Tips for singing while playing bass

Shenron

Shenron

Jan 18, 2024
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#1
How many of you sing while playing bass, and are you the main voice or a background singer?

Do you actually dedicate study and practice to develop your singing, or just count on what you can sing untrained?

If you do practice singing, do you have a skill area you focus on more than others, such as intonation, range, volume, endurance, expression...

Besides the obvious "practice a million hours", what helped you learn to sing and play at the same time, without the two messing up the other, particularly when they follow different rhythms?

Have you noticed if songs written by bass players who are also singers are somewhat easier?
 
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#2
These will get you started...

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/bassists-guide-to-singing.173764/ (I believe this is the big, stickied one)










The biggest issue is the rhythm/cadence thing. Generally I would say, if the vocal and bass lines don't come together naturally, 1) drill each part separately till you know them cold, and then 2) find the "anchor points," which are what I call beats where the vocal and bass hit together. If you learn the song as a succession of anchor points, and also know the parts separately, then each part fills in from point to point, if that makes sense.
 
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#3
i used to lead sing and play complex bass lines, and in other bands, i sang harmony and played bass. i did it by learning the singing parts and the bass parts separately till i had both nailed, and i could do them together at that point because i didn't have to think about either.

i found learning the parts separately took a lot less time than trying to learn to do them together.
 
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#5
Ritter667 said:
I've given up on that.
Click to expand...

LOL! ^^^This.

I used to sing (while playing bass) in bands. I was often the lead singer in my 1970s teenage rock band, and throughout the 1980s I was always singing lead or backing vocals in every band I played with.
But then right around 1989 something weird happened, and for inexplicable reasons I suddenly lost the ability to sing & play at the same time! No idea what precipitated it, it literally happened overnight...went to a rehearsal, tried to sing, everything fell apart...
Every once in a while these days I'll give it a shot (off-mic) just to confirm "Nope, still can't do it." Bizarre.
 
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#7
I'm sorry for not giving a direct answer to the thread question but........................

Some can sing and play an instrument and some can't.

I recently read that B. B. King could not play and sing at the same time and Frank Zappa could not either. There were others on the list but off-hand, I can't remember.
 
#9
As @pcake said try learning separately. IME learning vocals and the bass lines cold so the bass is “automatic” is my trick. Not saying the bass part doesn’t matter, but if you clam a note or simplify a run nobody knows and nobody cares. If you clam vocals you train wreck the song. If it’s challenging start by prioritizing vocals.

Work through your bass such that you could play it with your eyes closed and work up the vocals such that you would be confident to hold a mic and make eye contact and prowl the stage. Then combine 1 or 2 bars at a time and don’t move on until you get it.

To me the hardest part is separating the bass timing structure from the more fluid cadence of vocals. Small bites.
 
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#10
pcake said:
i used to lead sing and play complex bass lines, and in other bands, i sang harmony and played bass. i did it by learning the singing parts and the bass parts separately till i had both nailed, and i could do them together at that point because i didn't have to think about either.

i found learning the parts separately took a lot less time than trying to learn to do them together.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what Geddy Lee said when asked from time to time about how he could sing over the complex Rush bass lines.
 
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#11
Killing Floor said:
As @pcake said try learning separately. IME learning vocals and the bass lines cold so the bass is “automatic” is my trick. Not saying the bass part doesn’t matter, but if you clam a note or simplify a run nobody knows and nobody cares. If you clam vocals you train wreck the song. If it’s challenging start by prioritizing vocals.

Work through your bass such that you could play it with your eyes closed and work up the vocals such that you would be confident to hold a mic and make eye contact and prowl the stage. Then combine 1 or 2 bars at a time and don’t move on until you get it.

To me the hardest part is separating the bass timing structure from the more fluid cadence of vocals. Small bites.
Click to expand...
Well, I can play bass with my eyes closed, even improvise freely on bass with my eyes closed, and I have no issue with padding my head and rubbing my stomach simultaneously, whichever arms doing what or what direction, I can repeat complicated tongue twisters lightning fast, and improvise harmony vocals for a song immediately and perfectly, but I still can't sing while playing bass at the same time, unless the bass line's rhythm match that of the vocal line.

As I said for me singing and playing bass at the same time is more akin to that of having to write two different improvised pieces of text with respectively your left and right hand simultaneously.

Simply impossible to me.

Not to discourage OP, or anyone else hoping to do this, but I do believe it requires some level of innate predisposition to be able to do so.
 
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#12
I sing about half the songs in my 80's band, and pretty much everything in my country band. I will just repeat what has been said. It is just practice. For most songs I just get to where I can auto pilot the bass and concentrate on the vocal. Most songs are fairly easy at this point, some not so much. I seem to remember doing Dead man's Party a few years ago and that definitely took some work. As silly as it may sound, right now I'm struggling a little with My Next Broken Heart by Brooks and Dunn. Walking bass line but the vocal has to not be robotic. Getting the vocal to not fall exactly on the beat all the time with the bass is causing me a little grief. Eventually I'll get it. I think right now I just need to get the bass a little more solid. I am still thinking just a bit. Unfortunately it really is mostly about putting the hours into it.
 
