Am I being unreasonable (singer issues)

RedRabbit

Thanks for the input guys.

Had a chat with him about it and cleared the air a bit.  I appreciate how much work he's got to do as singer and bass player but he's decided he wants to keep doing both and will work on both more.  Turns out there were a few causes of the strop.  Firstly, he was feeling frustrated after the tough practice and wasn't taking my recommendations well.  Secondly, he's been trying to learn the bass and vocal parts simultaneously - he's decided to first get the bass parts sorted, then the vocals and then bring them together.  We're going to start having mini practice sessions for just the two of us so we can work out niggles.

If he stays true to his word things should hopefully improve.

Phil_aka_Pip

@RedRabbit good plan, Sir. Best of, and all that

mike257

There's a few threads over on Basschat discussing singing whilst bassing, with some good pointers on practice methods and plenty of real world experience shared , might be worth a look for him!

BenSirAmos

I'm glad you seem to have found a way to work together. A bit of seeing things from each other's point of view is a real help.

Personally, I don't take a lot of notice of criticism of my singing style from people who aren't lead singers. Everyone seems to know the lyrics, the tune, the vocal cues and everything else much better than me - until I suggest that they sing the lead vocal on that number and then they shut up and bury their noses in the chord sheet.

I find singing much much harder than playing guitar - and, as lead singer, you find that all eyes are on you almost all of the time. If the guitarist screws up - if the audience notices - everyone looks at the singer/front man to find out what is going on. If they notice a mistake by the bass player, they look at the singer / front man. Drums go out of time? - they look at the front man.

I do try and get things right - and I like to hear what other people think of what I do, I try to correct mistakes I make and I love being in bands and being part of bands - but if I thought that I was carrying all the load, taking the front man role, doing all the singing AND playing bass while you were strumming a few chords, I would tell you your job was to back up the vocals not just read the chords.

monquixote

Singing while playing bass can be hard. 

When it's just straight 8's it's easy enough, but when you are playing something complex and singing at the same time (GIrls on Film springs to mind) you have to really get the bass parts committed to muscle memory and reply on the hands doing what they are told so you can concentrate on singing.

digitalscream

BenSirAmos said:

Personally, I don't take a lot of notice of criticism of my singing style from people who aren't lead singers. Everyone seems to know the lyrics, the tune, the vocal cues and everything else much better than me - until I suggest that they sing the lead vocal on that number and then they shut up and bury their noses in the chord sheet.

Not convinced about that - it seems like a rather blinkered point of view. You don't have to be able to sing to be able to hear things that could be improved in the vocals, just like you don't have to be able to play guitar to hear what could be better, or bass, or drums etc...otherwise every producer out there would be out of a job.

BenSirAmos

digitalscream said:

BenSirAmos said:

Personally, I don't take a lot of notice of criticism of my singing style from people who aren't lead singers. Everyone seems to know the lyrics, the tune, the vocal cues and everything else much better than me - until I suggest that they sing the lead vocal on that number and then they shut up and bury their noses in the chord sheet.

Not convinced about that - it seems like a rather blinkered point of view. You don't have to be able to sing to be able to hear things that could be improved in the vocals, just like you don't have to be able to play guitar to hear what could be better, or bass, or drums etc...otherwise every producer out there would be out of a job.

But there is a difference - not everyone thinks that they know all about guitaring if they've never played - but they think they know how to sing because they were in the choir in sunday school.

I imagine it is the same for drummers though - everyone knows how to play drums, right?

meltedbuzzbox

As the voice is an instrument, another musician can identify whether something is out of time or out of tune.

Just because fellow band members might not sing in the band it doesn't leave them void of an opinion regarding timing or pitch.

RedRabbit

BenSirAmos said:

I'm glad you seem to have found a way to work together. A bit of seeing things from each other's point of view is a real help.

Personally, I don't take a lot of notice of criticism of my singing style from people who aren't lead singers. Everyone seems to know the lyrics, the tune, the vocal cues and everything else much better than me - until I suggest that they sing the lead vocal on that number and then they shut up and bury their noses in the chord sheet.

I find singing much much harder than playing guitar - and, as lead singer, you find that all eyes are on you almost all of the time. If the guitarist screws up - if the audience notices - everyone looks at the singer/front man to find out what is going on. If they notice a mistake by the bass player, they look at the singer / front man. Drums go out of time? - they look at the front man.

I do try and get things right - and I like to hear what other people think of what I do, I try to correct mistakes I make and I love being in bands and being part of bands - but if I thought that I was carrying all the load, taking the front man role, doing all the singing AND playing bass while you were strumming a few chords, I would tell you your job was to back up the vocals not just read the chords.

