Can you sing and play guitar (at the same time)?

AustrianJohn

I play in a 4 piece band. The other guitarist is also our singer, and - although our guitar skills are similar - he usually asks me to do the more complicated rythym parts and most solos. I hadn't thought much about it, but I was recently making a demo of a song I'd written and discovered that I can't sing and play guitar at the same time (well, anything more complicated than simple chords). Many singer/guitarists (including people like Clapton and John Mayer) seem quite capable of playing very complicated guitar while singing.

Is this a normal afflication? Does it get better with practice?

Jason

Yes, lots and lots of practice will get you there

axisus

It gets better with practice but everyone has a natural level of ability as well. I'd say that generally it is harder to play bass and sing at the same time.

Winny_Pooh

Practice really. If you want to see someone who is bonkers good at it check out Kelly Joe Phelps.

Jason

axisus said:

It gets better with practice but everyone has a natural level of ability as well. I'd say that generally it is harder to play bass and sing at the same time.

Yep, I found bass absolutely impossible

imalrightjack

Yes, to an okay standard. Nothing like Dave Mustaine or James Hetfield!

Maynehead

If I sing while playing it has to be in time with the strumming. Any kind of syncopation and I'm buggered.

stickyfiddle

Generally yes, though it took me a bit of practice to get the hang of it, and some songs still take me an age to get the coordination locked in. Last Nite by the Strokes was one. 

Can anyone talk while playing? For some reason I find that exponentially more difficult.

Cirrus

It gets better with practice, yes.

From the beginning I was singing along with my guitar playing, so it's a skill that I've developed as I learned the basics of playing guitar to the point that I don't even think about it. But it's perfectly doable, you just need to work at it. If you can co-ordinate one hand picking strings and another one fretting them, there's no reason you can't also add singing to that. My advice would be not to think of it as doing two different things at the same time. It's one whole-body task, practice it as such.

RocknRollDave

I saw a video (or did I read it in an article? I forget now) with James Hetfield, where he said sometimes you literally have to go through a song a word at a time to find where each word sits in relation to the guitar parts.
Start slowly and build up, like anything else, I guess, but yeah it's just down to practice, alas.

Stuckfast

I think the key to doing this is that you have to know both the vocal part and the guitar part like the back of your hand. The folk singer Nic Jones had an astonishing ability to play intricate guitar parts in perfect time while singing in a relaxed conversational way. Someone told me once that he used to learn the two parts separately, and practice playing the guitar while talking to his family.

thecolourbox

If it's any consolation, I have found it is a million times harder to play piano and sing at the same time, or at least to do either of those things well at the same time

Alnico

In limited ways i can do this and i think always have done but i've always been aware of the massive decrease in concentration and ability for my playing while i'm singing as well and i don't actually like doing it.
Some songs are fun to play and sing and as long as it's purely rhythm guitar then i'll enjoy it and not worry. Anything that's complex or playing lead and forget it, i'll fuck both up. I'm happy enough playing lead and singing if i can not play at all while singing and play lead in between but i can't do it at the same time.

Weirdly though, the few songs i can fingerpick, i can sing quite happily along to and that doesn't seem to bother me too much.

I'm happiest singing backing vocals or just not singing and focusing purely on the guitar.

m_c

This is something I've been working on over the past few months, and it's just down to practise.

You have to be able to play the guitar with minimal thought, and learn how the lyrics align with the playing.

The best way to think of about it, is if playing the guitar is taking 90% of your concentration, then that only leaves 10% to deal with the lyrics/singing. Now for me, the lyrics/singing take far more than 10% of my concentration, so I can only manage singing and playing to songs that I can play without much thought, and songs I know well.

My most recent major improvement has been learning Hurt by Johnny Cash, as it's the first song where I've been able to create the disconnect between the picking/strumming pattern, and the lyrics. Everything I've done before has involved lyrics that were tightly aligned to the strumming pattern. As a result, I've managed to get a few lines into songs that up until now I just had no chance of getting the lyric/strumming timing anywhere near right.

PS by singing, I personally mean making some form of noise that may or may not be anywhere near the correct pitch!

Alnico

m_c said:

This is something I've been working on over the past few months, and it's just down to practise.

You have to be able to play the guitar with minimal thought, and learn how the lyrics align with the playing.

The best way to think of about it, is if playing the guitar is taking 90% of your concentration, then that only leaves 10% to deal with the lyrics/singing. Now for me, the lyrics/singing take far more than 10% of my concentration, so I can only manage singing and playing to songs that I can play without much thought, and songs I know well.

My most recent major improvement has been learning Hurt by Johnny Cash, as it's the first song where I've been able to create the disconnect between the picking/strumming pattern, and the lyrics. Everything I've done before has involved lyrics that were tightly aligned to the strumming pattern. As a result, I've managed to get a few lines into songs that up until now I just had no chance of getting the lyric/strumming timing anywhere near right.

PS by singing, I personally mean making some form of noise that may or may not be anywhere near the correct pitch!

Wonderful when you get that bit right isn't it !
That's one i can do and i know what you mean about disconnecting from the strumming pattern.

Hurt is one of my all time favourite songs.

Danny1969

stickyfiddle said:

Generally yes, though it took me a bit of practice to get the hang of it, and some songs still take me an age to get the coordination locked in. Last Nite by the Strokes was one. 

Can anyone talk while playing? For some reason I find that exponentially more difficult.

Lol, I do Parklife and talking the verse while playing the verse riff was tricky at first 

octatonic

I never had much trouble singing and playing guitar.
Singing and playing drums took a bit of work but look at how effortless Andy Sturmer from Jellyfish made it look.

Stuckfast

I know someone who sings and plays fiddle at the same time. Also seen him play fiddle and harmonica at the same time.

Danny1969

I always thought Mark King of Level 42 was pretty impressive in this regard, as is John Mayer

Modellista

I've got no problem singing and playing the guitar at the same time. It's remembering the lyrics I have trouble with. 

Boom-tish. 

Seriously, there's nothing worse than arriving at the second verse with a split second to go and realising you've got no idea what the words are.  You end up mumbling the first few syllables and hoping it'll come to you, which it always does, in some mangled fashion. 

As as mentioned above, there's only so much brainpower available for conscious thought. So as much as possible needs to be locked into muscle memory in rehearsal. And then remembering to remember becomes a thing!

Don't get too carried away with that wanky solo that you can't remember the words, basically. 

Alnico

modellista said:

I've got no problem singing and playing the guitar at the same time. It's remembering the lyrics I have trouble with. 

Boom-tish. 

Seriously, there's nothing worse than arriving at the second verse with a split second to go and realising you've got no idea what the words are.  You end up mumbling the first few syllables and hoping it'll come to you, which it always does, in some mangled fashion. 

As as mentioned above, there's only so much brainpower available for conscious thought. So as much as possible needs to be locked into muscle memory in rehearsal. And then remembering to remember becomes a thing!

Don't get too carried away with that wanky solo that you can't remember the words, basically. 

My brother is a Bass player and in a band with him in the 80's, i heard him coin the phrase.....
"The Curse of the second verse".

From that day on i have always messed up the second verse in some way because every time verse 2 approaches, i hear him saying that and it completely takes over my conscious mind.
Wedge shaped monitors hide a multitude of ineptitude and written reminders for me.