside me and looking at the singer's back side.

I wanted to sing. Like Tom Rush. So I bought an acoustic guitar.

and .... fifty years later ......

The. End. .......... but not quite. this week, alone I have convinced two grown men both convinced that they couldn't sing ... to sing and play! I love that!

[raysachs]

I’m not a particularly good player and I’m particularly NOT a good singer, but I sing and play together. While no better than semi-decent at either discipline, doing the two together has always been relatively easy for me. It all makes more sense to me when it’s of a piece - it’s all about making a single piece of music, as opposed to two separate disciplines…

-Ray

[jaymarsch]

I have done some solo guitar playing but I am a singer songwriter who plays guitar so definitely both for me.

Best,
Jayne

[Doug Young]

When I was younger, I played and sang in bands. I always wanted to be the guy that people would hire to *just* play, without needing to sing to get the job, like, say Jeff Beck. Never happened while I was working in bands, but these days I'm my own band, so the first thing I did was fire myself as a singer and hire myself as an instrumental guitarist :-) So playing only these days!

[SongwriterFan]

For the past two years, I both play AND sing at the same time (and in public) . . and do my OWN songs (almost no covers for me).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=792V0tukK_k

[NotveryGood]

I only ever played at home because I have always known my voice isn't good, and didn't think anyone at acoustic sessions or open mics would wish to listen to endless instrumentals. I got talking with a guy 3 years ago at an acoustic night , (we were there independently as spectators). Turned out he loved singing but couldn't play a note on an instrument. So we gave it a go. Together we play at events and are generally well received, so after nearly half a century, my musical hobby has been transformed. The only hard part has been finding songs we both like! As a bonus he has become a good friend too

[Rockysdad]

I do the playing part and my *inner voice* takes care of the vocals.

I don't care that nobody hears the *inner voice*.

[ghostnote]

I play literally no instrumentals, except for songs I’ve written myself that don’t have lyrics yet. Since day one of my guitar playing, singing was part of it. I used to sing harmonies to songs on the radio as a kid, long before I knew what harmony was. I was just making up things that sounded cool when I mixed them in with the songs I was hearing. My guitar playing is the same way: I have no musical education, but from time to time I’ll find out that something I’ve been doing for years has a name in music theory. “Oh, so that’s what they call that?” To sing and play simultaneously for an audience you have to be fairly good at both. To play just instrumentals, you have to be really good at it.

[CarlE]

I am part of an acoustic duo where I mainly play guitar and sing backup vocals. I sing lead on a few songs, maybe one or two per set. I guess when it comes to vocals, I fill the Ringo position - providing a bit of a diversion at best!

[SpruceTop]

I sing and play.

[cliff_the_stiff]

Now I sing and play. For about 20 years or so I couldn’t do both.
Now that I can play some simpler songs and sing, it’s opened up a lot of songs to relearn.
I’ve found that I need to simplify my guitar pieces some to make room for the words…

[jseth]

Oh sure, I sing and play... was singing before playing the guitar, certainly, by at least 4 years or so... started playing guitar at 9 years old.

When I'm performing the ratio is ~80% singing to 20% playing only... when I'm sitting in my home, the ratio is nearly flipped - I play MUCH MORE than I sing at home, unless I'm working on something specifically...

[donlyn]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

*
She charmed my into taking her to a folk festival.
We only went there to see an Anerican folk singer. his name was (and still is) Tom Rush.
I saw him standing on a podium with one mic and an Epiphone Texan and charm the crowd.

I thought "I want to do that!"
*

Tom Rush was an early influence for me and has always been one of my favorite performers. I do his version of "Urge For Going" almost every day, even when I don't have an audience. When he started out, he used to do 'One-man-band' Jesse Fuller's song "San Francisco Bay Blues", and that song is still part of my repertoire.

Don
.

[Wade Hampton]

I’ve always sung - my mother told me that when I was tiny I was just as likely to sing as talk, and would make up what she called my “calypso songs” about what I was doing: “I woke up today and put on my pants.” And so forth.

Decades later, when I started playing musical instruments I worked in the singing pretty quickly.


Wade Hampton Miller

[TBman]

I sang as a young teenager, but when I hit my late teens I stopped. My voice is terrible.