Thanks David your tips are welcomed. I'm 74, worship leading in a micromini church which hadn't music so we me and my pal..ya my guitar brought music. Lead singing in English service and start-the song in Tamil service. Unknowlingly I was practicing the tips you shared now, I got it from you, I'll install them in my brain. Its great playing for our God Almighty. Good posting David thanks .. God bless
Fantastic advice! Especially when you're breaking down the skills involved. I like the idea of talking whilst keeping the strum pattern/rhythm going. I try watching TV whilst strumming which really irritates my wife!! Keep up the videos because I really connect with your way of teaching - thank you!
Strumming and singing is by far my greatest weakness and I feel as though it is the key part of learning to play a guitar that I just can’t seem to get! I can pick up a guitar and learn all the supposed “hard” parts of a song in a day or two, once it’s time to simply strum and sing I’m an absolute train wreck. Guess I’ll be “dry” strumming till I can’t see straight. VERY much like and appreciate your lessons! You’re the best on RU-vid as far as I’m concerned.
I needed this outside perspective to help me realize I'm not hopeless when it comes to maintaining my rhythm/ strumming while singing. Thank you! I think naturally we often want to be able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together in one move rather than one at a time.
Hey, I know this has been awhile but my steps are 1.A Know my lyrics by heart 1B. Using my own compositions (muscle memory is already there) 2. I’ll count the best out loud. 3. I’ll use metronome, even slow it down while using same strumming pattern/singing or humming. 4. Practice, practice, and then more practice. 5. Know the melody that I’m singing to 6. Started out first only singing/humming while playing a downstroke on the transition chords then moved to regular strum pattern. 7. Pray….. lol. I know I’m not patient. But my first album is coming out early May and I need to learn as fast as possible as I’ll be hitting the road after some local shows. Thanks! Any other advice would be helpful. Also, this eventually stops right??? Like eventually I get used to this and can quit worrying about it… or do I have to write my lyrics down while im writing the composition to void it? I always always do composition first then write the lyrics with the melody in my head. Edited: Loved it. ‘Preciate it!
Do you transcribe? How would you recommend to someone who wants to learn where to start? What kinds of songs to pick, should you download programs, etc.
Good question! My immediate thought was to recommend Justin Sandercoe’s channel for videos on this topic. I do some transcription - though it’s often a weird mix of starting with what others have done and modifying it to be more student-friendly or otherwise intuitive. Do you mean transcribing tabs, or rather chords & tonalities? My quick recommendation is to start with any simple text editor and use a monospaced font (eg, courier). That said I haven’t ever tried using a special app for this though I know they exist.
Oh great! I love Justin and follow his videos as well. Glad you seem to agree. He recommended a program to download so which I suppose allows you to slow down the songs and other things of that nature to help you transcribe songs, which was why I asked. Thanks!
Now that was excellent advice, especially for a beginner like me. I can't solo at all & I think that trying to learn to solo & sing at the same time would be even more difficult than strumming & singing. Anyway, thanks for the advice.............. :)
What do you think is the most important components to learning timing and to strum more easily, I know in your video’s you are great about counting it out and I try to do that but sometimes it seems like one more thing to do but I’ve been at it for awhile and I still struggle with strumming and staying in time ! That one of the things I really liked about your video’s is that you addressed strumming and timing very well 👍😎 but it doesn’t matter if I use the 1&2&3&4 or the DDUUDU mode it still seems like my rt hand is kinda retarded and it’s always a struggle to figure out a strumming pattern and get it to sound rt !🤔😩 Long after I get the chord changes I’ll still be trying to get this rt and I’ve tryed a metronome which just seems distracting and if I try to put the song or backing track on I seem to be chasing it and stressing out because instead of just playing it I feel like I’m running after it and have a hard time relaxing and playing.... Please Help
When we try to sing a melody with a bass line harmonizing, we start appreciating the greatness of McCartney. It took me very long to get the simultaneous singing and fingerpicking of 'Stairway..' But as you say, with lots of practice, the tune does come at last (no pun intended) I'm struggling to get 'Come as you are' for some time. My major area of weakness is the peculiar rhythm where most of the vocal lines start at the 3rd beat which as per the hook of the tune, Kurt misses picking on every other bar. Another song I'm struggling with is 'Every breath you take' While many online tutorials go to the ecstatic limits of the lead guitar parts, one of the most missed things in many online lessons is the detailed rhythmic count for the vocals leaving the learner to figure it out by self.
David, Another great lesson. this hit home for me also. But I think my biggest problem right now is strumming fast, when it comes to some of Johnny Cash's fast songs. Or peggy sue by Buddy Holly he strums that song about 300bpm. I know 16th note strumming but can't seem to get the speed. Is there some way to practice it or something in mechanics that I need. I'm 62 and some things I try, the bones don't want to cooperate. Thanks for keeping us newbies on the right path.
Thanks Dave - I appreciate the comment and question / suggestion. To be honest even the faster strumming gets me a lot of the time - even if I can do it for a bit it’s often exhausting or impossible to do for an entire song. I do have a few lesson ideas on how to solve this - mainly expanding on my suggestion of slowing a strum down or breaking it in half (simplifying the complexity). Often I think it’s possible to do that while still capturing the essence of the song. I’ll keep this in mind for an upcoming lesson!
Great video and advice. Since you touched on strumming while singing that leads me to another question, how important is it to follow the strumming pattern exactly when learning a song? I have been having issues with the strumming to Neil Young Heart of Gold, especially some of the 16th note strums that come right before a chord change. It seems like I don't have time to get my fingers in place for the following chord.
Ah yes - I think it’s 💯 okay to deviate from any strumming pattern to fit your own skill & comfort & desired sound. Generally I am a huge proponent of simplifying strum pattern as needed so that you can first have fun playing through a song, should that be your goal. From there, only if you want, you can “upgrade” the strum in complexity or difficulty if that’s something you want to work toward. If not, then that’s cool too! There’s no one right way to play any song, in my opinion (purists will disagree).
Song Notes I like to play metal. There are some songs like Valhall Awaits Me by Amon Amarth that use this technique throughout. Also the middle portion of Warriors of the North by the same band. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you very much. :)
Yup, I think so 💯! Whenever you are combining two or more skills at the same time, I think a good ideal is to develop competency in each (at first by themselves) toward the point you can do them - or at least one of them - unconsciously.
Thanks for your answer, I meant your lessons as a whole not this particular one but its fine too ^^ btw I'm loving your videos so far, great explaining and really hooks me on a guitar
Oh okay! To be honest I have never played classical guitar so I’m not really sure how many of my lessons would apply, but I would guess some of them might be applicable. Best of luck!
Thanks again! An interesting fact ive noticed is where i live (Poland) classical guitar is much more popular than accoustic and in America accoustic is more popular. There are no tutorials for accoustic in Polish and there are no tutorials for classical in English. Wonder why it is so
You definitely can! Admittedly I’m not the greatest at it in certain circumstances. A good video idea might be one about simple hammer ons. I’ll keep that in mind. Listening to Thunderstruck now... and I want to play it ASAP :) or at least see if I can.
Thank you for this video! It has actually helped me. I haven't stopped practicing since I saw your tutorial for feathered indians and seeing this video definitely gave me some new insights and I'm finally able to play and sing it at the same time!! What really helped for me was to slow it down. Way down. And after I had it all going at the same time at a really slow pace it took me about half an hour to get it up to speed. I uploaded a video of me playing it! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-J-A3eAZJkic.html It's not perfect but it'll do. Thanks again!
