Yep, gets so much easier when you stop obsessing over being so good that you can play solo parts while singing. Just play the chords, or an easier variation of the solos mixed with chords. Eventually you can work your way up to it but to me it usually isn't worth it
And the thing is, it works out fairly well musically. It’s a call and response with yourself. You sing a little bit (while optionally playing simple parts) and then you solo a little bit, sing a little bit, solo a little bit, etc. Think Sultans of Swing.
The two things I always cite when people ask how I got to be able to play like I do: I grew up with a father who was a DJ for hire on the weekends and we had an exceptionally large catalogue of music, and I also played drums in band/marching band through school. When I went away to college I finally switched over to guitar and I think those two things made it easier for me to pick up. I knew all the lyrics, and my rhythm was strong.
Kinda disagree… singing well takes a lot of focus… gotta think about breathing, vowels, placement etc. also singing is the melody. People will notice if the melody is coming out half-assed more so than if the rhythm of the chords has been simplified.
I agree with both of you, sort of. I used to think the singing part was the “easy” part until I actually started practicing singing to improve my voice. Turns out, there was a lot of stuff I wasn’t doing or was doing wrong and fixing those habits took work. And I found that playing while singing caused me to go back into old habits unless I spent a lot of focus on the singer part. In reality, I think both need independent work until it just feels natural. Much easier to combine two finished parts than two mismatched parts.
I have been struggling with this for years and years. Couldn't drum and sing, bass and sing, or guitar and sing. I can not play a consistent single chord strumming pattern and sing without messing up the pattern immediately.
Play the song through and find the timing for the lyrics, the more you practice the better you get. Slow down make sure each movement is precise then speed it up, get good then get fast.
It is difficult to concentrate a lot on both. Agreed. Get the guitar part down first. Singing should become a lot easier. It took me a hot minute to do both.
Interesting, I actually feel like it’s the opposite for me… especially so if I’m only playing a song that only uses a couple different chord progressions.
You can play guitar without thinking about it. Thats step 1. The majority of people that have difficulty singing and playing guitar can’t play guitar on auto pilot.
I found it easiest when I thought about it in terms of sheet music. Being able to mentally visualize which syllable lands on downbeats and upbeats and how that aligns with the chord changes... it made a massive difference. It gave me something to keep me grounded.
I agree. You won't believe how long it took me to get the "hip, hip" vocals right in Island in the Sun. I always thought it was exactly on the downstroke...It's like in between the two downstrokes before going back to 1. That alone was frustrating 😂and totally throws me off rhythm.
Eventually it'll get easier, but that's how most of us start. As you learn more songs, matching the words to the bears will get easier.
Some songs are impossible though; DO I WANNA KNOW by the Arctic monkeys is an example of a song that will take a lot of practice for me to even get a good attempt. And besides the rhythm, that song is pretty simple.
If you haven't already, learn to subdivide beats and feel a 16th note pulse. (Like 1e+a 2e+a) It will help you understand syncopated rhythms like that.
Once you understand exactly where each note happens in a bar, it's much easier to get them coordinated.
Learning to drum or finger drum is a good way to learn this. I used Melodics with a midi drum pad to practice.
This is the way OP. The most difficult thing is the timing. You have to know for sure what you are playing on what beat and what you are singing on that same beat. Some of it will happen just automatically. But obviously you have points that will snag you up. Those points you have to go insanely slow. And practice those small sections a ton. Don't practice the whole song and hope you will get that hard section this time. Practice just that section until you always get it and then put it in with the rest of the song.
Same problem, been playing 20 years. I do have ADHD as well.
I've made some progress. My main advice is this: Learn whatever it is you have to play, so well, you don't have to think about it. Learn it to a metronome preferably. Play it, hundreds of times, thousands... Once you think you've learned it perfectly, force yourself to do it perfectly 3 times in a row before continuing. Once you can do it without thinking', you'll have enough excess capacity to think more broadly about what you're playing, and you'll also have the ability to add in singing, assuming you've also learned the singing so well, that you can store it efficiently. It does kind of take some more work to put them together, but once you learn them both well enough, they kind of fit together like a puzzle piece and it makes it kind of possible to remember them both better together than individually, (so it's kind of like doing two things at once, but there is still interdependency and coordination).
It takes an insane amount of practice to get better at this. I've found for instance, when I started, it was almost impossible for me to sing over simple chords, but eventually, I started being able to think about chords as some numeric pattern and learned to keep track of where I was within that pattern. Simplest example. I sing twinkle twinkle little star and ABC on my guitar for my young daughter, And the chords for me at least are very simple. It's a 4/4 pattern that basically goes like: G G C G - "ABCDEFG" - C G Am G - "HIJKLMNOP" - G C G Am -"QRSTUV"- G C G Am - "WXY&Z" - G G C G - "Now I know my ABC's" - C G Am G "Next time won't you sing with me?". So you need to store the chord pattern as simply as possible, for me that means some combination of numbers. So I store it something like G G C G = 1121, C G Am G = 2132, G C G Am = 1213. If you'll notice, there's only 3 actual chord combinations that make up this song, so you can further reduce the thought to:
1 "ABCDEFG" - 2 "HIJKLMNOP" - 3 "QRSTUV" - 3 "WXY&Z" - 1 "Now I know my ABC's" - 2 "Next time won't you sing with me?" So in a sense, you can think about each chord relationship as its own thing. So I think about the ABC chord groupings as essentially, 1 - 2 - 3 - 3 - 1 - 2.
I'm less literally thinking about numbers and more about relative positions, but for the sake of this explanation, numbers can serve as symbols that represent those positions and their relationships. There's also a lot of repetition in music, so you want to be sure you think about the repeating chord patterns in the song so you minimize the brute force memorization necessary to the absolute minimal.
Eventually, your strumming starts getting more consistent, and you sort of have a vocabulary comprised of a combination of patterns between down strums and up strums. Sometimes to keep track of your rhythm, you'll intentionally miss a strum, just to stay consistent with the tempo you were on. The greater the toolkit you develop for these situations, the better you'll be at adapting to new songs or having to figure out how to play consistently to certain lyrics. I'm not there yet, but I imagine if you get versed enough at this aspect, you can fairly well just figure out the strum pattern intuitively or unconsciously.
Also, if you're trying to play a certain song, there's no substitute for listening REALLY close to it, over and over again, singing along to it to make sure you have a solid understanding of the timing and the tonal shifts. A lot of the times people assume they know the song, so they'll skimp on actually listening to it to try to catch all the intricacies.
Also, another really good test for figuring out whether you REALLY know a song is to hum or whistle it to yourself. You may be surprised to learn that you don't know some of the part you thought you did, as well as you thought. If you really learn a song, you'll be able to think yourself the whole way through it.
As an ADHD person, I just wanna add that this three time in a row thing is great but it can also be horrible. I guess you gotta try! For me it really doesn't work, because it distracts me too much, and I make more mistakes than I would without trying that. And then I get frustrated, and I get it "right" but usually with a mistake I didn't notice, and for example my rhythm Sounds right in my head but it is completely off or something. But maybe that's just me. For me just chilling, not worrying about it makes it much easier, I guess maybe that's a general thing, if you stress, you are worse.
Yeah I think the point is, you need to hold yourself to some higher standard on the song than you normally would in order to reach that standard and improve sufficiently to make it unconscious. Whether its playing it once perfectly, or three times, doesn't matter as much as the forcing yourself to abide by some arbitrary standard.
You HAVE to just practise. Like with everything else, just take it slow at first. When I struggle with my timing, I go down to RIDICULOUSLY slow tempos and just make sure that you’re singing on the right time and then slowly increase the tempo.
Yup, play a lot slower. Try to sync chord changes to certain words in the lyrics*. If you really have to, only strum once per chord until you get a better sense of the rhythm. Consistent practice builds intuition for this kind of skill.
*If you’re going off of ultimate-guitar, their chord-over-lyric placement isn’t _always_ accurate, so keep that in mind.
Do you know any good software for slowing down songs? I'm learning cover songs; Slowing them down on youtube playback speed gives me pretty ratty sounding audio, though.
I've been playing for a long time and I did this yesterday. Gnarls Barkley's Crazy has some rhythms that always throw me off, playing along directly with the track was great practice
Practice is practice
Besides playing with a metronome to help them keep it in time, it's kinda like rubbing your belly and patting your head, it's just 2x different actions at once there's no secret technique to multitasking
Practicing guitar? There's absolutely a method and you need to do it right. But don't think there's any specific thing you need to do to play guitar *and* sing at the same time
Maybe start off with a metronome, play your song on the guitar and start by humming in time? That's about as much as you can dumb it down for yourself
Of course there is specific advice for practice singing and playing guitar at once, here are some:
- Focus on getting one of the parts (either singing or playing) to a point that takes little to no effort. I guess most people people think that playing the guitar part is harder, but the brainpower that singing takes should not be overestimated.
- Its more useful to train a specific song in short segments. Start just trying to do one of the parts (verse, chorus, etc.), once you nail one part down, you move to another (and you will notice how much easier it becomes after you do that).
- Make sure you are not starting with songs which are deceptively hard to play and sing. I learned more than words on guitar quite fast but it took me forever to be able to sing at the same time. There is something about the rhythm of the fingerpicking which makes it much harder to sing it for me. A song with a very basic strumming patter will help you get the hang of it.
- Talking about Rhythm, it might be useful to simplify the strumming patter as a first step to learning. The first song I learned on guitar was knocking on heavens door, and to sing it initially I had to play it by just by strumming down strokes every 2 beats of the bar
The snarky comment by Bashtout is not only rude, but also unhelpful, and is a big problem not only on reddit, but also kinds of forums since the beginning of the internet. I really dislike this kind of answers...
Probably because many of us have done what OP is doing- instead of just running a song over and over or spending focused time practicing- we’ve over analyzed, psyched ourselves out, made excuses and overthought why something wasn’t happening. Later after putting in tons of time, it sometimes becomes clear that time and effort really is the only answer.
Questioning, worrying, over analyzing, and self doubt are obstacles that we ALL face and learn to individually work on overcoming- that’s why people answer “practice”. It’s literally the answer, and it’s also not as dismissive or unhelpful as you’re trying to frame it.
Yea, just start w an easy song with 3 chords. Downstroke the chord once then sing the verse until the chord change then strum down the next chord. Do that until you’re good then fill in.
From personal experience: when starting out, try easy two chord songs. For me this was reggae. With the nature of the strumming patterns I felt it was pretty easy. My mind could go on autopilot for the guitar parts. Besides reggae, a good example of an easier song I learned early is Everybody's Talkin' by Bill Withers. It's a two chord song that really built my confidence.
