Does anyone have any strategies on mastering this skill? I want to be able to sing syncopated rhythms and play other syncopated stuff on the guitar. I can strum folksy stuff and sing at the same time fairly well, but riffs and other more rhythmicly interesting guitar/vocal parts pose a problem.
Thanks in advance.

The marriage of counterpoint ideas is always a trick. I would suggest isolating each melodic line (in this case, voice and instrument), and through sheer repetition (ad nauseum), get each move to feel as natural as breathing. Combining the two is where it gets tricky, as it's the classic case of right and left brains fighting each other. A metronome is your best friend. Take a measure or two of music at a time, at a s l o w tempo (painfully slow), such that there is actually time to think about each move. If you can get it clean at a slow pace, moving up to tempo is not a problem, as no slop has been dialed in. This is the way I learned to do the guitar/vocal thing, as well as guitar-specific stuff such as rockabilly guitar. For the guitar/vocal thing, Hendrix was of course a master, in a looser, more improvisational sense. But for a tighter, stricter approach to counterpoint of melodic ideas within pop rock sensibilities, Paul McCartney is the benchmark. The Beatles' "Day Tripper" is an excellent vehicle for practicing a signature riff against a syncopated melodic vocal line.

Wow, thanks Corleone, I'll get going on Day Tripper. I guess I'll just work on a bunch of riff tunes in the way that you described. Maybe I'll make a list of tricky ones that're useful to learn if I do get good at this.
Thanks again.

Another master at this is Sting... always amazes me what he can manage to sing over these basslines of his... these old The Police songs have a lot going... also true of his solo work live stuff is great to watch and learn a few things.

Hi dblack, glad I was able to be of some help. Best of luck!

Glorbz, I agree with you, but it's funny you should mention that... I caught The Police on the last tour before they threw in the towel, and Sting altered the bass lines on quite a few of the classic tunes. Not sure if it had anything to do with the sort of thing we're talking about here, or if he'd just gotten bored with playing the lines that he had recorded... most of the changes were on the subtle side, but one that really stuck out like a sore thumb was "Every Breath You Take". He replaced that steady, pulsing line (which is not a difficult part to sing over, by the way), with sort of a loping, country-fied root-five move - which I thought sounded a bit goofy!

Once you master singing and playing a piece of music, doing it with conviction is another challenge all together. All too often we see guitarists/vocalists at ye olde local tavern struggling with the chore and sounding quite robotic. I believe that you have to make a choice. Either singing or playing guitar must take priority. If you're on lead vocals I say play tight rhythm guitar and let your co-guitarist/keyboardist add the nuances. You can't 'let go' when you are burdened with playing a complex guitar part under your vocals.

Geddy Lee of Rush is another fellow able to sing over fairly complex bass parts. I'll also add that Geddy never 'moved me' with his vocal performances. Rush is great - just more about intellect than raw emotion.

I recently been trying that a bit more with my own songs. I can keep up with an acoustic playing rhythm (and not just the basic strumming rhythms here) and singing my own stuff in a way that is a lot easier than what I can deliver if I attempt this with something I didn't write... I guess writing it makes it easier since you go with your limitations as you write it.

quote:

Originally posted by sonde-guysmy:
You can't 'let go' when you are burdened with playing a complex guitar part under your vocals.

Yeah when doing both I feel you sacrifice some nuances in order to get both going. I guess practice makes perfect... but I must be too lazy to bother

sonde-guysmy and Glorbz, you both make some very good points. I gave up the lead vocalist gig years ago, as my voice simply doesn't have the character for the job (good pitch is only part of the equation). However, I pick up the bulk of the backing harmonies with my pop rock band.

We usually play tunes live quite a few times before recording them, and my vocal parts start off unassuming enough, and are usually not that ambitious. It's in the recording environment that I really get the chance to hear the potential for cool vocal harmonies, and I always have to go after it. With some practice, I usually manage to find a way to sync the instrumental and vocal lines that I've tracked, and the live thing subsequently benefits from the more microscopic approach that was taken in the studio. However, now and then I wind up painting myself into a corner...

Fortunately, everyone in that band sings well, and one of the other boys can pick up a line or two as needed, as there's no reason for a signature hook or rhythm to suffer.

The other thing that helps with all of this is that everyone in that band can play guitar and bass, as well as some other instruments, including the drummer. We often cut a tune one way in the studio, and assign instrumentation quite differently for the live thing, based on how the vocals are to be distributed, among other considerations. I'll have bass credits for five of the tunes on our new CD, but play guitar on all but one of those songs for the live thing. I find that some of the bass lines that really need to lock in with the kick drum allow no compromise whatsoever. I've always had an easier time of it with the syncopated guitar/vocal thing, than with the tricky bass/vocal thing. Each can be worked out, but every player has their "comfort zone", and a bit more work might be required for different circumstances. Maybe if I wasn't so caught up in trying to get this aspect of the musical endeavor right, I'd have more time to work on "chops". Not likely to change for me anytime soon though, as the song's the thing in my book.

"the song's the thing in my book."

wooooord.