Singing and Playing

Many guitar players, myself included, shy away from singing in general, especially while playing guitar. However, you will eventually come to a point where you have the desire, or are asked to sing while playing. For me this happened while camp counseling. I was asked to lead campfire songs, and I immediately freaked out because I don't think of myself as a singer, and I hadn't practiced playing while singing. Luckily these songs were easy, but it still took a little bit of practice getting to the point where I could comfortably do it, especially when I started trying to sing more complex songs. So the following are some tips that have helped me when learning to play and sing. 

The first thing to do is to make sure that you are playing it in a key that is comfortable for your voice. If you are having to really work to hit notes (having to go way higher or lower than your comfortable range) then you are not in the right key. If so then transpose the song to a new key. The easiest way to do this is with a capo, you will be able to play it the exact same way as before, just your open strings will be a new set of notes. This works best in first position. If you can't easily capo it you will have to transpose it the old fashioned way, which can be tedious but is great practice.

The second tip is to play it play it play it. What I usually do is sit and watch TV while I keep on playing through the song over and over again. If I am messing up at all then I slow everything down until I can play it perfectly. Then I slowly bring it back up to speed. Once you can play it perfectly at the right speed then you are halfway there.

The third thing to do is to start adding in singing. Now that you've got the guitar part down try to add singing. If you are having trouble slow it down again. Go slow enough that the singing does not mess up your playing. If you really can't add singing then hum or whistle the tune first along with your guitar playing. Then, when you can whistle or hum it while playing it perfectly, add in vocals. 

The fourth thing to watch out for is nervousness. It can be nerve racking to sing in front of people, especially if you are uncomfortable with your voice (i.e. me). One good trick is to yawn constantly before you go on. Whether this is true or not, the idea is that you are taking in a lot of oxygen which will calm you down and give you a little more mental clarity. It seems to work well for me.

Hopefully these tips will help you with singing and playing. Remember the best thing you can do besides this is to just play and sing with other people, or for other people as often as you can. The more comfortable you are playing around others the easier things will be when you actually go to perform.