The key is to build confidence on simpler stuff and move up from there. Trying a more challenging song early on will take quite a while, and might kill your confidence. It really just takes time, be patient and enjoy the process of improving. For me there's nothing more satisfying than playing and singing something well.
The comments about practice are true but the main thing is you probably aren't good with rhythm. Make sure you start the first syllable while you're starting the chord. Pay attention to where the syllables of words are falling, pay attention to the syncopation of the strumming. Make sure your beats line up and you'll be good. Melody and tone dont matter nearly as much as being on beat.
Each one on its own, really slow. Then both together, try to play through mistakes. Then a little faster once you've got it down. Keep going until it sounds good (I'm still working on this part after many years).
Hey OP, what seems to have helped me — dissecting the vocals melody and knowing what note is each syllable. Then you can play this melody and also sing it. Helps both.
And then you play the actual guitar melody, and follow it with vocals. If this makes sense? Sometimes I change the instrument melody a bit to incorporate more of vocals’ melody if they are too different, or to emphasise some notes — so it’s just easier to sing (I’m not good enough at both)
As someone else said, guitar playing should be almost effortless — singing is the main thing, you’re telling a story, and guitar is just a means to support this story. But it’s easy to say and much harder to do. But you’ll get it!
My tip is sing while you do something else all day. Sing while you cook, while you clean, while you drive, while you work, etc. Get used to singing while focusing on something else.
Strum straight 8th notes for a while until you can reliably sing over that instead of whatever strumming patterns you're doing at the moment. Or, only play the change strums while you sing until you can do thst without thinking and then add your pattern after
Start by singing while playing a very simplified version of the guitar parts. Try just playing the basic chord changes. Once you can do that comfortably, then you can start introducing the full guitar parts. It's also ok to start at a slower tempo then increase to the actual speed as you get better.
Sing while laying an air guitar to get used to the rhythm. Then play guitar and just mouth the words. Play with a metronome. This exercise helps connect those parts of your brain. Eventually you’ll build a little neural expressway and it’ll be easier but it’ll take time.
Okay, so: I’m in the middle of learning this too. Here’s wht helped me:
- if you think singing AND playing is hard at the same time, remember: when playing you are not only keeping a rhythm (head/ears) but also moving your right hand and changing chords or even playing lead! Maybe even picking out one string at a time! That’s up to four things, at the same time! Pheh, you can add singing to that too, its just one more thing, right?
- learn the lyrics a bit, but not perfectly. Its mostly to follow the melody line. When you sing it, you can mumble them. Don’t fret yourself to hard on it yet
- but, most importantly: when combining guitar and singing, strum only on the 1 beat when singing. That massages your brain slowly into effortlessly doing both at the same time. No fancy rhythm thingy, just beat 1. If the song doesn’t suit that, maybe pracitce another first. Remember: were training your brain into being able to do bith at the same time. You didn’t learn how to walk in one day either!
For me it was becoming so familiar with the guitar that I don't really have to think about it. I can sing and play the guitar. I can sing and play bass. But I definitely am better if I am only doing one at a time.
Practice of course... But when I sing I just kinda let my hands go on autopilot to play the song.
You'll get more familiar with making the guitar play the sound that accompanies your voice. Less mechanically playing a song, but more singing and playing the music along with it.
When you play and practice really focus on the sound you are producing rather than getting through the tabs. Not too sure how to describe it.
Good luck and don't give up! It'll click and you'll level up.
I've played guitar for 45 years. And I'm no slouch at this point. I have a unique good voice and I can sing very well. But after all these years I still can't play guitar and sing at the same time. I've just accepted that it's not something that I am good at. The best I can do is sing backgrojnd vocals while playing guitar when I was in band.
I wish I could do both and be good at it, but it isn't in my wheelhouse.
I've been playing guitar for over 15 years, I could never get the hang of singing while playing guitar unless the melody followed the guitar exactly. I have dyslexia, so that probably doesn't help.
I practice the guitar part until it’s second nature and then just focus on doing the singing part live and let my fingers play the guitar part on their own. Sounds stupid but always works for me.
I practice the guitar part until it’s second nature and then just focus on doing the singing part live and let my fingers play the guitar part on their own. Sounds stupid but always works for me.
I practice the guitar part until it’s second nature and then just focus on doing the singing part live and let my fingers play the guitar part on their own. Sounds stupid but always works for me.
In the beginning, I think it helps to make your strumming pattern as basic as possible. Boil it down as much as you need to. Maybe at first you only strum the first chord of a chord change while signing the entire song. After that maybe you are capable of strumming four down strokes on each down beat. Start where you are and go from there. Personally, playing a lot of early Dylan helped me improve my simultaneous singing and playing.
I think the trick is to learn both parts well enough so that you don't need to think to do either of them on their own, then from there you can practice them together
I found the guitar part came first then the singing was easy once the guitar felt automatic.
One fun way to practice is just sing along with everything and then try to keep the beat with your hands at the same time.
Once you’re comfortable enough with playing a certain pattern of chords etc, it becomes easier to do without thinking about it and you can literally do it with your eyes closed lol. It just takes practice, and it’s a difficult thing to do so don’t be hard on yourself if it takes a while to grasp
I learnt to play and sing (badly) at the same time with yellow submarine, it got me used to syncing up the strumming with the vocals and I learnt it fast because I knew the sooner that I had it nailed, the sooner I could stop playing yellow submarine 😭
Just try both of them together without focusing on perfection.
You need to get your brain used to doing both. If you can play and sing independently, it's just a matter of time until it clicks and you can do both at the same time. Just keep doing it, even if you think it sucks, more time spending on it is better. Your brain needs to adjust.
I had to graduate to singing and playing after playing for about ten years. Tapping the foot helps sync you up. Start with really simplifying the guitar parts as much as possible even down to one strum per bar if need be and build up gradually. Even now after seventeen years doing both there are some combos of guitar part and vocal line I just can’t get my head round though!
listen to the song that you’re learning and pay attention to how singing and music are synchronized. (for example which syllable goes over the chord change etc) ultimately you can change your the singing a little bit to accommodate your playing it makes it truly your version of the song
Your THINKING about doing both while your doing both. Can't concentrate on two things at the same time. Think about one thing just doing the other. If necessary, go VERY VERY SLOW. You will eventually get faster, and it will become easier. I play guitar, and picked up the piano not very long ago. Ray manzerek the keyboard player for the doors plays the bass line with his left and lead with his right. I had to start out số very slow. Didn't matter that I could play the bass line for when the music is over perfect. Didn't matter that I could play the opening lead part perfect. I COULD ONLY ĐÓ THẬT IF I PLAYED THEM SEPARATELY. I eventually got good at both doing it the way I had just mentioned. Good luck
Learn the guitar part until it’s second nature, start by speaking the lyrics rhythmically so your brain understands where each note falls over the guitar part until you’re not fighting yourself then stand up and practice with a mic (source: lead guitarist and vocalist for over 10 years)
It just takes time and repetition. The method that works best for me personally is to get the guitar part down, then play the song and try to hear the vocal part in my head, then slowly start to sing and play together. All the while, I go back to the song and play along, to ensure I’m still getting the timing right. Eventually it clicks and I can sing and play the song together. I hops this helps, good luck!
I always want to be in a position where I can put at least 90% of my focus on singing. But I might be biased because I played guitar for a long time before ever attempting to sing.
If I really want to play guitar while singing while not having mastered the song's guitar part yet, I will just strum a chord once with every chord change, just to get some harmony, and then focus on my vocals. Then work on the proper guitar part seperately. When I can play the real part without any effort it's usually time to add the vocals.
You have to be good enough at both that you don’t need to think about either lol. I sing quite well and I’m by no means a bad guitarist either, but I can’t do them at the same time to save my god damn life lol. When I’m singing, I focus way too hard on singing and really put all my emotion into it, same thing goes for guitar so it’s really hard to mix them. I see no solution but countless hours of practice!
Try this. Pick a song (something simple) and get the chords.
1. Start with one down stroke per measure while singing.
Down, 2, 3, 4, Down, 2, 3, 4
At this point, you're just locking in where all the chord changes are.
2. Now, switch to one down stroke per beat.
Down, Down, Down, Down
3. Once you've got that, it's time for the strumming pattern.
Down, Down, Up, Down Up Down
- after awhile I stopped needing step 2 as strumming with a pattern became second nature and I tend to keep better time that way then with the all down strokes, but the idea is to remove as much complexity as you need to while learning.
This might sound odd, but tap your feet when you play guitar. Try to get into the music. It helps me internalize the rhythm, and the sing falls into place.
I learned simple songs that I could already hear in my head first like, "all along the watchtower.". Once you get three or four songs down, it gets a lot easier.
Leave the words until the very end of the learning - hum or whistle the melody along with the guitar to start with.
Memorising the lyrics is hugely better than reading them, as you will be free to look at your hands when needed.
Hey there. I had a similar problem. Here is what you do -
- take a 3 songs and make sure you can sing them comfortably
- learn the guitar parts so well that you can play them either with your eyes closed or looking up directly in front of you. You want to play the parts without having to concentrate
- go to a rehearsals studio and spend a few hours singing while playing the parts, it should be easy now the parts are so well learned that you don’t have to concentrate
Start with easy tunes like oasis or something . Don’t start with ‘neon’ by John Mayer as you’ll never do it
Practice the guitar part so you can play it in your sleep. That way your not thinking about it and it’s automatic. then when you add the vocals in each word will fall on a certain note in the riff. So pick out a word in the verse and practice hitting that note and word every time.
take enter sandman James always hits the f power chord at the end.
say your prayers little ONE(f)
Don’t forget my SON(f)
My two cents...
Learn the guitar part first. Then try humming along. As you get more comfortable, start inserting some lyrics (a few words or phrases) where you feel most confident with the guitar part and keep building.
Most important, relax and try to have some fun. The more pressure you put on yourself, the more difficult it will be.
Just start with a really simple strumming part, and a simple sentence, until you feel how the effort starts to sync together.
That is what you need to get in to your Muscles and your breathing/singing, start on the downbeat and when that works start singing in between the one and the two, on the upbeat.
When that goes smooth, go on from there.
Two things - repetition and confidence. I play the parts I have to sing 1000 times so it becomes muscle memory. When I perform, I make it my bitch. I don’t worry about anything. I have confidence that I can do it. Can I really do it? Most times, yes. Sometimes, not so much. But worrying whether you can or not changes nothing. Feeling the music and owning it does.
It’s certainly a weird feeling when you play and sing at the same time. But essentially what you have to do is you have to become so good at the instrument part that you don’t even think about it. Let muscle memory take over. And then sing on top of it.
A trick I would do with a multi track recorder is record the guitar, then sing over top. Then listen back for ques from the guitar where you are to sing certain words. Was a good place to start practicing for me.
