Singing while fingerpicking lessons?

[stanron]

It's been said earlier but it's worth repeating, keep your guitar playing as simple as possible whilst you are singing. If you have to move your attention from your voice to your guitar, your singing will suffer. Save the clever guitar playing for the solo and maybe the intro.

A non guitar related point is don't ignore your consonants when singing. They define the words. Sloppy consonants can result in unintelligible lyrics and a lost audience.

Have you ever noticed how an angry person can speak slowly and separate each word. If you are telling a story, getting that separation into your lyrics can really help clarity.

Originally Posted by Coler

Not quite though, in as much as you are going to pick individual strings with your fingers, you don’t need to cover/mute all the strings of the chords shape you are strumming. You only fret the strings you want to pick as and when you want to pick them.

One of the things that really makes good finger picking is the ability to fret the notes you need when you need them. It really opens up the possibilities up and down the fret board. That and the ornamentation (slides, flicks, pulls off and hammer ons et).

You make an excellent point here. I was also thinking that you can use the open strings more when you're finger picking, which is kind of saying the same thing. I'm a novice so don't know how to explain it that well, but yes. You only need to cover certain notes.

If you start simple, you can get the hang of it pretty quick.

[the duck]

Thanks Janine, Jdogblues, Sev112, SillyMoustache, and Coler (sorry if I'm missing anyone),
All good points - much appreciated!
I will try some of the chord groupings mentioned to work on easy/fluid shifting between chords. I'm hoping to get my other right hand fingers - middle, ring and pinky more involved. Right now I rely heavily on index and thumb...

I'm going to work on some very simple singing/playing combos as suggested too, so please feel free to send any suggestions for simple, starter songs.

Many thanks!

[tbirdman]

You can learn Travis picking or simple picking style like hitting the bass note of the chord and then the 3rd string, then the 1 & 2 strings together and then the 3rd string again for 4 beats. For 3/4 time you can do a simple arpeggio with the bass string and then in order pick the 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Try this with the House of the Rising Sun or Hallelujah.

However in my opinion, get the most progress is you should work on the singing separate from the guitar. Once you learn both, then put it all together. I have spent many practices just playing the chords of the song with no singing.

[the duck]

Originally Posted by stanron

It's been said earlier but it's worth repeating, keep your guitar playing as simple as possible whilst you are singing. If you have to move your attention from your voice to your guitar, your singing will suffer. Save the clever guitar playing for the solo and maybe the intro.

A non guitar related point is don't ignore your consonants when singing. They define the words. Sloppy consonants can result in unintelligible lyrics and a lost audience.

Have you ever noticed how an angry person can speak slowly and separate each word. If you are telling a story, getting that separation into your lyrics can really help clarity.

Thanks Stanron - Excellent points. My playing and singing both need my full attention, which often means they each get half... It's a real juggling act!

[the duck]

Originally Posted by tbirdman

You can learn Travis picking or simple picking style like hitting the bass note of the chord and then the 3rd string, then the 1 & 2 strings together and then the 3rd string again for 4 beats. For 3/4 time you can do a simple arpeggio with the bass string and then in order pick the 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Try this with the House of the Rising Sun or Hallelujah.

However in my opinion, get the most progress is you should work on the singing separate from the guitar. Once you learn both, then put it all together. I have spent many practices just playing the chords of the song with no singing.

Thanks Birdman - Travis picking seems very practical at this point as I work towards getting the other fingers involved. It's hard for me to separate the singing because a big problem is getting the two rhythms syncopated together. Some I have to practice endlessly just to speak the words over the playing, others are much simpler.