Quote:
Originally posted by stefan
And here's another question on technical abilities and the difficulties of a live performance. To me- as an absolute non musician and just music listener- it always seemed to be hard to play something this way and also do the singing simultaneously live. Is that an additional difficulty? Or could you say- either somebody can play a piece in the fingerpicking style or not- no matter if he sings on it or not?
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Good question. I would say that there is a point in every musician's life, where, regardless of what instrument you play, you don't have to "think" about what you want to play: you just play it.
It's very analagous to driving a race car: if I was driving a Formula One car, I would have to think about how much to turn the steering wheel, whether I should press left or right for "shift up" and "shift down", whether I should switch on my traction control for the next corner...etc etc etc, and yet I still would probably not have the guts to take it past 100mph. Then you see these F1 drivers who not only do 70 laps at an average of 150mph......but also have casual conversations over the radio with their team bosses whilst taking turns at over 200mph. Basically, it's all about confidence, and experience.
There have been so many occasions when I've been playing a song (including Big Love), casually, whilst watching TV, or having a conversation with a friend. Although I'm not that great a singer, when I do sing whilst playing, the "singing process" never "interferes" with the "playing" process (the only time there is a problem is if I forget the words!), regardless of how easy or tough the guitar or vocal parts are. The two are pretty much independent.
I said recently in another post that what makes LB so amazingly talented is the fact that he can play like that and sing like that at the same time....but I didn't mean that the amazing part is the fact that he is doing both "at the same time", I meant that what is amazing is the fact that he can play like THAT...and sing like THAT i.e. I think he is an amazing guitarist, and an amazing singer, which is a rare find nowadays.
So in answer to your question, IMHO, I don't think that singing is really a problem . The only time I can think that it may be classed as an "additional difficulty" is when you have to keep your head in a fixed position (i.e. up and towards the microphone) whilst playing an "easy to mess up (if you're not looking at your left hand)" part with your left hand. That fast middle part of Big Love is a perfect example...the two left hand fingers are not on the same fret, and have to smoothly shift between three chord positions with no "sliding", and that can be damn tough if you're not looking at your left hand: you see LB looking out of the corner of his eye every time he makes that chord switch whilst singing "I wake up, alone with it all...etc".
If you have 25,000 people staring at you I guess it doesn't make things any easier.