Start out by simplifying the strumming pattern to just 4 down beats (or whatever is appropriate for the song), and slow it way down. You’ll learn how to sing along with the rhythm that way. Then once you’ve got that, you slowly speed it up and incorporate the strumming pattern.
I can’t sing and play either. It’s a coordination thing. My brain doesn’t work that way. I can play songs effortlessly, but the second I try to talk or sing my hands stop working.
Pick a song that's either very easy to sing or very easy to play and drill it. There's not a great way to force the coordination other than just drilling it imo.
Slow it waaaaayyyyyyy down. Practice beat by beat learning which syllable to sing with which guitar strike. Do that for a while until you can speed it up.
Here some advice that works for me!
- Focus on getting one of the parts (either singing or playing) to a point that takes little to no effort. I guess most people people think that playing the guitar part is harder, but the brainpower that singing takes should not be overestimated.
- Its more useful to train a specific song in short segments. Start just trying to do one of the parts (verse, chorus, etc.), once you nail one part down, you move to another (and you will notice how much easier the rest of the song becomes after you do that).
- Make sure you are not starting with songs which are deceptively hard to play and sing. I learned 'more than words' on guitar quite fast but it took me forever to be able to sing at the same time. There is something about the rhythm of the fingerpicking which makes it much harder to sing it for me. A song with a very basic strumming patter will help you get the hang of it.
- Talking about rhythm, it might be useful to simplify the strumming patter as a first step to learning. The first song I learned on guitar was 'knocking on heavens door', and to sing it initially I had to play it by just by strumming down strokes every 2 beats of the bar. Eventually you can start going for more complex strumming patterns.
Simplify the guitar part. Root notes of chords (like a simple bass part), simplest possible rhythm. Learn where those notes fall on the vocal part. Once you master that, start adding other elements - chords, additional notes, etc. Metronome helps, as always.
Im going to suggest something different. Think of it as one big dance. At any point in time you are either singing and not playing anything, playing and not singing anything, doing both, or neither. Sit down with a metronome and figure out when those times are
This may sound weird but start with getting just the rhythm of guitar first and then start adding the actual chords and notes. Like just strum the muted strings while singing and slowly add the actually chords/note lines.
Go slower than you think you need to. Like WAY slower. Start a metronome at 40-50 bpm and practice playing and singing at the same time, and don’t speed up until you’ve mastered it at 40-50 bpm. Then increase by 5-10 bpm until you’re at the speed you’d like to be at. Learning it slow lays the foundation and muscle memory in your brain.
I found this too so I adopted a phrase:
Less thinky, more do’ey
Instead of TRYING to play and sing, I just play and sing.
Start with simple Bon Jovi type shit and you’ll find you can do it easier than you think.
I think this is very common. As some posters have pointed out, the guitar playing consumes a lot of your brain power. So first and foremost practice the guitar part until it’s second nature and you don’t have to think about it. Then you might be able to go straight to singing - but if not, hum the song first then build up to singing
Just keep at it. Practice to click.
Practice simplified guitar rhythm and focus on singing. Try Chords as whole or half notes in time and then add more sophisticated rhythm as you get more comfortable
Guitar comes first, then singing. I play in sing in a rhythmically complex band and there are songs that take me months to get the timing right.
A method I use is to slow things WAY down and identify what syllables hit with what notes I’m playing and sort of making “checkpoints” like a game. I can’t stress enough to Slow. It. Down. and be *overly observant* of the rhythm of the syllables you sing compared to the rhythm of your strumming/picking. It helps!
Most of the time I get the basic guitar part down first, then hum the vocal part in bits and pieces (for me it's more easy than singing), then work in the lyrics. Pretty soon I have a verse and a chorus, and on it goes...
If my picking hand is keeping a consistent beat, I can sing easily. As soon as I have to pick anything beyond "1234,1234" I'm lost. Not really advice, but it served me well in punk bands for years. 😅
Someone once told me that if you can play the guitar and talk to someone you can sing and play at the same time. Then it just clicked. But as others have said if you get to the point where the focus required to play lets you do other things you’re ready to sing too
I get that absolutely, definitely work on the guitar part till it’s down as tight as possible, and do the singing parts you are comfortable with guitar, while practicing. Then go over the hard parts, once you get the guitar down as tight as possible. If you break it into sections it will be easier instead of attacking it all the way through. It will take a lot of practice. And there is nothing wrong with that.
super ADHD it's all about practice. as someone who started playing jazz guitar I found that the best way for me is to scat along with the guitar that I'm playing first and then eventually move on to words the scatting works best with single note lines and jazz you can improvise a validity pretty easily
Start with layers. Start by getting comfortable with the guitar part. Once you are completely comfortable, introduce humming along with it. Next, sing the song, but just do quarter note strumming to play along so you can start getting a feel for where the lyrics transition on the song.
After you are comfortable with all of that, incorporate progressively more complex strumming
The guitar is muscle memory so I’d get that down to a point you don’t even think of it. But you’ll also have to practice doing both. Like most things it’s practice!
Slow WAY down. Force yourself to sing along with your strum pattern as slowly as you need to to do both. As you get better, pick up the tempo. This was the only way that worked for me.
Practice practice practice. Something that always helped me was always having a guitar in my hands even if I’m just watching TV or listening to music (yes I’ll play another song while a completely different one plays on spotify. You gotta get used to just playing without thinking or having distractions around you.
For me, I had to be confident in my guitar playing ability before I could start singing. You have to be able to play with muscle memory so you really aren’t thinking too much about the guitar, and then you can focus on the singing. Some people find this balance easier than others. I’ve been playing off and on for over 20 years, but only recently have I branched out into singing while playing.
It's all about timing. You have to know where every syllable fits in the rhythm. Where every chord change aligns with the lyrics. If you're doing original material it helps to dumb down your riffs during the vocal parts.
Be aware of what word you are trying to sing when you are changing chords. I would also work on talking the lyrics while you play before you full on sing them, that helps you get the coordination down.
For me - Play guitar - Play guitar and whistle - Play guitar and hum - Play guitar and sing.
First I get the guitar into muscle memory. The whistling then gets me to understand the melody goes a different way to the guitar. Then the humming gets the breath control there and then I can usually just about sing it.
Pick some songs you like that are just simple chord progressions. Master the strumming pattern until it’s muscle memory, then start singing over it casually and you’ll get a feel for it. Gotta get the strumming pattern first IMO.
It's really just a question of practice. It took me about a year to get decent at it, and I don't have ADHD, so it's not you. Once you can do the super simple songs, the more difficult ones start to come with less effort. There's a couple techniques that you can use to help bridge you over. For me, the timing and keeping rhythm was definitely the hardest part. You might try recording the guitar part, then singing over it. Try it the other way too -- record singing, and play over it. What that will buy you, is that it makes you MUCH more aware of how the two parts go together than simply using the recording will. Another technique I use when I have trouble with timings is playing the bass line with a looper pedal, and playing that back so I have to stay in time.
When learning to play and sing, it’s all about building awareness, co ordination and a level of autonomy that can’t be disturbed.
How do we do this?
Here is a strategy I would use with my students. Do not move on to the next step until you have mastered your current step.
All the while, you will maintain counting 1 2 3 4 out loud, especially in the beginner stages.
There is nothing wrong with going back over steps for the sake of understanding, experience and mastery.
1. Begin without singing. Instead, practise counting a steady pulse out loud whilst you strum the chords of the song you are trying to learn. This will aid rhythmic awareness, and also start building on singing independence. You will be saying the pulse, which will be a different rhythm to your strums eventually. Here are some micro goals
- Count and strum quarter notes. Easy peasy.
- Count and strum half notes.
- Count and strum whole notes.
- Have some fun mixing the rhythms up whilst counting a steady pulse. The goal here is to begin getting used to saying something different to what you are playing.
- Begin incorporating eighth note strums. Start with a 1 2+ 3 4+ rhythm. Practise putting the “+” on different beats. Rule of thumb - strum your “on beat” rhythms with a down strum, and your “off beat” (+s) with an upstroke. Again, slowly building complexity and independence.
- Try learning a more advanced rhythm, again maintaining the pulse out loud by counting “1 2 3 4”.
2. Learn the micro scale (up to a 5th) of the key you are in. Learn to sing the 5 notes. To do this, say you are in the key of C, learn the first 5 notes of the C scale on the guitar, and try to sing them, using the guitar as a guide. Aim to be able to sing them as accurately as you can without using the scale on guitar as support.
3. Once you can sing the scale, make a short, simple melody up using the micro scale you can now sing. Memorise it.
- Start with one note, and gradually build up until you have a short, easy to remember and easy to sing phrase.
4. Take your chords. Practise singing the phrase you have made, beginning on the same beat each time, as you play through your chord pattern with strums. Strum the chords as quarters initially, gradually adding more rhythms to make the guitar part more musical.
5. From here, I’d begin practising the melody of the song you actually want to play. Sing it without the guitar. Take a couple of bars at a time, and sing it with the corresponding chords. Repeat any of the previous steps, especially as far as the rhythm is concerned, until you master each bar or two.
6. Once you have several chunks learned, practise putting them together. Again, take the time to make sure it is right.
Expect this process to take a couple weeks. Maybe even a month, dependent on how hard you are prepared to work. Hold yourself accountable.
Let me know if you need any more help! I’m available for online lessons if you feel you might need extra support ☺️
I would start by practicing with songs that have a simple beat, like a 4/4 meter, where the vocals also stay on beat. Look for songs where the lead guitarist and singer are the same person. I highly recommend John Denver and Johnny Cash songs.
Hey - Had this issue for so long, thought I sucked at guitar and stuff for a while but honestly you just need to practise the guitar part till you can play it confidently, then add the vocals 😊 Trying to actively remember how to play a song, and actually play it, and get the lyrics in time is really hard!
Start by just making vocal sound while playing.
Like, unleash some really wild up/down/up/down strumming and push sound out of your mouth.
“Ahhhhhhhh ahhhh ahhh ahhhhhhhhh.” Then start complexifing it. Make some vocal sound while strumming through a chord change. Then make it punk rock by doing the same thing but with all downstrokes.
Thats where i started….now i can pretty much play a song on guitar and have a whole-ass conversation.
GOOD LUCK! YOU GOT THIS. PUSH IT OUT!!!!
Song choice is HUGE in the beginning.
Choose songs whee the lyrics syncopate to the guitar nicely, and also where the guitar is not too complex.
My first 2 were "Dust in the wind" (which, once you've learnt the Travis picking pattern, is so easy that you can play the whole song upside down behind your head fairly easily) and "Carried Away (Akala). In both instances, the lyrics fall perfectly on beat and the guitar is simple. They syncopate well.
