Playing Guitar While Singing

We look at the beginning steps of playing guitar to accompany ourselves whilst singing.

Lesson aims

• Try to play simple rhythms on the guitar and sing together

• Learn tips and tricks to help with timing and further progression

Exercise - Combining simple strumming and singing

1. Pick simple and familiar chords of your choice

2. Play single strums whilst singing a repetitive tune and keeping good timing

3. Try slowly incorporating more complex rhythms on the guitar and singing a tune

Extra tips

• Try playing along to a metronome. This keeps us in time but also helps us to 'feel' and remember commonly used song speeds (Beats per minute - BPM)

• Record and film our own playing, this way we can listen back and document the progress on our techniques

Keep learning - bonus videos

For many people who follow Andy's lessons, this is a big part of what they want to be able to do. Therefore, here's a couple of videos and more tips to get you playing and singing at the same time with confidence!

1. Song choice is crucial, try not to be precious (rhythm but also voice timbre) 

Choose songs where the strumming matches the rhythm of the words with no syncopation (no irregular or complex rhythms). As a guitarist, there are typically going to be a larger selection of songs that you can play than you can sing. Here are my song recommendations with tutorials links to get you starter;

• Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers

• Any Johnny Cash song (just keep the strumming to once per chord at first!)

• Songbird by Oasis

• Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

• Mr Tambourine Man by The Byrds

• Knockin' On Heavens Door by Bob Dylan

• Hey Jude by The Beatles

• That'll Be The Day by Buddy Holly

2. Start with single strums of each chord

If you’re totally new to this, don’t try and sing over barre chords or a new riff that you’re still learning. Strum once per chord, then strum to the pulse of the beat of the song, working up to the full strumming pattern gradually over time.

3. Use a capo to change the key to suit your vocal range 

You can also use the transpose feature on sites like ultimate guitar to lower they key. This will appear to change all the chords in the song, but the resulting sound of the song will be the same. Often, bands tune down by ½ a step or even a full step to make the higher notes easier for the vocalist to reach. Research, learn and practice learning songs in different keys so that you don’t get caught out. 

4. Get the guitar playing automatic, and think about your singing 

This is a basic principal of how you do two things at once. One of the two things must be EASY., automatic, effortless, while you think about the other. For most people, the thing to make automatic is the guitar playing. Then your mind has more free space to think about the singing, when to breath, pitch of voice etc.

As you start to increase the strumming, you may notice things start to fall apart. This is likely due to contrasting rhythms between the guitar and the singing. 

5. Realise this will take as much dedicated practice time as anything else

Singing and playing guitar, even without an audience, is basically performing. It’s just a fact that it takes more practice time to get something to performance standard. You must learn to be ok with this and accept.  But remember, it can take lesson than 20 hours to MASTER the basics.

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