#16
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"Does singing and playing at the same time get easier as you learn more songs?"
I sure hope so! I struggled with this, as well. I found remembering my own lyrics to be a struggle, so I used Wade's approach and have been more successful. I tend to find getting the lyrics finished, my greatest hurdle - I always have pieces of songs in my head that simply need bridges and lyrics to put it all together.
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#17
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Your audience often won't even realize small gafs and if they do, they usually just let things go by if you don't bring attention to them, ie. Stopping. In addition to playing and singing a tune over and over, I record the guitar part. Then if I can do the singing of lyrics but not play, I have the recorded music to sing to. |
#18
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Everything hard gets less hard with practice. I'm a terrible singer and a mediocre at best guitarist, but I've been doing both together for quite a while now and I don't really suck at the combination, given that I'm nothing to write home about at either discipline.
But it also depends on what you're going for. I'm just now learning to fingerpick and the idea of being able to fingerpick and sing along is beyond laughable to me at this point. There are a lot of rock rhythms on electric guitar that I couldn't pull off and sing at the same time. And others that just fall right into place. All I do is strum the chords and sing along. But over the years I've gotten a lot better at mixing up the rhythms, blending in some arpeggios, doing a lot of little hammer-ons and suspensions, etc, such that now when I sing and play I really kind of like my playing. And my singing is getting very slightly less terrible every decade or so... -Ray Last edited by raysachs; 05-28-2019 at 08:19 AM. |
#19
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Woooow! Invaluable information. Thank you everybody. This skill as a whole is something I’m hyperfocusing on right now. Biannual motor skills, (patting head and rubbing stomache). I started doing practices on the keyboard for using both hands at the same time. Also an app called synchrony is pretty wild. But al this info is more than I hoped for, awesome. I’m definitely going to push myself to play a couple rounds while half conscious. Sounds like a great mental trick, playing while your brain is on another level. Thanks again.
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#20
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Yes. All has been said in posts preceding mine.
I will say that it took me about a year to play (finger picking) at a level I enjoyed playing at. Then, frustratingly, it took another 6 months before I could sing over it. But, that's all in the past now. Practice. |
#21
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What Wade said. Very good advice here. I would only add that it might be useful to decide whether you are a guitar player or a singer. I used to spend way too much time working on the guitar and less on the feeling and meaning of the song. A song is a piece of art (to me) and it deserves the thought and practice to make it communicate feeling to the audience. In the end they will pay more attention to the singing than the picking. Of course, your picking should not suck...
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#22
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The guitar player is more focused on the setting, crafting a complex world of feeling and emotion in which the singing can sit. The best, though, often switch roles throughout, often bar by bar. Providing a simple setting for the singing, but evoking time, place, character and emotion in the interludes between the words. Or something like that... |
#23
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#24
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Yes, it gets easier and easier. Some times a new song still stumps me for a bit but that's something I get over within a day or two compared to weeks when I was first learning
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#25
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The learning curve is definitely that -- a curve. It's non-linear. In other words, the relationship between how long it takes you to learn a new song or skill and the time you've been playing is not a straight line, but a steep, upward-sloping curve: In the beginning, it will take you a while to master something, but the longer you play, the shorter that time will become.
I remember back when I started learning my first fiddle tunes. "So many notes," I thought, "how am I going to remember all those arbitrary melody lines?" The experience prompted me to avoid learning fiddle tunes, just because to me, they were just a random piece of music that cost me a great deal of work to memorize. "With such a vast array of tunes out there, why even bother trying to learn a few, only to then forget them again?" is what I thought at the time. It took me a while to realize that fiddle tunes follow quite predictable patterns, none of which I was aware of when I first started. So forced myself to start learning one, then two, then three. I remember that it took me several weeks to play and memorize the melody of "Soldier's Joy," the first fiddle tune I ever learned. Now, with a few more tunes under my belt, I find myself being able to learn an entire new tune in a matter of an hour or so. Same goes for singing and playing. When I first started playing guitar, I found singing and playing extremely difficult. Now, I don't even think about that part anymore. It has become completely second nature.
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#26
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But yes, everything that Wade said on this topic is excellent advice.
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"I've always thought of bluegrass players as the Marines of the music world" – (A rock guitar guy I once jammed with) Martin America 1 Martin 000-15sm Recording King Dirty 30s RPS-9 TS Taylor GS Mini Baton Rouge 12-string guitar Martin L1XR Little Martin 1933 Epiphone Olympic 1971 square neck Dobro |
#27
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I have just one additional suggestion. Learn the lyric that goes with the first beat of each line. Then the lyric for the first beat of each measure. That way when you get lost, you will have a starting point on your next "1" beat.
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#28
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+1 to everything Wade said in the initial response. I could never play and sing at the same time. So, when I began playing again (after a 10 year hiatus), I made that a priority. It was difficult at first, but it's gotten easier, so now it's part of learning a new song for me.
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#29
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Some researchers have suggested that it's not so much talent that makes for accomplished musicians but the ability to focus effort. - Glenn
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#30
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Great thread. great posts.
Yes. You improve the longer you do it, but they're definitely shortcuts and things which simplify the process. As was said above, it's not always a linear progression . More than that, it's not even a very nice curve a lot of time. A lot of progress is about mini- breakthroughs more than linear progress or a curve etc. ....sometimes it's plateau followed by almost instantaneous understanding at a much higher level etc. Understand that it's somewhat an independent skill from learning to sing or learning to play. With that in mind, remember that it's okay to learn much simpler songs in the beginning . Once you learn the basic combined SKILL a little better , you can do it more easily with harder music. Prioritize your list of songs you want to learn in order of difficulty and maybe even consciously seek out songs which are obviously easier to sing and play simultaneously from the start. There's a balance between learning songs which really inspire you musically and toons which are easier to learn. Great songs keep you going and inspired as a musician, but learning a few simpler tunes may get you there faster in the long run. Absolutely. |