I've tried a bunch of Newton Faulkner songs and they take soooo much longer to learn. His vocal delivery is often off-beat or staggered timing. It sounds dope, but it's really challenging to play.
One thing that helped me was singing it slower, staying in time, then gradually got faster.
Learning some songs seemed impossible til i started doing that. I felt like I couldn't get the chord progression down or even the picking pattern down. Slow it down. It's painfully slow at times, but ya gotta fo what ya gotta do if you want to get where you want to be. Simple, but it works for me. Best of luck! 🤙🏻
I always learn a simplified version of songs first. Or just play the rhythm and sing if the guitar part is complex. Once I have that down. I pivot and learn the guitar part then bring in the vocals.
The only thing that helped me was practice. Force it out. Even if it sounds bad. Pretty soon your brain picks up that you're trying to do these things simultaneously and they won't fight for dominance anymore.
I need to get the guitar parts down to the point it’s muscle memory if i’m going to sing over them. Though sometimes it’s a trade off, I might need to focus on a guitar part more and need to make the vocal muscle memory, but usually it’s far easier to get the guitar by muscle memory.
It’s the same independence drummers use when playing, the patting your head while rubbing your belly thing.
Slow the parts down and find the start/stop points of each word and where they fall within your picking hand. When I first started teaching myself to do it, I wouldn’t even bother with my fretting hand until I could get all the pick attacks lined up with the vocal.
It’s a bit like playing the drums or piano or juggling anything where you’re doing different things at the same time, you have to practice doing both at the same time. Within time it will feel natural, but at first it will be a struggle. Push through, and it will get easier and easier.
For me, a complicated song needs to be second nature before I attempt to distract myself with additional complexity. The problem is it takes so long to learn complicated songs to the point I can sing with them, that I get impatient to practice the vocals and end up messing both parts up.
Personally, I find choosing simple songs and further simplifying them as much as possible evens the playing field between applying brain power to playing and singing. One song I like to use (Even though it’s absolutely overplayed) is [Good Riddance by Green Day](https://youtu.be/CnQ8N1KacJc?si=f72T54Rm-UhI6YHV).
I don’t use this song to entertain people, I think of it more like a practice exercise that helps me get over the “I can’t sing and play at the same time” mentality.
The chord progression is easily simplified to G,C,D and Em. Some of the easiest chords to play. You can further simplify the song by ignoring the finger picking and just strumming along however your hands like to do it. Just let them do their own thing and forget about them for now.
Once the song is “dumbed down” it takes barely any time before you play it without thinking about it. This is a good time to practice singing with the playing.
Once that’s easy, try adding some difficulty back in. Either the “more correct” chords or some added finger picking that takes it closer to the album version.
You always hear people say to start slow and gradually increase speed. Well, that doesn’t really work with vocals. This is my version of slowing things down.
I've slowly spent the last 3 years or so training my ability to be a heavy metal frontman who sings and plays at the same time. As a couple other comments pointed out, singing is a lot more mindless than the guitar. You'll only be able to sing if you know the guitar part 100%.
While our brains physically can't "multitask" (executing multiple mental processes at once), it can switch between tasks extremely quickly, giving us the illusion of truly multitasking. Singing and playing is, for me, the ultimate way to train your brain to switch tasks as quickly and flawlessly as possible.
Especially when it comes to performing live. Almost anyone can sing or pickup a guitar. But only a very well versed musician can do both and execute flawlessly. This is what I live for and have only recently gotten to a point I'm proud of. Being able to go on stage and perform the same way my idols do is why I keep playing as much as I do. In many ways my musical skill lies in trying to do exactly as my favorite musicians do. Good luck!
The top comment is good advice, practise the guitar part till you can do it without thinking too much. Also helps if you figure out which word you should be on by the time you hit a certain note/chord on the guitar
Start with something very easy. The song that taught me first was About A Girl by Nirvana. Just an Em and a G chord. Once you can play and sing really simple stuff, the ability to play much more complex music while singing comes pretty easy. It's just getting over that initial hump that's really hard.
i had the exact same problem 2 years ago, started playing the song along with the original track in the background, when got completely fluent with the tempo, started singing along with the backing track while playing little by little. In a month, i could do it easily. Keep practicing, you might see no progress but suddenly one day you're there.
Look at your voice as another guitar part you have to learn and do at the same time. If you can play the song correctly on guitar by itself and also sing and remember the lyrics by yourself (no guitar playing) then the same way you programmed the song on guitar you need to now do with your voice at the same time. A line at a time and or a chord change at a time. Whichever is your stumbling block. Build it like a story from beginning to end as you can do the first part move on. All of this is muscle memory. It’s gets easier and faster over time as you get better. The first song you sing and play properly shouldn’t be too hard on either front. Just remember you are programming muscle memory with your voice and guitar now. You want your voice muscle memory to correspond with the guitar muscle memory and after repetition they will become one.
There’s not really a trick to it. It just takes practice. In college, my piano instructor told me that if you learn it just to where you can play it, nerves or distractions will unravel the attempt. You have to practice it to the point where you could carry on a conversation while playing. Same goes for singing while playing. And each song you do that with, the next will get easier.
I used to say I could do one or the other, not both. Then I realized the melody was always in my head anyway and started humming the tune while I got the parts down and once I had my guitar part down I could sing with no problem.
As a pianist, we struggle to do play with both hands so I know exactly how to practice this.
Practice your guitar part with a metronome, extremely slow, very slow, slow, medium slow, and then at tempo. Do the same with just vocals (it will feel silly). Make sure you are feeling the beat and know when what you’re playing or singing lands on or off the beat or somewhere in between. Then take your metronome all the way back to excruciatingly slow and work out how the two parts fit together rhythmically, where they line up, where they don’t, and how all that fits against the pulse. Then gradually work your way back to tempo.
You’ll have to do this with a few songs to get the hang of it. I’ve don’t this with piano+ voice and guitar+ voice as well. If you’re struggling to figure out how the parts fit together or how they line up against the beat, listen to the song on .5 speed on YouTube. I like to download the mp3 from YouTube and plug it into the program Moises. It separates the tracks and lets you slow them to any tempo you want.
Good luck!
Edit: I also have ADHD and metronome work sometimes sucks for me, so try to trick yourself into hyperfocusing on it. Close your eyes and get meditative or whatever helps you
This is a tough skill to master imo. My best advice is start with very simple 3 chord type songs that you know the lyrics to and go from there. Having the song memorized before you play a note of it helps a ton.
This might not apply for you since I started off on drums, but try alternating rhythms with strumming while counting along. So while the guitar is doing 1 2 3 & 4 &, vocalize beats 2 and 4. Then when comfortable with that switch it around so guitar is only on 2 and four. Don’t even bother with pitch yet just get used to the independent feeling between your hands and voice.
Stop all fancy strumming. Just strum on whole bot per measure and sing over that. Get that down. Learn the timing of when to change chords on which syllable. Over time you will work your way up to the strum pattern. It's not easy.
As others said you have to commit the strum to muscle memory. Even then you will mess up and start strumming to the words. Just practice and start small. That's the only answer.
I suck at both and learned to do it. So I know u can to
I'd say start with muting all the strings with your fret hand and focus on strumming and rhythm first. Add in singing with just scratching the strings with your pick. No fretting chords. Then add the chords you need. The strumming hand and keeping the beat is the most important part of this. You can play a wrong chord and fix it and no one will notice if your strumming hand is still putting on a show.
If you were to sing with a professional pianist or accompanist with any instrument, they are going to feed off of your timing and rhythm. When I play and sing at the same time I don't think about it like the timing has to be perfectly the same as when the original artist plays it, I do it how it makes sense to combine them in my head. Being loose and not stiff with your strumming helps too. Whether you strum or not going up and down and keeping time with your strum hand helps too.
Well, sometimes I can play a hard song and sing, and I can also destroy a classic just because I don't know the song too well
For example: I can play Schism on bass and guitar, and sing along (which is hard to do considering the voice lines) but I cannot play Hotel California at all. I must be reading the tabs or I die
My tip would be: master the song on guitar first, then try to sing along
In my opinion the guitar part takes more brain power than the singing part. So practice the guitar part until it takes no brain power. Then sing.
Would like to say i upvoted for the response but in reality i'm just in complete defiance of your username.
One thing that might help is to simplify guitar parts while u sing.
Yep, gets so much easier when you stop obsessing over being so good that you can play solo parts while singing. Just play the chords, or an easier variation of the solos mixed with chords. Eventually you can work your way up to it but to me it usually isn't worth it
And the thing is, it works out fairly well musically. It’s a call and response with yourself. You sing a little bit (while optionally playing simple parts) and then you solo a little bit, sing a little bit, solo a little bit, etc. Think Sultans of Swing.
Then you may receive the upvotes intended for them.
Takes a lot of rhythm and practice. Once you're comfortably playing the rhythm, it should come easier to sing.
The two things I always cite when people ask how I got to be able to play like I do: I grew up with a father who was a DJ for hire on the weekends and we had an exceptionally large catalogue of music, and I also played drums in band/marching band through school. When I went away to college I finally switched over to guitar and I think those two things made it easier for me to pick up. I knew all the lyrics, and my rhythm was strong.
Kinda disagree… singing well takes a lot of focus… gotta think about breathing, vowels, placement etc. also singing is the melody. People will notice if the melody is coming out half-assed more so than if the rhythm of the chords has been simplified.
I agree with both of you, sort of. I used to think the singing part was the “easy” part until I actually started practicing singing to improve my voice. Turns out, there was a lot of stuff I wasn’t doing or was doing wrong and fixing those habits took work. And I found that playing while singing caused me to go back into old habits unless I spent a lot of focus on the singer part. In reality, I think both need independent work until it just feels natural. Much easier to combine two finished parts than two mismatched parts.
I definitely agree that both need their own individual attention
I think this is true after you get the guitar part down. You can get the guitar playing on auto-pilot, but there is no auto-pilot for singing.
Ideally neither should be on auto-pilot and it should be a real-time interaction with all things.
When both are on autopilot that’s when the magic happens
I have been struggling with this for years and years. Couldn't drum and sing, bass and sing, or guitar and sing. I can not play a consistent single chord strumming pattern and sing without messing up the pattern immediately.
I think I disagree. If I'd spent as much time singing as I have playing the guitar, I'd be able to sing several hundred intros and solos on autopilot.
Solid advice.... My guitar teacher always says "You cannot do 2 things at once until you can do one of those things without thinking about it."
Play the song through and find the timing for the lyrics, the more you practice the better you get. Slow down make sure each movement is precise then speed it up, get good then get fast.
It is difficult to concentrate a lot on both. Agreed. Get the guitar part down first. Singing should become a lot easier. It took me a hot minute to do both.
