How do you learn to sing and play lead guitar at the same time?

Ask the Expert – How do you learn to sing and play lead guitar at the same time?

Greg Glidden asked a question in our recent live Ask the Expert session:

“How do you suggest getting better at singing while playing lead electric? My brain has trouble harmonizing while attempting to be creative on the guitar. Singing while simply playing chords is one thing; improvising two ways at once is quite another.”

Nick Samaniego:

Honestly? LOADS of hard work. There isn’t a trick to it, it’s just practice, and it’s hard. Plenty of pro-musicians struggle with this sort of thing.

Andy Chamberlain

I’m afraid the only non magic answer to that is to practice both at the same time – a bit like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. That said do try and practice just you would play live – i.e. standing up, projecting into the room and with a metronome if you can…

Our Worship Backing Band musicians practice tracks will give you 54 songs to practice along to if you need something more than the CDs and MP3s you might already have.

Share this post: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

This entry was posted in Ask the expert, Guitar. Bookmark the permalink. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.

Tim Nevell

You probably saw that answer coming ? ;-)
But I can’t help wondering: why do you aspire to this? Especially in the context of worship, I have a hunch that it’s enough to be doing two things at once at the most, but singing and playing lead guitar feels more like 3 things…
Kathleen

I have trouble singing when using a new strumming pattern, much less think about playing lead and singing.
Bryn Roberts

Just a few thoughts to try whilst you’re putting in all those hours of practice :-). I assume that, since you’re playing at the same time as singing, the aim of the lead guitar is to complement your singing (rather than a ‘guitar solo’). In which case, try:

1) duplicating the vocal melody with the guitar to ‘double’ it, which can add richness and depth, but can also expose poor intonation.
2) harmonize the vocal melody – play the melody using the same scale(key) but starting on a different degree of the scale, e.g. third or sixth up. Try different intervals in strict parallel or varying the intervals to find those that work best for you and for different songs.
3) interweave lead guitar phrases between your vocal phrases, focusing on complementing the melody with appropriate chord and scale tones.
4) for some songs, a repeating lead guitar motif or pedal tone lick might work under your vocal. You’ll need to reflect the underlying chord changes and this can be the classic ” rubbing your stomach and patting your head” challenge, mentioned by Andy.

Once you’re ready to bring some of these into your public worship, using sparingly will probably be the most effective.

Have fun and I hope you find your desired expression.
Jason Wells-Jensen

As a singing, band-leading bass player, I most often do variants on #3 and #4 suggested by Bryn Roberts, i.e. …

- usually only playing relatively simple riffs, roots, pedal tones, etc., while singing.

- sometimes adding more complex instrumental fills *between* vocal phrases.

The amount and type of lead playing we do (on guitar or bass or any other instrument) will vary depending on the overall style of the song, of course, but in general if you’re also the lead singer and/or band leader, I think “less” on the instrument is usually more!

That said, my usual approach is to practice (or practise) the vocal melody and bass line separately, then put them together slowly, working extensively on the most troublesome spots – and then, finally, when I’m with the rest of the band, I try to play *less* than I’ve practiced on my own! :)

Peace and love,

jwj

Learn more about Musicademy products

And other bits…

Latest Free Videos

Free resources for church musicians

Ask the Expert – How do you learn to sing and play lead guitar at the same time?

Suggestions for You

Free resources – index

New blog posts by email

Recent Comments

Categories