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Do You Sing Backing Vocals?


acidbass
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Simple question really

Just wondering if many of you sing backing vocals (either in your current band, or in general)

I've been dabbling recently with the hope that it'll improve my employability as a live session bass player, for tours etc.

But...is it necessary?

Cheers guys!

Danny

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Yup exactly, it's all practice... can be daunting at first but you soon get used to it. The real challenge comes when you've got a complex bass part with a totally different vocal line. I don't know how Mark King does it, it's easily the most impressive aspect of his playing.
More difficult than singing and playing, is talking and playing. Try it some time, just carry out a normal coversation while you play. Impossible! :)

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[quote name='acidbass' post='91218' date='Nov 20 2007, 02:21 AM']Simple question really

Just wondering if many of you sing backing vocals (either in your current band, or in general)

I've been dabbling recently with the hope that it'll improve my employability as a live session bass player, for tours etc.

But...is it necessary?

Cheers guys!

Danny[/quote]

I wouldn't say it was necessary but it does go a long way on your cv...... I think I have had more success with tours because of this..... One thing I will say is that
It's definitely beneficial for you to practice singing while playing. You eventually get to a point where your hands just know what to do and you find yourself not 'thinking' as such about what your playing


Jay

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I pushed myself into it by telling the band I joined I was proficient. Then I become proficient, as the others have said through sheer hard practice.

As my pal WaterofTyne says, you need to know what notes to hit but don't need to have a lead-standard vocal. The effect is all...and it's satisfying to play a part in that.

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I sing on about 50% of our songs with all 4 members contributing to backing vocals
We always try and reproduce the harmonies on each cover song.

Great fun, but can be a bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head !

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[quote name='Rich' post='91229' date='Nov 20 2007, 07:24 AM']More difficult than singing and playing, is talking and playing. Try it some time, just carry out a normal coversation while you play. Impossible! :)[/quote]


Very true! Our will drummer talk to me mid song, probably deliberatley ;-)

All I can do is grin inanely back at him, 'cos if I talk the bassline may collapse.

So vocals *and* playing? How do they do it, like you said, practice, practice...

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I reckon the ability to sing as well as play definitely makes you more "employable".

It makes the band much more versatile and professional.

Anyone can play bass passibly (almost), and guitar, drums, etc, but to have quality harmonies is what really makes a band stand out.

I'm happy with my ability to hold a tune & so long as I can hear myself I'll sing plenty of backing, but if I can't hear myself, I won't even attempt to sing because just as good harmonies will make a band's sound stand out, bad backing vocals will ruin a band's sound (not to mention reputation).

My band has just decided that we're going to concentrate more on our backing vocals, cos we've been told that on the songs where we all sing, we sound great.

I'm not talking Supertramp or CSN harmonies all over the place - simple stuff like all of us doing the "woah-oh-oh" parts in the chorus of Hard Fi's Suburban Knights and all the backing vocals in Fantasy by The Blizzards.

These don't need lead-quality voices - just stay in tune and don't drop your musical parts. It really fills out the sound, specially for a band like ours with just one guitar, bass & drums.

It's worth getting comfortable singing while playing for other reasons too - there's been more than one occasion where our singer has lost it (many reasons: forgot words, lost his place in the song, couldn't find pitch, choked on a bad swallow...) and either one of me, the drummer or the guitarist has carried it till singer got it together.

Careful though: our guitarist likes to sing whenever he feels like it, and not always in tune. If he was singing alone, it'd be okay, but when someone else is already sing that part, it can sound crap - I do the falsetto "ooooo-oo-oo-oooo-ooo-ooo" in the chorus of You Are All That I Have by Snow Patrol, and sometimes he fancies a go at it too, so I just have to pull out of it and let him go.

I like when I nail a singing part while I'm playing - very satisfying.


Mark

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I asked a similar question here a few months ago and had some excellent advice, much of it already covered above.

Most important thing: Make sure you have BOTH the basslne AND the vocal part completely nailed BEFORE you try to put them together. Each element should be able to run on fully-automatic. Not only will that give you way more confidence, it also means that a bum note in your playing or a missed verse in your singing shouldn't cause the whole thing to fall apart on you.

Second most important: Don't try this at home - unless you have very understanding family/neighbours. The only way you can practise on-stage singing is at full volume. I practise while commuting on a (very loud) motorbike and still get funny looks at traffic lights.

Third most important: It's a lot easier (for a bass player) if you choose vocal parts that allow you to sing in time with the beat. Once you start looking, you may be surprised by how rare that is.

Way down the list: Having a good voice. As long as you can sing in tune, there's no need to sing beautifully. If that were the case, what would have happened to the careers of, say, Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler?

Good luck.

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I have sung lead vocals in the past (not a good idea really).

I don't do backing vocals with the covers band because the vocalist and guitarist (who was the vocalist until we recruited, er, the vocalist) are very tight and I have my work cut out forgetting the notes anyway. I do with the acoustic duo - I find that playing guitar (even fingerpicking) and singing is easier than playing bass and singing.

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[quote name='Rich' post='91229' date='Nov 20 2007, 08:24 AM']Yup exactly, it's all practice... can be daunting at first but you soon get used to it. The real challenge comes when you've got a complex bass part with a totally different vocal line. I don't know how Mark King does it, it's easily the most impressive aspect of his playing.
More difficult than singing and playing, is talking and playing. Try it some time, just carry out a normal coversation while you play. Impossible! :)[/quote]

+1. My son asked me a simple question requiring just a "Yes" or "No" answer the other day while I was practicing over a backing track. The result was a bass-related train-wreck I'm ashamed to say.

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[quote name='acidbass' post='91218' date='Nov 20 2007, 02:21 AM']I've been dabbling recently with the hope that it'll improve my employability as a live session bass player, for tours etc.
But...is it necessary?[/quote]
Short answer? Yes. It will get you more work. I know I have lost gigs because I don't sing (would have lost even more if I did!!), so get it down asap. It might feel like patting your head while rubbing your tummy but practice will sort that out.

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i sing lead vocals and play in my band at school it took me a while to master but i can now sing 4-5 songs perfectly in harmony and barely have to concentrate on my playing because of my muscle memory i've played the songs that many times also listening to hear if you can hit the right notes with out looking at the board helped me then bring in the singing... give it a try...

:)

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I've always sang backing vocals. Through necessity to start with, but it just comes natural now.

I find that if I'm listening to a track, I'm always listening to the bass line. That has now become likewise with vocals....I tend to listen for the harmonies rather than the melody.

One I struggled with many, many years ago, but with practice, I eventually cracked it.....have a listen to ELO's "Mr Blue Sky" and listen to the walking bassline Kelly Groucutt's playing at the end where the operatic part is (just prior to the staccato piece with all the strings). I had to play and sing the operatic part. It's sheer hell to start with because of playing and singing two different rhythmic patterns, but eventually you just get it.

Edited by Thunderthumbs
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[quote name='teen t-shirt' post='91526' date='Nov 20 2007, 03:12 PM']muscle memory[/quote]
I don't want to take this off topic, but I think you have the wrong idea about muscle memory. I had a discussion about it on another message board, and it turns out there's a very informative Wiki about it somewhere.

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