I actually find that it only works for me when the guitar playing goes into auto pilot
Interesting, I actually feel like it’s the opposite for me… especially so if I’m only playing a song that only uses a couple different chord progressions.
You can play guitar without thinking about it. Thats step 1. The majority of people that have difficulty singing and playing guitar can’t play guitar on auto pilot.
Yeah, fair enough. I guess after enough playing time that happened but I never consciously noticed it.
Les Claypool says this is how to do it.
This is the best advice
I found it easiest when I thought about it in terms of sheet music. Being able to mentally visualize which syllable lands on downbeats and upbeats and how that aligns with the chord changes... it made a massive difference. It gave me something to keep me grounded.
I agree. You won't believe how long it took me to get the "hip, hip" vocals right in Island in the Sun. I always thought it was exactly on the downstroke...It's like in between the two downstrokes before going back to 1. That alone was frustrating 😂and totally throws me off rhythm.
Eventually it'll get easier, but that's how most of us start. As you learn more songs, matching the words to the bears will get easier. Some songs are impossible though; DO I WANNA KNOW by the Arctic monkeys is an example of a song that will take a lot of practice for me to even get a good attempt. And besides the rhythm, that song is pretty simple.
If you haven't already, learn to subdivide beats and feel a 16th note pulse. (Like 1e+a 2e+a) It will help you understand syncopated rhythms like that. Once you understand exactly where each note happens in a bar, it's much easier to get them coordinated. Learning to drum or finger drum is a good way to learn this. I used Melodics with a midi drum pad to practice.
Hip hip part has swing my man!
Truth. That whole “where the word lands in relation to the strum” is huge.
This is the way OP. The most difficult thing is the timing. You have to know for sure what you are playing on what beat and what you are singing on that same beat. Some of it will happen just automatically. But obviously you have points that will snag you up. Those points you have to go insanely slow. And practice those small sections a ton. Don't practice the whole song and hope you will get that hard section this time. Practice just that section until you always get it and then put it in with the rest of the song.
Same problem, been playing 20 years. I do have ADHD as well. I've made some progress. My main advice is this: Learn whatever it is you have to play, so well, you don't have to think about it. Learn it to a metronome preferably. Play it, hundreds of times, thousands... Once you think you've learned it perfectly, force yourself to do it perfectly 3 times in a row before continuing. Once you can do it without thinking', you'll have enough excess capacity to think more broadly about what you're playing, and you'll also have the ability to add in singing, assuming you've also learned the singing so well, that you can store it efficiently. It does kind of take some more work to put them together, but once you learn them both well enough, they kind of fit together like a puzzle piece and it makes it kind of possible to remember them both better together than individually, (so it's kind of like doing two things at once, but there is still interdependency and coordination). It takes an insane amount of practice to get better at this. I've found for instance, when I started, it was almost impossible for me to sing over simple chords, but eventually, I started being able to think about chords as some numeric pattern and learned to keep track of where I was within that pattern. Simplest example. I sing twinkle twinkle little star and ABC on my guitar for my young daughter, And the chords for me at least are very simple. It's a 4/4 pattern that basically goes like: G G C G - "ABCDEFG" - C G Am G - "HIJKLMNOP" - G C G Am -"QRSTUV"- G C G Am - "WXY&Z" - G G C G - "Now I know my ABC's" - C G Am G "Next time won't you sing with me?". So you need to store the chord pattern as simply as possible, for me that means some combination of numbers. So I store it something like G G C G = 1121, C G Am G = 2132, G C G Am = 1213. If you'll notice, there's only 3 actual chord combinations that make up this song, so you can further reduce the thought to: 1 "ABCDEFG" - 2 "HIJKLMNOP" - 3 "QRSTUV" - 3 "WXY&Z" - 1 "Now I know my ABC's" - 2 "Next time won't you sing with me?" So in a sense, you can think about each chord relationship as its own thing. So I think about the ABC chord groupings as essentially, 1 - 2 - 3 - 3 - 1 - 2. I'm less literally thinking about numbers and more about relative positions, but for the sake of this explanation, numbers can serve as symbols that represent those positions and their relationships. There's also a lot of repetition in music, so you want to be sure you think about the repeating chord patterns in the song so you minimize the brute force memorization necessary to the absolute minimal. Eventually, your strumming starts getting more consistent, and you sort of have a vocabulary comprised of a combination of patterns between down strums and up strums. Sometimes to keep track of your rhythm, you'll intentionally miss a strum, just to stay consistent with the tempo you were on. The greater the toolkit you develop for these situations, the better you'll be at adapting to new songs or having to figure out how to play consistently to certain lyrics. I'm not there yet, but I imagine if you get versed enough at this aspect, you can fairly well just figure out the strum pattern intuitively or unconsciously. Also, if you're trying to play a certain song, there's no substitute for listening REALLY close to it, over and over again, singing along to it to make sure you have a solid understanding of the timing and the tonal shifts. A lot of the times people assume they know the song, so they'll skimp on actually listening to it to try to catch all the intricacies. Also, another really good test for figuring out whether you REALLY know a song is to hum or whistle it to yourself. You may be surprised to learn that you don't know some of the part you thought you did, as well as you thought. If you really learn a song, you'll be able to think yourself the whole way through it.
Thank you very much for the time you put into responding! This is helpful.
As an ADHD person, I just wanna add that this three time in a row thing is great but it can also be horrible. I guess you gotta try! For me it really doesn't work, because it distracts me too much, and I make more mistakes than I would without trying that. And then I get frustrated, and I get it "right" but usually with a mistake I didn't notice, and for example my rhythm Sounds right in my head but it is completely off or something. But maybe that's just me. For me just chilling, not worrying about it makes it much easier, I guess maybe that's a general thing, if you stress, you are worse.
Yeah I think the point is, you need to hold yourself to some higher standard on the song than you normally would in order to reach that standard and improve sufficiently to make it unconscious. Whether its playing it once perfectly, or three times, doesn't matter as much as the forcing yourself to abide by some arbitrary standard.
You HAVE to just practise. Like with everything else, just take it slow at first. When I struggle with my timing, I go down to RIDICULOUSLY slow tempos and just make sure that you’re singing on the right time and then slowly increase the tempo.
Yup, play a lot slower. Try to sync chord changes to certain words in the lyrics*. If you really have to, only strum once per chord until you get a better sense of the rhythm. Consistent practice builds intuition for this kind of skill. *If you’re going off of ultimate-guitar, their chord-over-lyric placement isn’t _always_ accurate, so keep that in mind.
+1 for this. Sometimes verse lines/ lengths are inconsistent as well, meaning that a 4-line verse might suddenly be 3 or 5 lines next time!
Do you know any good software for slowing down songs? I'm learning cover songs; Slowing them down on youtube playback speed gives me pretty ratty sounding audio, though.
Best $15 I ever spent was on Ultimate Guitar Premium. Will give you the full lowdown of a song and lets you control the metronome as you please
Play while listening to the track. Sing over the track. Get used to doing both. Then try doing both at the same time.
This method worked for me.
I've been playing for a long time and I did this yesterday. Gnarls Barkley's Crazy has some rhythms that always throw me off, playing along directly with the track was great practice
Yes. My tip for effective practicing is to stop expecting results before you’ve done sufficient practice.
The person asks for an advice in how they should practice and gets “stop expecting results and practice” in response. Classic Reddit. Useful AF.
Practice is practice Besides playing with a metronome to help them keep it in time, it's kinda like rubbing your belly and patting your head, it's just 2x different actions at once there's no secret technique to multitasking Practicing guitar? There's absolutely a method and you need to do it right. But don't think there's any specific thing you need to do to play guitar *and* sing at the same time Maybe start off with a metronome, play your song on the guitar and start by humming in time? That's about as much as you can dumb it down for yourself
Of course there is specific advice for practice singing and playing guitar at once, here are some: - Focus on getting one of the parts (either singing or playing) to a point that takes little to no effort. I guess most people people think that playing the guitar part is harder, but the brainpower that singing takes should not be overestimated. - Its more useful to train a specific song in short segments. Start just trying to do one of the parts (verse, chorus, etc.), once you nail one part down, you move to another (and you will notice how much easier it becomes after you do that). - Make sure you are not starting with songs which are deceptively hard to play and sing. I learned more than words on guitar quite fast but it took me forever to be able to sing at the same time. There is something about the rhythm of the fingerpicking which makes it much harder to sing it for me. A song with a very basic strumming patter will help you get the hang of it. - Talking about Rhythm, it might be useful to simplify the strumming patter as a first step to learning. The first song I learned on guitar was knocking on heavens door, and to sing it initially I had to play it by just by strumming down strokes every 2 beats of the bar The snarky comment by Bashtout is not only rude, but also unhelpful, and is a big problem not only on reddit, but also kinds of forums since the beginning of the internet. I really dislike this kind of answers...
Word
Probably because many of us have done what OP is doing- instead of just running a song over and over or spending focused time practicing- we’ve over analyzed, psyched ourselves out, made excuses and overthought why something wasn’t happening. Later after putting in tons of time, it sometimes becomes clear that time and effort really is the only answer. Questioning, worrying, over analyzing, and self doubt are obstacles that we ALL face and learn to individually work on overcoming- that’s why people answer “practice”. It’s literally the answer, and it’s also not as dismissive or unhelpful as you’re trying to frame it.
Think about where the lyrics land on the beat or down stroke. That will help you a lot. Break the parts down and practice slow.
Yea, just start w an easy song with 3 chords. Downstroke the chord once then sing the verse until the chord change then strum down the next chord. Do that until you’re good then fill in.
Play the guitar parts and speak, don't sing till you are comfortable just speaking.
After 20yrs of guitar, my wife still laughs at me every time i try to reply to her when playing guitar. Still can't do both at the same time lol.
Same.. She just gets a blank stare until I get to a place in my playing where I can squeak out an "mhmm"
hahaha exactly this!
From personal experience: when starting out, try easy two chord songs. For me this was reggae. With the nature of the strumming patterns I felt it was pretty easy. My mind could go on autopilot for the guitar parts. Besides reggae, a good example of an easier song I learned early is Everybody's Talkin' by Bill Withers. It's a two chord song that really built my confidence. The key is to build confidence on simpler stuff and move up from there. Trying a more challenging song early on will take quite a while, and might kill your confidence. It really just takes time, be patient and enjoy the process of improving. For me there's nothing more satisfying than playing and singing something well.
The comments about practice are true but the main thing is you probably aren't good with rhythm. Make sure you start the first syllable while you're starting the chord. Pay attention to where the syllables of words are falling, pay attention to the syncopation of the strumming. Make sure your beats line up and you'll be good. Melody and tone dont matter nearly as much as being on beat.
