Playing and singing

[jschmitz54]

I’ve just past two years of playing acoustic guitar. I have a difficult time playing and singing. If I sing my playing, especially my pick hand has trouble strumming or picking correctly. I can’t seem to keep the correct strumming pattern. I also don’t seem to be able to project my voice and often find myself singing the strumming pattern instead of the correct melody. How do you sing and project your voice to the best of your ability and do your best playing at the same time and why is this so difficult for me?
There is one exception and that is Neil Young’s Old Man which I started learning early in my journey and have reached a certain level of competence playing and singing at the same time so I know it can be done.
Is this common? Are there any exercises to help? Wondering what others experiences have been like in this regard.

[jpd]

My pattern is to play the song while I "talk" it thru. Give it a try

[pf400]

Practice lots. For me, I loved an Allman Brothers song Dark-Eyed Cajun Woman and could sing it without playing. Then one day in front of friends I just gave it a shot and it was a good start. I'm not a great singer but I've learned to open my mouth and really enunciate each syllable. Tapping a foot helps too. I played easy blues progressions too and just made up tunes on the fly and found that easy too. Of course vocal lessons can do wonders, they say.

[4-string]

Practice, practice, practice.

Break things down in bits and pieces and play them slowly, so slow that you really know and understand in detail what you are doing.

Not a singer myself, but a converted bass player. A couple of years ago I decided to teach myself how to play fingerstyle guitar a la Chet Atkins et al, and let me tell you those first hours (months.....) are really hard and so frustrating. Keep at it, at some point keeping the bass going with the thumb becomes second nature and you can focus on learning new tunes.

There are no short cuts really. If so I would love to hear about them.

[Goat Mick]

Most people that have the same issues as you're having have spent a lot more time working on the guitar part of the song and then added the vocals afterwards. The vocals take at least as much work as the guitar parts. You need to be able to do both without thinking about them. Which of course means more practice. No worries though because it'll get easier in time.

[lowrider]

As 4 String said; practice, practice, practice!

And slow down! You need to have to guitar part down pat, so you can play it in your sleep. Then you can start to sing and feel the rhythm and it will all start to come together.

[archerscreek]

I do things differently than some. I learn a song by singing and playing at the same time, rather than learning the guitar part first then fitting vocals in there.

Also, written transcriptions (even published ones in books) arenÂ’t always 100% accurate, especially with the placement of words on top of the music. So if something in a song book is throwing you off, go by what hear in your head and see if that helps.

And thereÂ’s nothing wrong with playing a song a bit differently to match what you feel or hear. DonÂ’t be afraid to ditch the suggested strum pattern or alter it a bit. I donÂ’t think anyone ever played more live shows than Bill Monroe, and he said he always played and sang each song a bit differently depending on how he felt or what was going on in his life at the time.

Remember, music is art not engineering.

[Earl49]

Originally Posted by Goat Mick

....The vocals take at least as much work as the guitar parts. You need to be able to do both without thinking about them. Which of course means more practice. No worries though because it'll get easier in time.

This is basically what I was going to say. Each element essentially has to be on autopilot. You have to have the singing part down cold, the guitar part down cold, and then combine them - a whole separate step. There are a lot of "windows" open on your computer at the same time which challenges the CPU. I've also read that there are only a relatively small percentage of musicians (~20%) that CAN play and sing at the same time. Perhaps most of those folks take up wind instruments that preclude doing both?

[ghostnote]

Listen to these people.^^ The only way to learn it is to do it again and again until it's the normal way of doing things. And once you know you can sing and play simultaneously, then you can go back and work on whichever part needs some polishing without worrying about backsliding - because you already know you can do it. It will become second nature before you know it.

[T.Lime]

As noted above you really have to have the guitar part down pat, so that you can play with out looking at your strumming hand. Down pat means with a steady time sig. That will make the singing part so much easier. Practice the guitar part with a click track, will make it all much easier ( once you get used to playing with a click track ) I have been singing and playing at the same time for years, and still it all goes wrong on some days- the thrill of playing live !

[keith.rogers]

Joining in with the mantra: practice is the only way.

Playing guitar and singing, while both musical expressions, are really different, which is why, honestly, and most folks tend to be better at one or the other, and some choose to only do one. If you are going to sing, you have to be able to focus on doing the song's lyrics and melody in a way that is enjoyable to listen to. So, at that point, you've got to be able to let the guitar playing part go on auto-pilot.

I suggest practicing with a metronome. As mentioned, you have to be able to play the song "in your sleep," or nearly so. Keeping the strumming pattern going and rhythm steady will make singing easier. Start with simple songs that have a basic chord structure, perhaps even the same one throughout both verses and choruses. If you have to look at your hand(s) while singing, you won't be able to keep your focus on the singing part, so find songs that let you deliver the vocal performance first, and don't tackle something with complex guitar work until you can "split your brain" and do both at the same time.

Good luck.

[raysachs]

It just comes with time. I can't sing at ALL - I'm a pretty terrible singer. But I can sing better while I'm playing than I can when I'm not. I mess around with recording just for fun, and when I record the first track with acoustic AND vocal, the vocal invariably sounds better than if I just play the song on one track and then add the vocals on another. Then I can go in and maybe add a second vocal track and any other instruments I want to add, but I gotta have the main vocal on the same take as the basic rhythm part.

Early on, playing wasn't automatic enough to be able to sing with it at all, but I got to a point with my rhythm playing that I could just kind of feel my way through the song. I don't concentrate on any strumming pattern - I just play the song with whatever stops and starts and arpeggiated parts and changes in dynamics that feels right to me. The better I know the song, the better I can get to the heart of it. And my vocals are poor at best, but they're better than they used to be and they're much better when I'm playing also. I can't say I ever "learned how" - I just did it until I it started coming easier and then, when it was fun, I did it more and more and got somewhat better at it.

-Ray

[Rosewood99]

I feel your pain. There are only a couple of songs that I can sing and play at the same time. I think for me it depends where the vocals and the strumming patterns meet.

[Skarsaune]

It always has seemed to me that some songs are/were written (and sung!) by guitar players, because the strumming and singing flow together.

Other songs, it seems like a singer has just dropped some words in on top of what the guitar was playing at the time. Lots harder to play and sing, as the rhythms don't mesh as well.


Pick a simple song. Don't be a hero, stick to 3 cowboy chords and a straight forward rhythm. And practice practice practice. This will get you started, and the confidence you gain will help you take on more complex arrangements.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by jschmitz54

...Are there any exercises to help? Wondering what others experiences have been like in this regard.

There's been some excellent advice so far - bottom line is that it's a matter of muscle memory, and that's acquired with repeated practice. One approach I used with my own students was to have them master the strumming pattern of a given (simple) song, then practice singing (either to my accompaniment or a recording) while playing "air guitar"; once they were able to achieve a consistent rhythm I handed them the guitar - with the psychological barrier of "walking down the street and chewing gum" gone they were generally able to come close on the first try, at which point I was able to assist with refinement of technique, dynamics, etc. ...