How to Learn to Sing While Playing Guitar

[albert_d]

Tony will often (I. The lesson) suggest that while learning to sing to simplify to just the chord progression until one has the lyrics and feel for the timing. Next step is to go back and add the sophistication. I’ve noted now after having it pointed out that many performers (even old blues players) do the same when singing. So there is a starting point.

[SoCal_Ian]

BrandonK…. take a look at these:<div>
</div><div>https://youtu.be/ttSjXUlsu (from our own Tony P!) and

https://youtu.be/NilZXWd2GU0

The videos will lay down some basics. After a while it becomes natural.

Good luck and have fun!

</div>

[adit2me]

Sing the song along with the performer on YouTube. Once you have that under your vocal cords try singing it alone with no instruments.

[Loraine]

Great question Brandon and one that a lot of people ask. It’s often a surprise to people to learn that singing is difficult while playing, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible as you can see from so many that have learned the skill.

I asked the same question for probably a good year. It baffled me. What helped me was to find a very simple song that you know, forwards and backwards, such as Happy Birthday to You, Jingle Bells, or any song that matches the melody. First thing is make sure you know how to play the song fairly well so that you don’t have to think too much when you’re trying to sing along with it once you can basically play the music forward and backwards without thinking much you can just add the words because they’ll be well known to you and match the melody.

It is often much easier to sing while playing when you only strum one time per chord instead of trying to do a strum pattern where you might have to think about what you’re doing too much.

[petelanger]

It’s challenging to do both, you have to be much more familiar with both the melody and the lyrics to pull it off.

Many lead vocalists in rock bands actually have (or had) guitar skills but would rarely play while singing on stage: Sammy Hagar simply wouldn’t play guitar while lead singing and he explained: “if I try to do both, they suffer”. His predecessor, David Lee Roth, has in fact donned a guitar on occasion. Robert Plant could play but did not while Jimmy Page was on stage with him. I’ve seen video of Mick Jagger awkwardly playing guitar on stage, but immediately stop playing when he started singing.

More often than not lead guitarists don’t sing or sing primarily backup vocals. (Pete Townsend, Eddie Van Halen). A select few can seemed to do both with ease but I imagine it comes from doing it a lot from a young age (Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, John Fogerty, Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh, S.R Vaughn, Mark Knopfler, Lindsey Buckingham)

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

Hi @BrandonK that’s a great question that plagues most guitar geeks… I think @Loraine listed a whole bunch of excellent tips that are all very very helpful!!

I also would add that once you learn the guitar part of a song without the singing yet, that you should start playing the song (without the vocals yet) in front of the TV, with the TV sound ON loud enough to be a distraction to your brain. Once you can easily do that, start trying to LISTEN to the TV while you play your guitar song without the vocals. Once you can do that, start trying to listen to the TV weather forecast while playing your guitar song without the vocals, and be able to tell somebody what the weather will be tomorrow after you finish playing. This helped me soooo much!! Both my hands used to go dead as soon as I opened my mouth to start singing. I just didn’t have the bandwidth to operate 2 hands independently plus generate a vocal. So the hands went offline once the vocal started. The TV exercise helps you to find that extra bandwidth in your brain to power up a third thing (vocals) simultaneously.

The best thing about singing and playing, is that it’s just a matter of practicing it. It’s not impossible, just don’t give up!!!! Have fun 🙂

[BrandonK]

Thanks Carol

[Rodeo747]

Tony has an 8 minute video on YouTube of how to play and sing at the same time…