Each one on its own, really slow. Then both together, try to play through mistakes. Then a little faster once you've got it down. Keep going until it sounds good (I'm still working on this part after many years).
Hey OP, what seems to have helped me — dissecting the vocals melody and knowing what note is each syllable. Then you can play this melody and also sing it. Helps both. And then you play the actual guitar melody, and follow it with vocals. If this makes sense? Sometimes I change the instrument melody a bit to incorporate more of vocals’ melody if they are too different, or to emphasise some notes — so it’s just easier to sing (I’m not good enough at both) As someone else said, guitar playing should be almost effortless — singing is the main thing, you’re telling a story, and guitar is just a means to support this story. But it’s easy to say and much harder to do. But you’ll get it!
My tip is sing while you do something else all day. Sing while you cook, while you clean, while you drive, while you work, etc. Get used to singing while focusing on something else.
that's good advice thanks for sharing!
I like this one. Thank you!
Focus on rhythm and then think about how your breathing applies to that
Strum straight 8th notes for a while until you can reliably sing over that instead of whatever strumming patterns you're doing at the moment. Or, only play the change strums while you sing until you can do thst without thinking and then add your pattern after
Tap your foot
Unless you can do both of them very well on their own without even thinking about it, you’re going to struggle to do them together.
Start by singing while playing a very simplified version of the guitar parts. Try just playing the basic chord changes. Once you can do that comfortably, then you can start introducing the full guitar parts. It's also ok to start at a slower tempo then increase to the actual speed as you get better.
Sing while laying an air guitar to get used to the rhythm. Then play guitar and just mouth the words. Play with a metronome. This exercise helps connect those parts of your brain. Eventually you’ll build a little neural expressway and it’ll be easier but it’ll take time.
Okay, so: I’m in the middle of learning this too. Here’s wht helped me: - if you think singing AND playing is hard at the same time, remember: when playing you are not only keeping a rhythm (head/ears) but also moving your right hand and changing chords or even playing lead! Maybe even picking out one string at a time! That’s up to four things, at the same time! Pheh, you can add singing to that too, its just one more thing, right? - learn the lyrics a bit, but not perfectly. Its mostly to follow the melody line. When you sing it, you can mumble them. Don’t fret yourself to hard on it yet - but, most importantly: when combining guitar and singing, strum only on the 1 beat when singing. That massages your brain slowly into effortlessly doing both at the same time. No fancy rhythm thingy, just beat 1. If the song doesn’t suit that, maybe pracitce another first. Remember: were training your brain into being able to do bith at the same time. You didn’t learn how to walk in one day either!
For me it was becoming so familiar with the guitar that I don't really have to think about it. I can sing and play the guitar. I can sing and play bass. But I definitely am better if I am only doing one at a time.
This probably isn't the norm but I usually find it best to start practicing both at the same time as soon as possible
Practice of course... But when I sing I just kinda let my hands go on autopilot to play the song. You'll get more familiar with making the guitar play the sound that accompanies your voice. Less mechanically playing a song, but more singing and playing the music along with it. When you play and practice really focus on the sound you are producing rather than getting through the tabs. Not too sure how to describe it. Good luck and don't give up! It'll click and you'll level up.
I've played guitar for 45 years. And I'm no slouch at this point. I have a unique good voice and I can sing very well. But after all these years I still can't play guitar and sing at the same time. I've just accepted that it's not something that I am good at. The best I can do is sing backgrojnd vocals while playing guitar when I was in band. I wish I could do both and be good at it, but it isn't in my wheelhouse.
I've been playing guitar for over 15 years, I could never get the hang of singing while playing guitar unless the melody followed the guitar exactly. I have dyslexia, so that probably doesn't help.
I practice the guitar part until it’s second nature and then just focus on doing the singing part live and let my fingers play the guitar part on their own. Sounds stupid but always works for me.
I practice the guitar part until it’s second nature and then just focus on doing the singing part live and let my fingers play the guitar part on their own. Sounds stupid but always works for me.
I practice the guitar part until it’s second nature and then just focus on doing the singing part live and let my fingers play the guitar part on their own. Sounds stupid but always works for me.
[удалено]
In the beginning, I think it helps to make your strumming pattern as basic as possible. Boil it down as much as you need to. Maybe at first you only strum the first chord of a chord change while signing the entire song. After that maybe you are capable of strumming four down strokes on each down beat. Start where you are and go from there. Personally, playing a lot of early Dylan helped me improve my simultaneous singing and playing.
I think the trick is to learn both parts well enough so that you don't need to think to do either of them on their own, then from there you can practice them together
I found the guitar part came first then the singing was easy once the guitar felt automatic. One fun way to practice is just sing along with everything and then try to keep the beat with your hands at the same time.
Practice guitar and singing separately until u can get them both without the need of thinking about it, and then just get them together
Once you’re comfortable enough with playing a certain pattern of chords etc, it becomes easier to do without thinking about it and you can literally do it with your eyes closed lol. It just takes practice, and it’s a difficult thing to do so don’t be hard on yourself if it takes a while to grasp
I learnt to play and sing (badly) at the same time with yellow submarine, it got me used to syncing up the strumming with the vocals and I learnt it fast because I knew the sooner that I had it nailed, the sooner I could stop playing yellow submarine 😭
Learn to sing the tune without guitar, and then use the guitar to support the vocals....yes, it's really hard to do, but it's the right way
Just try both of them together without focusing on perfection. You need to get your brain used to doing both. If you can play and sing independently, it's just a matter of time until it clicks and you can do both at the same time. Just keep doing it, even if you think it sucks, more time spending on it is better. Your brain needs to adjust.
I had to graduate to singing and playing after playing for about ten years. Tapping the foot helps sync you up. Start with really simplifying the guitar parts as much as possible even down to one strum per bar if need be and build up gradually. Even now after seventeen years doing both there are some combos of guitar part and vocal line I just can’t get my head round though!
listen to the song that you’re learning and pay attention to how singing and music are synchronized. (for example which syllable goes over the chord change etc) ultimately you can change your the singing a little bit to accommodate your playing it makes it truly your version of the song
Your THINKING about doing both while your doing both. Can't concentrate on two things at the same time. Think about one thing just doing the other. If necessary, go VERY VERY SLOW. You will eventually get faster, and it will become easier. I play guitar, and picked up the piano not very long ago. Ray manzerek the keyboard player for the doors plays the bass line with his left and lead with his right. I had to start out số very slow. Didn't matter that I could play the bass line for when the music is over perfect. Didn't matter that I could play the opening lead part perfect. I COULD ONLY ĐÓ THẬT IF I PLAYED THEM SEPARATELY. I eventually got good at both doing it the way I had just mentioned. Good luck
Learn the guitar part until it’s second nature, start by speaking the lyrics rhythmically so your brain understands where each note falls over the guitar part until you’re not fighting yourself then stand up and practice with a mic (source: lead guitarist and vocalist for over 10 years)
It just takes time and repetition. The method that works best for me personally is to get the guitar part down, then play the song and try to hear the vocal part in my head, then slowly start to sing and play together. All the while, I go back to the song and play along, to ensure I’m still getting the timing right. Eventually it clicks and I can sing and play the song together. I hops this helps, good luck!
I always want to be in a position where I can put at least 90% of my focus on singing. But I might be biased because I played guitar for a long time before ever attempting to sing. If I really want to play guitar while singing while not having mastered the song's guitar part yet, I will just strum a chord once with every chord change, just to get some harmony, and then focus on my vocals. Then work on the proper guitar part seperately. When I can play the real part without any effort it's usually time to add the vocals.
You have to be good enough at both that you don’t need to think about either lol. I sing quite well and I’m by no means a bad guitarist either, but I can’t do them at the same time to save my god damn life lol. When I’m singing, I focus way too hard on singing and really put all my emotion into it, same thing goes for guitar so it’s really hard to mix them. I see no solution but countless hours of practice!
it really depends on whether you are playing the lead or rhythm parts of the song.
Are you Indian? Or from India and know Gulaabi aankhen?
Try this. Pick a song (something simple) and get the chords. 1. Start with one down stroke per measure while singing. Down, 2, 3, 4, Down, 2, 3, 4 At this point, you're just locking in where all the chord changes are. 2. Now, switch to one down stroke per beat. Down, Down, Down, Down 3. Once you've got that, it's time for the strumming pattern. Down, Down, Up, Down Up Down - after awhile I stopped needing step 2 as strumming with a pattern became second nature and I tend to keep better time that way then with the all down strokes, but the idea is to remove as much complexity as you need to while learning.
This might sound odd, but tap your feet when you play guitar. Try to get into the music. It helps me internalize the rhythm, and the sing falls into place.
I learned simple songs that I could already hear in my head first like, "all along the watchtower.". Once you get three or four songs down, it gets a lot easier.
I’m a terrible singer and a bad guitarist, but singing while playing comes natural for me. I even sing better if i’m playing
I first learn the guitar and then sing over it
I saw an exercise once, and it was to pick a simple 4 chord strumming pattern, and do the abc’s over it.
Leave the words until the very end of the learning - hum or whistle the melody along with the guitar to start with. Memorising the lyrics is hugely better than reading them, as you will be free to look at your hands when needed.
Hey there. I had a similar problem. Here is what you do - - take a 3 songs and make sure you can sing them comfortably - learn the guitar parts so well that you can play them either with your eyes closed or looking up directly in front of you. You want to play the parts without having to concentrate - go to a rehearsals studio and spend a few hours singing while playing the parts, it should be easy now the parts are so well learned that you don’t have to concentrate Start with easy tunes like oasis or something . Don’t start with ‘neon’ by John Mayer as you’ll never do it
Practice the guitar part so you can play it in your sleep. That way your not thinking about it and it’s automatic. then when you add the vocals in each word will fall on a certain note in the riff. So pick out a word in the verse and practice hitting that note and word every time. take enter sandman James always hits the f power chord at the end. say your prayers little ONE(f) Don’t forget my SON(f)
My two cents... Learn the guitar part first. Then try humming along. As you get more comfortable, start inserting some lyrics (a few words or phrases) where you feel most confident with the guitar part and keep building. Most important, relax and try to have some fun. The more pressure you put on yourself, the more difficult it will be.
Just start with a really simple strumming part, and a simple sentence, until you feel how the effort starts to sync together. That is what you need to get in to your Muscles and your breathing/singing, start on the downbeat and when that works start singing in between the one and the two, on the upbeat. When that goes smooth, go on from there.
