anyone here do it? anyone here do it well? any tricks to it?

i suck at it.

that damned fly wrote:anyone here do it? anyone here do it well? any tricks to it?

i suck at it.

did it last time i was in a band where i played bass. do it well? i dunno about that.

i think the trick is to really know your bass part, and be able to play it fairly automatically. and to learn the vocal part well enough that you don't have to struggle to think through it as you're doing it. and then bring the two together.

either that, or just play really fucking simple bass parts, and it's a no-brainer!

a friend of mine once described playing and singing as like trying to do math problems. he wasn't so great at math or something. but that's another good one, if you can play your bass part while reciting multiplication tables, you can play it and sing. well, if you can sing anyways.

that didn't help anything for anybody, did it? frick.

I think that practicing.
Im playing in a band which wants me to play a second vocal for the whole song, and I just play it alone and singing at the same time.
I usually play it slower and with a metronom.
and yes, i play bass.

that damned fly wrote:anyone here do it? anyone here do it well? any tricks to it?

i suck at it.

I do it on a couple of songs. I don't know about doing it "well," but I usually don't mess up too much. The trick is to play really simple basslines and let the guys on guitar do all the work.

Yep... That's what I do.

I have been doing it for 15 years... and there are still times when I write a song that is very difficult to syncopate lyrics with the rhythm of the bass line. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

Not Crap!

"Trying to play bass and sing is like trying to dial a different telephone with each hand"

-David Crosby

As much of a stain on God's shorts as he no doubt is, Sting is good at playing bass and singing parts that don't match rhythmically with what he is playing. "Spirits In The Material World" for example. A very long time ago, I saw him pull this song off live w/the Police.

Angus Jung wrote:As much of a stain on God's shorts as he no doubt is, Sting is good at playing bass and singing parts that don't match rhythmically with what he is playing. "Spirits In The Material World" for example. A very long time ago, I saw him pull this song off live w/the Police.

...Very good example of vocal/bass syncopation.

Geddy Lee is totally nuts in this depatment too.

As is John Wetton.

Tom Araya or whatever his name is from Slayer is so bad at this, yet he keeps going thru the motions. You'd think after like 20 years he'd get the hang of it.
I swear his bass isn't even plugged in when they play live.

I do it. No real trick. Just a lotta practice.