Pushing My Guitar Skills

For my final piece I would have liked to perform my piece on piano, but I have been unable to have enough access to a piano to practice enough to learn to be able to sing while playing, because of this I have decided to play my song on guitar. Although I am more confident playing the guitar I still need practice with singing while playing so I have done some research with tips of how to achieve this. I found a website with 10 helpful tips.

1. Playing and singing are not two separate things, when playing your singing and strumming rhythms need to correlate so that they sound seamless.

2. It is not necessary to overcomplicate a song, only play songs that are at your skill level. Start off by playing an easy song that you know well, songs with only a few chords and a simple strum pattern.

3. Know your basic guitar skills, you must be able to change chords and know your strumming pattern well so that you can play without thinking about them. This will enable you to concentrate on your singing.

4. Memorize the song so you can play it fluently. One way to tell if you’ve mastered a song is if you are able to keep playing it while watching TV or having a conversation.

5. Know how to sing the song, even if you know all the chords perfectly you need to know the tune and the lyrics to the song. This may mean singing the song without the guitar for a while just to make sure you know it perfectly.

6. Hum the song first, you may find it helps to hum the melody over the strumming pattern before singing it. It will help with getting used to any chord changes without having to worry about the lyrics.

7. Slow the piece down, it is much better to sing and play correctly at a slower pace than to speed through the song and get it wrong. Speed will come with practice.

8. If the song you want to play is more complex and involves fingerpicking you may want to start by just strumming the song and when you’ve got that perfectly you can start to move onto the more complex strum.

9. If you find yourself straining to hit the notes in a song try changing the key of the piece. Use a capo or move the chords up a fret or two it will allow you to transpose to piece to either a lower or higher pitch.

10. Keep practicing. As they say, practice makes perfect and even once you’ve acquired a basic skill you will want to push your music to the next level and add to your repertoire. If you get stuck even on more difficult songs, go through these tips step by step and keep practicing (Dickson 2015).

These 10 steps have helped me in creating my piece and being able to play and sing at the same time. This will push my musical performance to the next level.