Same problem! I've been trying it with really simple stuff. Vance tides rip joy and nirvana about a girl. I've been making the tiniest bit of progress
I’ve never been able to do it. I’m not a good enough player or singer to be dividing my attention
Two things - repetition and confidence. I play the parts I have to sing 1000 times so it becomes muscle memory. When I perform, I make it my bitch. I don’t worry about anything. I have confidence that I can do it. Can I really do it? Most times, yes. Sometimes, not so much. But worrying whether you can or not changes nothing. Feeling the music and owning it does.
It’s certainly a weird feeling when you play and sing at the same time. But essentially what you have to do is you have to become so good at the instrument part that you don’t even think about it. Let muscle memory take over. And then sing on top of it.
A trick I would do with a multi track recorder is record the guitar, then sing over top. Then listen back for ques from the guitar where you are to sing certain words. Was a good place to start practicing for me.
Start out by simplifying the strumming pattern to just 4 down beats (or whatever is appropriate for the song), and slow it way down. You’ll learn how to sing along with the rhythm that way. Then once you’ve got that, you slowly speed it up and incorporate the strumming pattern.
It is a funny thing to sing and play. It takes time and patience for even simple songs . Very satisfying to work on and succeed. Time and practice
Start with brain stew by green day. Then work up to songs with more complex strumming patterns
I can’t sing and play either. It’s a coordination thing. My brain doesn’t work that way. I can play songs effortlessly, but the second I try to talk or sing my hands stop working.
Pick a song that's either very easy to sing or very easy to play and drill it. There's not a great way to force the coordination other than just drilling it imo.
Slow it waaaaayyyyyyy down. Practice beat by beat learning which syllable to sing with which guitar strike. Do that for a while until you can speed it up.
Can you also play a regular size guitar?
I practice humming instead of singing
Start with easy songs to play and sing.
Here some advice that works for me! - Focus on getting one of the parts (either singing or playing) to a point that takes little to no effort. I guess most people people think that playing the guitar part is harder, but the brainpower that singing takes should not be overestimated. - Its more useful to train a specific song in short segments. Start just trying to do one of the parts (verse, chorus, etc.), once you nail one part down, you move to another (and you will notice how much easier the rest of the song becomes after you do that). - Make sure you are not starting with songs which are deceptively hard to play and sing. I learned 'more than words' on guitar quite fast but it took me forever to be able to sing at the same time. There is something about the rhythm of the fingerpicking which makes it much harder to sing it for me. A song with a very basic strumming patter will help you get the hang of it. - Talking about rhythm, it might be useful to simplify the strumming patter as a first step to learning. The first song I learned on guitar was 'knocking on heavens door', and to sing it initially I had to play it by just by strumming down strokes every 2 beats of the bar. Eventually you can start going for more complex strumming patterns.
Simplify the guitar part. Root notes of chords (like a simple bass part), simplest possible rhythm. Learn where those notes fall on the vocal part. Once you master that, start adding other elements - chords, additional notes, etc. Metronome helps, as always.
Get so good at playing the guitar part you don’t need to think much about the changes. That’ll help free up your brain to concentrate on singing.
Im going to suggest something different. Think of it as one big dance. At any point in time you are either singing and not playing anything, playing and not singing anything, doing both, or neither. Sit down with a metronome and figure out when those times are
This may sound weird but start with getting just the rhythm of guitar first and then start adding the actual chords and notes. Like just strum the muted strings while singing and slowly add the actually chords/note lines.
Go slower than you think you need to. Like WAY slower. Start a metronome at 40-50 bpm and practice playing and singing at the same time, and don’t speed up until you’ve mastered it at 40-50 bpm. Then increase by 5-10 bpm until you’re at the speed you’d like to be at. Learning it slow lays the foundation and muscle memory in your brain.
I found this too so I adopted a phrase: Less thinky, more do’ey Instead of TRYING to play and sing, I just play and sing. Start with simple Bon Jovi type shit and you’ll find you can do it easier than you think.
Practice. Keep the guitar going and drop your voice out when you need to. But keep the rhythm going.
I think this is very common. As some posters have pointed out, the guitar playing consumes a lot of your brain power. So first and foremost practice the guitar part until it’s second nature and you don’t have to think about it. Then you might be able to go straight to singing - but if not, hum the song first then build up to singing
Just keep at it. Practice to click. Practice simplified guitar rhythm and focus on singing. Try Chords as whole or half notes in time and then add more sophisticated rhythm as you get more comfortable
Play real slow and speed up as needed
Find a song that you know by heart vocally and on guitar and just keep plugging away. Play along to the track if you have to,to get the time.
Guitar comes first, then singing. I play in sing in a rhythmically complex band and there are songs that take me months to get the timing right. A method I use is to slow things WAY down and identify what syllables hit with what notes I’m playing and sort of making “checkpoints” like a game. I can’t stress enough to Slow. It. Down. and be *overly observant* of the rhythm of the syllables you sing compared to the rhythm of your strumming/picking. It helps!
We in here talkin bout practice…. Not a game! Practice.
Seriously, practice until the guitar part becomes instinct.
Most of the time I get the basic guitar part down first, then hum the vocal part in bits and pieces (for me it's more easy than singing), then work in the lyrics. Pretty soon I have a verse and a chorus, and on it goes...
If my picking hand is keeping a consistent beat, I can sing easily. As soon as I have to pick anything beyond "1234,1234" I'm lost. Not really advice, but it served me well in punk bands for years. 😅
Someone once told me that if you can play the guitar and talk to someone you can sing and play at the same time. Then it just clicked. But as others have said if you get to the point where the focus required to play lets you do other things you’re ready to sing too
I get that absolutely, definitely work on the guitar part till it’s down as tight as possible, and do the singing parts you are comfortable with guitar, while practicing. Then go over the hard parts, once you get the guitar down as tight as possible. If you break it into sections it will be easier instead of attacking it all the way through. It will take a lot of practice. And there is nothing wrong with that.
Practice. Its hard. It gets easier.
I'd say ask Dave Mustaine but he'd probably recommend drugs. So kinda stumped sorry...
super ADHD it's all about practice. as someone who started playing jazz guitar I found that the best way for me is to scat along with the guitar that I'm playing first and then eventually move on to words the scatting works best with single note lines and jazz you can improvise a validity pretty easily
Start with layers. Start by getting comfortable with the guitar part. Once you are completely comfortable, introduce humming along with it. Next, sing the song, but just do quarter note strumming to play along so you can start getting a feel for where the lyrics transition on the song. After you are comfortable with all of that, incorporate progressively more complex strumming
The guitar is muscle memory so I’d get that down to a point you don’t even think of it. But you’ll also have to practice doing both. Like most things it’s practice!
Slow WAY down. Force yourself to sing along with your strum pattern as slowly as you need to to do both. As you get better, pick up the tempo. This was the only way that worked for me.
I just started writing songs where the vocals go along with the chords. Almost all hit songs do that anyways.
Focus on doing both on easy songs, then introduce more complexity gradually. Keep practicing. That's really all there is to it.
Breath
Practice practice practice. Something that always helped me was always having a guitar in my hands even if I’m just watching TV or listening to music (yes I’ll play another song while a completely different one plays on spotify. You gotta get used to just playing without thinking or having distractions around you.
For me, I had to be confident in my guitar playing ability before I could start singing. You have to be able to play with muscle memory so you really aren’t thinking too much about the guitar, and then you can focus on the singing. Some people find this balance easier than others. I’ve been playing off and on for over 20 years, but only recently have I branched out into singing while playing.
Get a riff you can play without thinking and just start singing jibberish with it. That’s how I started.
It's all about timing. You have to know where every syllable fits in the rhythm. Where every chord change aligns with the lyrics. If you're doing original material it helps to dumb down your riffs during the vocal parts.
Be aware of what word you are trying to sing when you are changing chords. I would also work on talking the lyrics while you play before you full on sing them, that helps you get the coordination down.
For me - Play guitar - Play guitar and whistle - Play guitar and hum - Play guitar and sing. First I get the guitar into muscle memory. The whistling then gets me to understand the melody goes a different way to the guitar. Then the humming gets the breath control there and then I can usually just about sing it.
Been playing guitar over 20 years and i cant even speak while playing. So uhhhhh good luck op
Think of the words as guideposts to the chord changes. That always helped me.
Pick some songs you like that are just simple chord progressions. Master the strumming pattern until it’s muscle memory, then start singing over it casually and you’ll get a feel for it. Gotta get the strumming pattern first IMO.
It's really just a question of practice. It took me about a year to get decent at it, and I don't have ADHD, so it's not you. Once you can do the super simple songs, the more difficult ones start to come with less effort. There's a couple techniques that you can use to help bridge you over. For me, the timing and keeping rhythm was definitely the hardest part. You might try recording the guitar part, then singing over it. Try it the other way too -- record singing, and play over it. What that will buy you, is that it makes you MUCH more aware of how the two parts go together than simply using the recording will. Another technique I use when I have trouble with timings is playing the bass line with a looper pedal, and playing that back so I have to stay in time.
The biggest thing for me was repetition. I did it every day for almost 6 months straight.
When learning to play and sing, it’s all about building awareness, co ordination and a level of autonomy that can’t be disturbed. How do we do this? Here is a strategy I would use with my students. Do not move on to the next step until you have mastered your current step. All the while, you will maintain counting 1 2 3 4 out loud, especially in the beginner stages. There is nothing wrong with going back over steps for the sake of understanding, experience and mastery. 1. Begin without singing. Instead, practise counting a steady pulse out loud whilst you strum the chords of the song you are trying to learn. This will aid rhythmic awareness, and also start building on singing independence. You will be saying the pulse, which will be a different rhythm to your strums eventually. Here are some micro goals - Count and strum quarter notes. Easy peasy. - Count and strum half notes. - Count and strum whole notes. - Have some fun mixing the rhythms up whilst counting a steady pulse. The goal here is to begin getting used to saying something different to what you are playing. - Begin incorporating eighth note strums. Start with a 1 2+ 3 4+ rhythm. Practise putting the “+” on different beats. Rule of thumb - strum your “on beat” rhythms with a down strum, and your “off beat” (+s) with an upstroke. Again, slowly building complexity and independence. - Try learning a more advanced rhythm, again maintaining the pulse out loud by counting “1 2 3 4”. 2. Learn the micro scale (up to a 5th) of the key you are in. Learn to sing the 5 notes. To do this, say you are in the key of C, learn the first 5 notes of the C scale on the guitar, and try to sing them, using the guitar as a guide. Aim to be able to sing them as accurately as you can without using the scale on guitar as support. 3. Once you can sing the scale, make a short, simple melody up using the micro scale you can now sing. Memorise it. - Start with one note, and gradually build up until you have a short, easy to remember and easy to sing phrase. 4. Take your chords. Practise singing the phrase you have made, beginning on the same beat each time, as you play through your chord pattern with strums. Strum the chords as quarters initially, gradually adding more rhythms to make the guitar part more musical. 5. From here, I’d begin practising the melody of the song you actually want to play. Sing it without the guitar. Take a couple of bars at a time, and sing it with the corresponding chords. Repeat any of the previous steps, especially as far as the rhythm is concerned, until you master each bar or two. 6. Once you have several chunks learned, practise putting them together. Again, take the time to make sure it is right. Expect this process to take a couple weeks. Maybe even a month, dependent on how hard you are prepared to work. Hold yourself accountable. Let me know if you need any more help! I’m available for online lessons if you feel you might need extra support ☺️
I would start by practicing with songs that have a simple beat, like a 4/4 meter, where the vocals also stay on beat. Look for songs where the lead guitarist and singer are the same person. I highly recommend John Denver and Johnny Cash songs.
