Keep practicing.

Ps. it only took me that long because I only practiced once a week. Now I practice every day

Eddie

Right now, strum your hand up and down two times every second as if you were holding a guitar. Now sing a song, like happy birthday for instance. Can you sing happy birthday without it sounding as if your saying words falling on beats that happen every 1/2 second? Sing a christmas song.

If you can do that, then you can play guitar and sing. Just keep that hand moving at a steady interval while using guitar/palm/finger mutes in place of rests. Remember you dont have to actually make contact with the string just make sure you keep that hand moving at a steady pace withhout interuption.

Now that i've given it further thought, i believe that this was the "stepping stone" exercise that got me into singing and playing.

Maybe time to own up that I've been playing for about 15 years, simply playing chords is good, also been taking classical guitar lessons for about 4 years now, so my fingers move well and I have a reasonable general sense of timing etc.  My biggest problem seems to be in maintaining the 2 separate rhythms.

Maybe I'm trying to push myself too much and should simplify the music, but this problem even goes for playing Mull of Kintyre with simple chord progression and simple 3/4 downstrums.

When learning a new classical piece, the trick is to sloooowwww down, but one can only do that so far when you have to sing along.

I've had some success with the "learn the song very well" advice, I found that I was sometimes playing some extra beats to fit around the words, stretching some bars and shrinking others to suit.  But the problem still remains.

Thanks for all your kind words and advice, they've helped relieve the impatience somewhat.

I'll just keep trying

cheers

--

Colm

What' smost important is just to keep playing and having fun. The muscle memory will come.

Just stumbled upon this video clip at janisian.com

Take a look - it is an amazing (and highly original) bit of musicianship!

Here is the link (although I don't know if it will work within the context of this forum).

<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/woz/filechute/teaspoon2%5b1%5d%5b1%5d.mpg.mpeg" target="_blank"> http://homepage.mac.com/woz/filechute/t … 1%5d%5b1%5 d.mpg.mpeg</a>

If the link won't work, just copy and paste into your browser bar.

Likewise some songs have tricky changes of key and tempo ('Suspicious Minds') that make them great on record but hell for the beginner.

Look for songs with a simple chord change towards the end of each verse, this is very common and traditional. Your vocal will either rise or fall with this for emphasis.

The best kind of songs have chords that take over in the pause between sung lines. So you get to take a breath and strum confidently for a second. Cliff Richard and the Shadow's 'Young Ones' is bullet-proof this way. It's very call and response; 'once in every lifetime' is answered by a guitar strum that exactly matches it, ditto 'comes a love like this'.

It all might sound pretty awful at first what with all the howling and thrashing - - but it works for me.

I agree whole-heartedly with Upyerkilt's observation that you do your own version of a song and don't get all obsessive about making it sound like someone else's recording of a song.  Mimicry is not musicianship.

If I want to really polish up a song after both the lyric and accompianment are firmly in my head, I find it very useful to sing it with no instrument - - I'll knock out the beat on the body and/or with my big smelly feet and sing as strong and clear as I am able - - again, it might sound pretty awful at first but it is necessary to really learn the song.

Too many players are very anal about what they do with their fingers and assume that the singing is going to 'just happen'.  Too often, players are hunched over their instrument in such a way that they can't draw a full breath, much less get enough wind to sing a complete lyrical phrase.

Vocalizing takes deliberate effort (and strength)- straighten up our spine and neck, hold your head up (not looking down at your fingers), breath from the deep gut, relax your throat, and open your mouth.  Good vocal technique is no mystery - posture and breathing is the key.

If you must sit down to play - sit erect on the edge of your seat (not slumped back or hunched over your instrument).  I prefer to stand to play and sing - it is more fun and it's easier to breathe.

Everybody's voice is unique - as long as you sing with confidence and conviction it will sound good - at least that's what I keep telling myself.

i'm trying to learn Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. It seems easy. But when I try to sing while playing, I just can't. I end up messing up the strumming or messing up the song's rhythm.

I still learn a song by playing it and singing it at the same time, I get to know what chord I am on when I start to sing a verse or chorus, the rest just comes if you know the song well enough.

And sometimes I use the songs of chordie but I dont try to make them sound exactly the same as the original artisit. I do my own version as much as possible. If you like it then keep playing it the way you want to and ignore anyone that says you have destroyed it.

If you like it then others will

Ken

i'd just recommend that...learn the song until it's almost second nature. i know some are tricky, but...yeah. lol

hope it goes well for you

been playing a while now and still have not mastered singing and playing at the same time.

Funnily enough, I can play arpeggios and sing (e.g. street spirit, house of the rising sun, streets of london).

But when I strum chords, I always start strumming the rhythm of the lyrics.  I can't seem to separate the two.

I've started accompanying the CD of songs I'm learning to get rhythm and timings together.

I'm sure it's down to practice, practice, practice, but I also know that if I don't have a battle plan, then I'll just reinforce my bad habits (as I've done over the years to date...)

I like almost any kind of music...

What do you do?