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#13
I've always sang backup vocals (a great skill to have as a bassist because it will make you more in demand) but rarely sang lead. But then a few years ago I joined a band where they really encouraged me to sing lead vocals. None of us were great singers but we divvied up the lead vocals between us so we each did a share. The more I sang lead, the better I got at it and the more confident I became. Now, in my current band, I sing 85% of the lead vocals--while playing bass--and I really enjoy it.

As others have said, what works for me is to practice the bass part and the vocal separately, until I have each one down cold. Then I bring them together. It's gotten easier the more I've done it. I often practice singing while I'm driving or riding my bicycle, in order to memorize the lyrics and get the vocal part ingrained in my brain.

I took some vocal lessons many years ago and they were very helpful. Mainly what I learned was how to use my diaphragm and costal muscles. Made a big difference.
 
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#14
Playing and singing is tough enough as it is. But doing both while performing is even harder.
You have to be able to play without "looking down". If your having to crane your neck to see your fretboard, its awkward. And audiences want you looking at them, not your bass.
Practice and experience are the only way to develop this muscle.
 
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#15
Shenron said:
How many of you sing while playing bass, and are you the main voice or a background singer?

Do you actually dedicate study and practice to develop your singing, or just count on what you can sing untrained?

If you do practice singing, do you have a skill area you focus on more than others, such as intonation, range, volume, endurance, expression...

Besides the obvious "practice a million hours", what helped you learn to sing and play at the same time, without the two messing up the other, particularly when they follow different rhythms?

Have you noticed if songs written by bass players who are also singers are somewhat easier?
Click to expand...
Both, lead on 50% of the songs in my main band, background on others.

Yes, I practice my singing, have worked with others to develop and grow

I practice all of it, not just one focus area. On some songs it is easy to get some of the key areas, so I focus on other parts.

I learned each part separate at home. The bass line and the vocal line. Then I bring them together. So yeah, practice before showing up at band rehearsal

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Really, as others have stated, practice and practice.
 
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#16
hrodbert696 said:
The biggest issue is the rhythm/cadence thing. Generally I would say, if the vocal and bass lines don't come together naturally, 1) drill each part separately till you know them cold, and then 2) find the "anchor points," which are what I call beats where the vocal and bass hit together. If you learn the song as a succession of anchor points, and also know the parts separately, then each part fills in from point to point, if that makes sense.
Click to expand...

This is my approach as well.

I play mostly in originals bands, and I've done a fair amount of background vocals and some lead or co-lead vocals. I have a very small amount of training in singing but mainly have just improved my ability by doing a lot of it, whether in bands or in the car or wherever. Because I almost exclusively play originals live, I tend to learn the parts organically during the songwriting and rehearsal process, which obviously is also true of the bass parts. When if comes to learning to do both together, I'll typically do some practice at home where I will play the bass part and sing along with it. Some songs come together fairly easily, whereas others require finding some "anchors" as mentioned in the quote above. For me, though, the concept of an anchor is a bit broader, because sometimes the key to unlocking a specific vocal/bass combination isn't finding a place where the vocal and bass hit together, but rather finding specific combinations of vocal and bass that are more unorthdox but can be drilled into muscle memory. For example, I might get tripped up by a specific syllable that falls in between two bass plucks or is on the "and" of a beat where the bass is playing right on the beat, or anything else you can imagine. Typically once I find those trouble spots and practice them a bit, the parts will run together a lot more smoothly.
 
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#17
When I transitioned to lead singer I found I could not sing in-tune and play fretless in-tune at the same time. Ended up going back to a fretted bass which freed my brain to focus on singing.

For me, the bass part has to be on auto pilot so I can focus on singing. These days, I serve the music best by simply not singing.
 
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#18
I practice my vocals as much as I practice bass. I sang for years and directed choirs. But singing lead on pop songs is a different animal. Your voice is another instrument and at least for me takes about the same amount of work and I've had to greatly extend my range.

The plus is that when you start gaining control and precision its really great to nail a song vocally.

Like others have said, you have to know both parts first.

Another big difference, at least for me is emotional. Some might disagree, but IME you "give it up" when singing in a way that you don't have to playing bass. There's no hiding now!
 
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#19
I have never had much trouble doing lead or backing vocals. Lucky I guess. I sing lead on roughly 20 songs a night. I cover backing on most songs. Every once in a while if a song is real busy bass wise, I leave it up to someone else. Something I've learned is that a lot of what I do is in sync with my playing. When it's not, I have to work at it some. Practice, not learning it all at rehearsal. That waste everyone's time. If you don't sing some bands will shove you (bass players) to the back of the stage. That's one place I've never been.
 
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#20
I kind of sing my bass parts, in my head, while I'm playing them, so I find trying to actually sing at the same time difficult/impossible. Maybe if I could get out of that habit it would be possible. Any small successes I have are due to hard work and micro analyzing it, which is not really feasible to learning any substantial amount of material.
 
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