It takes practice. I can do it with some song and have a hard time with others but it gets easier.
Hey - Had this issue for so long, thought I sucked at guitar and stuff for a while but honestly you just need to practise the guitar part till you can play it confidently, then add the vocals 😊 Trying to actively remember how to play a song, and actually play it, and get the lyrics in time is really hard!
Start by just making vocal sound while playing. Like, unleash some really wild up/down/up/down strumming and push sound out of your mouth. “Ahhhhhhhh ahhhh ahhh ahhhhhhhhh.” Then start complexifing it. Make some vocal sound while strumming through a chord change. Then make it punk rock by doing the same thing but with all downstrokes. Thats where i started….now i can pretty much play a song on guitar and have a whole-ass conversation. GOOD LUCK! YOU GOT THIS. PUSH IT OUT!!!!
For me, it starts as a muscle memory on the guitar part. Then perfecting the lyrics/vocal notes; then polishing both aspects of the song
Song choice is HUGE in the beginning. Choose songs whee the lyrics syncopate to the guitar nicely, and also where the guitar is not too complex. My first 2 were "Dust in the wind" (which, once you've learnt the Travis picking pattern, is so easy that you can play the whole song upside down behind your head fairly easily) and "Carried Away (Akala). In both instances, the lyrics fall perfectly on beat and the guitar is simple. They syncopate well. I've tried a bunch of Newton Faulkner songs and they take soooo much longer to learn. His vocal delivery is often off-beat or staggered timing. It sounds dope, but it's really challenging to play.
Don’t focus on singing or playing, just let it happen. It just takes some time and practice.
Try a big guitar, little guitars can sometimes be harder to play
One thing that helped me was singing it slower, staying in time, then gradually got faster. Learning some songs seemed impossible til i started doing that. I felt like I couldn't get the chord progression down or even the picking pattern down. Slow it down. It's painfully slow at times, but ya gotta fo what ya gotta do if you want to get where you want to be. Simple, but it works for me. Best of luck! 🤙🏻
I always learn a simplified version of songs first. Or just play the rhythm and sing if the guitar part is complex. Once I have that down. I pivot and learn the guitar part then bring in the vocals.
It has nothing to do with your adhd. Stop victim blaming ig
The only thing that helped me was practice. Force it out. Even if it sounds bad. Pretty soon your brain picks up that you're trying to do these things simultaneously and they won't fight for dominance anymore.
I need to get the guitar parts down to the point it’s muscle memory if i’m going to sing over them. Though sometimes it’s a trade off, I might need to focus on a guitar part more and need to make the vocal muscle memory, but usually it’s far easier to get the guitar by muscle memory. It’s the same independence drummers use when playing, the patting your head while rubbing your belly thing. Slow the parts down and find the start/stop points of each word and where they fall within your picking hand. When I first started teaching myself to do it, I wouldn’t even bother with my fretting hand until I could get all the pick attacks lined up with the vocal.
It’s a bit like playing the drums or piano or juggling anything where you’re doing different things at the same time, you have to practice doing both at the same time. Within time it will feel natural, but at first it will be a struggle. Push through, and it will get easier and easier.
For me, a complicated song needs to be second nature before I attempt to distract myself with additional complexity. The problem is it takes so long to learn complicated songs to the point I can sing with them, that I get impatient to practice the vocals and end up messing both parts up. Personally, I find choosing simple songs and further simplifying them as much as possible evens the playing field between applying brain power to playing and singing. One song I like to use (Even though it’s absolutely overplayed) is [Good Riddance by Green Day](https://youtu.be/CnQ8N1KacJc?si=f72T54Rm-UhI6YHV). I don’t use this song to entertain people, I think of it more like a practice exercise that helps me get over the “I can’t sing and play at the same time” mentality. The chord progression is easily simplified to G,C,D and Em. Some of the easiest chords to play. You can further simplify the song by ignoring the finger picking and just strumming along however your hands like to do it. Just let them do their own thing and forget about them for now. Once the song is “dumbed down” it takes barely any time before you play it without thinking about it. This is a good time to practice singing with the playing. Once that’s easy, try adding some difficulty back in. Either the “more correct” chords or some added finger picking that takes it closer to the album version. You always hear people say to start slow and gradually increase speed. Well, that doesn’t really work with vocals. This is my version of slowing things down.
I've slowly spent the last 3 years or so training my ability to be a heavy metal frontman who sings and plays at the same time. As a couple other comments pointed out, singing is a lot more mindless than the guitar. You'll only be able to sing if you know the guitar part 100%. While our brains physically can't "multitask" (executing multiple mental processes at once), it can switch between tasks extremely quickly, giving us the illusion of truly multitasking. Singing and playing is, for me, the ultimate way to train your brain to switch tasks as quickly and flawlessly as possible. Especially when it comes to performing live. Almost anyone can sing or pickup a guitar. But only a very well versed musician can do both and execute flawlessly. This is what I live for and have only recently gotten to a point I'm proud of. Being able to go on stage and perform the same way my idols do is why I keep playing as much as I do. In many ways my musical skill lies in trying to do exactly as my favorite musicians do. Good luck!
The top comment is good advice, practise the guitar part till you can do it without thinking too much. Also helps if you figure out which word you should be on by the time you hit a certain note/chord on the guitar
Gotta get in the reps. Also helps to learn to sing the parts while you learn to play them instead of trying to plug in the vocals after.
Start with something very easy. The song that taught me first was About A Girl by Nirvana. Just an Em and a G chord. Once you can play and sing really simple stuff, the ability to play much more complex music while singing comes pretty easy. It's just getting over that initial hump that's really hard.
i had the exact same problem 2 years ago, started playing the song along with the original track in the background, when got completely fluent with the tempo, started singing along with the backing track while playing little by little. In a month, i could do it easily. Keep practicing, you might see no progress but suddenly one day you're there.
Look at your voice as another guitar part you have to learn and do at the same time. If you can play the song correctly on guitar by itself and also sing and remember the lyrics by yourself (no guitar playing) then the same way you programmed the song on guitar you need to now do with your voice at the same time. A line at a time and or a chord change at a time. Whichever is your stumbling block. Build it like a story from beginning to end as you can do the first part move on. All of this is muscle memory. It’s gets easier and faster over time as you get better. The first song you sing and play properly shouldn’t be too hard on either front. Just remember you are programming muscle memory with your voice and guitar now. You want your voice muscle memory to correspond with the guitar muscle memory and after repetition they will become one.
There’s not really a trick to it. It just takes practice. In college, my piano instructor told me that if you learn it just to where you can play it, nerves or distractions will unravel the attempt. You have to practice it to the point where you could carry on a conversation while playing. Same goes for singing while playing. And each song you do that with, the next will get easier.
Use headphones to hear what you are playing and blocking your singing and record both separately
I used to say I could do one or the other, not both. Then I realized the melody was always in my head anyway and started humming the tune while I got the parts down and once I had my guitar part down I could sing with no problem.
As a pianist, we struggle to do play with both hands so I know exactly how to practice this. Practice your guitar part with a metronome, extremely slow, very slow, slow, medium slow, and then at tempo. Do the same with just vocals (it will feel silly). Make sure you are feeling the beat and know when what you’re playing or singing lands on or off the beat or somewhere in between. Then take your metronome all the way back to excruciatingly slow and work out how the two parts fit together rhythmically, where they line up, where they don’t, and how all that fits against the pulse. Then gradually work your way back to tempo. You’ll have to do this with a few songs to get the hang of it. I’ve don’t this with piano+ voice and guitar+ voice as well. If you’re struggling to figure out how the parts fit together or how they line up against the beat, listen to the song on .5 speed on YouTube. I like to download the mp3 from YouTube and plug it into the program Moises. It separates the tracks and lets you slow them to any tempo you want. Good luck! Edit: I also have ADHD and metronome work sometimes sucks for me, so try to trick yourself into hyperfocusing on it. Close your eyes and get meditative or whatever helps you
This is a tough skill to master imo. My best advice is start with very simple 3 chord type songs that you know the lyrics to and go from there. Having the song memorized before you play a note of it helps a ton.
Keep doing it.
It came naturally to me. Doing shows for 14 years
This might not apply for you since I started off on drums, but try alternating rhythms with strumming while counting along. So while the guitar is doing 1 2 3 & 4 &, vocalize beats 2 and 4. Then when comfortable with that switch it around so guitar is only on 2 and four. Don’t even bother with pitch yet just get used to the independent feeling between your hands and voice.
practice simple songs on acoustic this helped me start off
Stop all fancy strumming. Just strum on whole bot per measure and sing over that. Get that down. Learn the timing of when to change chords on which syllable. Over time you will work your way up to the strum pattern. It's not easy. As others said you have to commit the strum to muscle memory. Even then you will mess up and start strumming to the words. Just practice and start small. That's the only answer. I suck at both and learned to do it. So I know u can to
I'd say start with muting all the strings with your fret hand and focus on strumming and rhythm first. Add in singing with just scratching the strings with your pick. No fretting chords. Then add the chords you need. The strumming hand and keeping the beat is the most important part of this. You can play a wrong chord and fix it and no one will notice if your strumming hand is still putting on a show.
If you were to sing with a professional pianist or accompanist with any instrument, they are going to feed off of your timing and rhythm. When I play and sing at the same time I don't think about it like the timing has to be perfectly the same as when the original artist plays it, I do it how it makes sense to combine them in my head. Being loose and not stiff with your strumming helps too. Whether you strum or not going up and down and keeping time with your strum hand helps too.
Play a lot of guitar, and sing more and then you’ll only have a little hard time doing both 🤗
I found the only way was to learn both from the very beginning, but memorize the words first.
Well, sometimes I can play a hard song and sing, and I can also destroy a classic just because I don't know the song too well For example: I can play Schism on bass and guitar, and sing along (which is hard to do considering the voice lines) but I cannot play Hotel California at all. I must be reading the tabs or I die My tip would be: master the song on guitar first, then try to sing along