I know I can't sing well but I can tell when any instrument comes in early/late, misses a note or screws up some other way.  Should they do it during a gig then we all try to compensate but in practice it's counter productive to cover up mistakes.  If the singer is continually reaching the chorus two bars early the problem is with the singer not the rest of the band.

Anyone belittling my opinion because I'm "just" a guitarist would soon find themselves either looking for a new band or a new guitarist.  We're all musicians and share a common language.  The fact that your instrument is your voice doesn't make you any more special than the rest of the band.

digitalscream

BenSirAmos said:

But there is a difference - not everyone thinks that they know all about guitaring if they've never played - but they think they know how to sing because they were in the choir in sunday school.

I imagine it is the same for drummers though - everyone knows how to play drums, right?

No, that's not it at all. I can't sing a single bloody note in tune, but I'm perfectly capable of discerning when our singer's fucking up, just as she - who wouldn't know which end of a guitar to hold, much less play - can tell when I'm doing it wrong. Equally, everybody in the band has come up with ideas for vocals, guitar, drums, bass...even though the only multi-instrumentalist we have is our drummer.

They don't take it personally, and neither do I...because we're on the same team.

Every band I've been in (or seen) where somebody's had the "You can't <sing/play guitar/whatever> so don't criticise the way I do it" attitude has ended up with everybody just keeping their head down and concentrating on their own bit rather than being able to work together and make it all sound good. As a result, they sounded absolutely shit.

RedRabbit

mike257 said:

There's a few threads over on Basschat discussing singing whilst bassing, with some good pointers on practice methods and plenty of real world experience shared , might be worth a look for him!

Missed this before.  I'll check them out and send him a few links if there's anything I think he'll benefit from.

Cheers!

BenSirAmos

digitalscream said:

we're on the same team.

We are on the same team, so we should be working on delivering a show for the audience, not calculating whether some other band member is perfect, in our opinion. Everybody has an opinion - and those opinions are valid and welcome. It's just that I want all band members to focus on delivering a show, not focus on whether I can reproduce a recording.

digitalscream

BenSirAmos said:

digitalscream said:

we're on the same team.

We are on the same team, so we should be working on delivering a show for the audience, not calculating whether some other band member is perfect, in our opinion. Everybody has an opinion - and those opinions are valid and welcome. It's just that I want all band members to focus on delivering a show, not focus on whether I can reproduce a recording.

I wasn't talking about reproducing a recording, and I think you know that. Whatever...

Guitarse

I worked with a bass player like that...kept playing the wrong notes and coming in at the wrong places. It was never his fault apparently. He kept blagging his way through the songs (covers) and saying he's making it his own! A bullshitter, basically, so I walked!

With playing covers, you have the original song as a blueprint, so there's no excuse for not listening to it, and if it's not going right, just get him to listen to it at band practices and show him how it goes.

Give it another couple of rehearsals and if this guy can't accept that he's getting it wrong, get rid of him. Sounds harsh, but if he's going to keep holding the rest of you back, it's time to look for another singer.

dogload

Guitarse said:

With playing covers, you have the original song as a blueprint, so there's no excuse for not listening to it, and if it's not going right, just get him to listen to it at band practices and show him how it goes.

I couldn't agree more. I think this problem is partly a result of the internet providing easy access to lyrics, which make singers (and sometimes musicians who just download tab instead of listening to the actual song) lazy. 

Edited due to piss going off the boil.

Bidley

dogload said:

I couldn't agree more. I think this problem is partly a result of the internet providing easy access to lyrics, which make singers (and sometimes musicians who just download tab instead of listening to the actual song) lazy. 

Edited due to piss going off the boil.

Disagree. The resources available now are brilliant for learning songs. Now people don't have to wing it by playing what they think the band they're covering is doing. Learning to play stuff perfectly by ear is a nice exercise and absolutely a massive asset, but it shouldn't be a prerequisite.

dogload

I'm not dismissing the usefulness of online facilities (indeed I have used them myself) but in my opinion they shouldn't necessarily be the first port of call. When learning something isn't it better to actually listen properly to the actual song? I know it's not a perfect analogy, but you wouldn't paint a landscape without having a good look first. I have had to listen to far too many examples of kids learning songs from online tab and not really understanding what the actual tune is.

To be honest, my post was largely based on a rant about singers not learning songs and lyrics without listening to the original song (and in particular my original songs), choosing to rely on internet sources for lyrics. In such cases I do think it is better to grab a pen and paper and listen.