Tips on playing while singing?

[ClairvoyantCat]

So my band has a song where the guitar is playing a much different rhythm than the vocals are singing.  I need to get it down solid.  Right now I often get off time with both.  I don't have a problem with singing the notes, because I have good pitch so I don't get off key, it's just that I always loose rhythm when it comes to the guitar having one that's much different than singing.  Anyone else ever been in the same boat and have any tips? 

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I've been there.  It sucks, but there are things you can do.  It is a song you're really familiar with or is it relatively new to you?  I've found that if I've played a song enough times on the guitar, that initially playing it and singing it can be difficult, but I soon manage to put my hands on auto-pilot - I've played the song so much, that my hands just do what they do and I almost don't even have to think about it.  It's like someone in the back of the room has a little remote control that's making my hands move.  This way I can focus on the vocals better.

Write both the vocal melody and the guitar riff out together.  Write them out one above the other, so that they line up the way they would when you perform them.  The idea here is that you want to be able to visualize on paper just what exactly it is that you are asking of yourself.  Analyze it.  Analyze each line separately AND together.  Look at where long notes in one line or the other may overlap a sustained rhythm in the other line.  Things like that.  Then slow it all down.  If you have to cut the tempo in half or more.  Play and sing the line however slow you have to to get it right.  Use a metronome (https://www.seventhstring.com/metronome/metronome.html - type in the desired tempo, then click on the metronome).  Once you can get it right several times, up the tempo.  You'll get there.

Out of curiosity, what is the song?

[Marvellous G]

I'd just reiterate Cozmo's tip about knowing the song so well on guitar that you don't have to think about it; Tool's Lateralus and Dave Matthews Band's Warehouse were both bitches to sing over at first, but after I'd played them enough on guitar they were bearable.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Do you find that you barely even think about what you're playing when you play and sing?  The songs my band does I've played so many times that my hands are literally on auto-pilot.  I almost never have to consciously make an effort to pay attention to what I'm playing.

[Marvellous G]

I find that I can definitely auto-pilot, but as soon as I focus on what I'm playing once it becomes harder to shake.  Normally though yeah, it's just my hands doing their thing independently of my brain.

[ClairvoyantCat]

Out of curiosity, what is the song?

It's an original song. 


That is good advice though, thanks!  I'll practice with a metronome until it gets automatic.  I think that I often just overthink it too much.  As in, I start thinking "oh make sure you don't miss this vocal line" and then I rush it and fuck up everything. 

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Nice tips in this thread. It's something I practiced a lot because we didn't have a singer for quite some time and I was in charge of the singing duties. It was hard, but I kinda found the balance between singing the right notes and actually playing the right notes (I'm a keyboardist). I had to drop some fast runs and such, because there are things I just couldn't coordinate. It's just a matter of practice, knowing your stuff and actually, trying. Sooner or later, it will work. Hopefully sooner than later.

[Marvellous G]

What I find hard is singing the song's melody if the guitar is playing a harmony to it at the same time. I always want to veer off and sing the harmony I'm playing, or play the melody I'm singing. 

[ClairvoyantCat]

I tend to have the notes down decently.  I just can't help but wonder if there's a way to practice having that sort of disconnect.  As in, watching Daniel or Claudio Sanchez.  I can't play complicated guitar rhythms and sing a different line over them like those two can.  I need a way to practice doing it.  I guess I could just repeat them over and over again and hope I'll learn.  It seems like a mental trick. 

[ZBomber]

Good advice in this thread, I'm definitely gonna be utilizing some of it soon. 

[MykeHavoc]

I've tried for ten years. I just can't do it. Unless its simple strummy acoustic stuff, there's is no way to coordinate my hands and my mouth (ewww...)