Chords + Vocals

I play mainly Rhythmic-Guitar or Bass ...(I'm not much of a singer ) nut some times I have some ideas I wann'a pass to the other band members , and that means I have to play and sing at the same time which.. I JUST CANT !!!!! :facepalm: when I ask people how they do it they just say "I just can it's easy !! "

but when I try it I ether mess up the chords I'm playing or what ever...or mess up the singing ...

so do you have ideas or lessons and clues about how to do this ???

I had the same problem. For the pianist it's like playing with both hands - difficult to begin with but easy when you are used to it. I wrote down the guitar/vocal parts on paper in proper notation so I could see the relative times of the two parts. But I'm a very notation-minded person so I'm not sure if this will be as useful to others - try it.

well I've tried that ,but the thing is that I totally remember the lyrics and the chords!! so that's not the "timing" problem, it's more of "performing" one ... Any guitar players who can help please ???

I don't understand. If you remember the lyrics and the chords, and you get the relative timings right, what exactly is the problem?

I don't understand. If you remember the lyrics and the chords, and you get the relative timings right, what exactly is the problem?

in one word .. PERFORMING ... i get mixed up and I ether mess up the chords or the singing

in one word .. PERFORMING ... i get mixed up and I ether mess up the chords or the singing

I understand your problem. I play drums and keyboards, and at times sing too and as someone who spent great deal of time on developing independence and coordination required for performing with drums and piano I think I can offer a few advices.

Your problem seems to be that you can't relate the singing and playing the guitar properly because they have different rhythmic figures. While that seems as a hard thing to accomplish at first, it is really not, you just need to spend some time figuring out how do the two different rhythms relate to each other.

Here is a simple excercise.

Take a simple rhythm (straight eights or something like that) and only one chord and strum it continuously while you try to sing on top of that. Shouldn't be too difficult. Now add a slight variation on the guitar rhythm, emphasize every other beat. And try to sing again. If you can, make the rhythm even more complicated. If you can't sing on top of that however, stop, try again and try to realize where exactly in the rhythm or singing you mess up. It will probably be exactly when you try to play that slight variation of the beat. Now isolate that variation and play it until it becomes automatic. Now try to sing something easier on top of that, that doesnt have very prominent rhythmic figures. Once you've accomplished that, try to sing whatever you want.

You just need to develop enough independence between you hands and you mind, to automate the playing so to speak, because the singing is much more inherent and sort of built in. Every two rhythms have spots in them where they interweave, and where the syncopation occurs. You need to realize where those spots are. If you have a regular 4/4 rhythm with every first beat accented and have a singing 4/4 rhythm with every 3hrd accented you need to think of it this way: Hand-accent - 2 - voice accent - 4. So don't think about 2 and 4 beats, you will have no problem playing them. Think about where do the accents or variations go, where exactly in time to they interweave and after some practice, when you learn the concept, you will have no problems in almost any simpler rhythm. Complicated playing-singing rhythms demand some balancing between the two, you will find that most players will simplify the playing in order to sing accurately.

Hope that helps.

than'x :) I try that !!

Well hope that it works :P

yep, phant is right. play quarters on chords and sing the melody, when you make it try and complicate the rhythm of your acoustic guitar abit more, say two eighth notes and a quarter pattern, and so on and so on.

2nd approach is to play with it, and try getting the hard part really really slow, i remember trying to get nick drake's playing and singing, its very hard on parts, so i would only work on those until i get it.

3rd approach(just thought of something) try humming the melody, without the lyrics, and play the chords randomly on the beat, be as accurate as you can, and try to use metronome. say you got one bar Am, second bar C, you can play only the last eighth note of Am and the first of C while humming over those two bars..i use this exercise to work on my rhythmic comping.