Rhythm or lead guitar for a singer?

[Here Lies The Fire]

So I'm going to play graduation here in a month or less and I couldn't find a singer so I guess I'm going to have to do it myself... I have never tried singing seriously and I will have to do some mad practicing to make it not sound like TOTAL shit. On top of that I have to play guitar at the same time, though that isn't a problem. My question is should I pick Rhythm Guitar or Lead Guitar? Both are super easy

Here is the song:

SPOILER : show

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU52JpE7E68[/youtube]
(I know to most all of you this music isn't your style but still you are musicians..)

Any other good advice you guys can give to a guitarist forced into singing?

[tashiattack]

You have to do what works best for you. It takes some practice trying to sing and play at the same time, so give both a try and see what YOU are most comfortable with. No one can answer that question for you.

My advice: practice, practice, practice, practice. Doing this for the first time (singing and playing guitar), it's not as easy as it seems.

[unownunown]

rhythm will probably be the easiest to do while singing. lead is hard because you'll probably be playing a different line completely than what you're singing, and on different notes too. but try them both out and see what's easier for you.

[snipelfritz]

Don't worry about practicing them together until you're confident about each part separately. That goes double for memorizing lyrics. The worst thing is having to focus on guitar, singing, and digging through the recesses of your mind for lyrics.

[theavondon]

Once you can disassociate your hands from your mouth, you can do anything. So, erm, practice.

[mathias]

Pat head and rub belly while singing national anthem?

[theavondon]

Pat head and rub belly while singing national anthem?

Pretty much.

[Here Lies The Fire]

Wow nobody on this forum gave me shit about picking this song.

[The4455]

Wow nobody on this forum gave me shit about picking this song.

Nah, it's okay. It has elements that I liek about it but as a whole I wouldn't have listened to it if you hadn't brought it up. Best of luck. I would do lead guitar, it looks more impressive like: wow that guy can sing and play lead guitar wow!

Also I usually play lead when I sing because I'm the lead guitarist and I just make guitar playing secondary and focus on singing. Also worst case scenario you could find another person to play guitar and you could sing.

[theavondon]

OH THAT SONG ALSO BLOWS

[The4455]

OH THAT SONG ALSO BLOWS

So does your mom, but I don't complain about that.




























Zing

[theavondon]

OH THAT SONG ALSO BLOWS

So does your mom, but I don't complain about that.




























Zing

Mom's dead bro.

[snipelfritz]

Dead, head, what's the difference?

[Bassus Sanguinis]

It hardly matters if we like the song or not, You should like it and make it show. I listened it halfway and have to admit I skipped my way to the end in half minute steps, but...

Once you can disassociate your hands from your mouth, you can do anything. So, erm, practice.

This. So. Much. It takes only some analysing and/ or getting into the flow which can not be done but by playing it a lot. Here's a few helpful tips:

Break it down to pieces, when You run to same difficult passage You fuck up routinely (hopefully not, though), break it down. Slow it down to half tempo, for four bars. Then to a fourth of the actual tempo. It can feel at first awckward if You've not done it before, but the idea is to not let you get lost to the flow of the song and actually find out which syllable comes with which downstroke and where did that chord change really.

And listening to the song when not playing. You can try mental practices also, contemplate the song and how your parts go while listening to it, without playing. You might notice details You miss while concentrating hard on either actual playing or singing. I do this all the time, for me it works.

Happy practicing.

[dubkitty]

if you're going to have to work it up quickly, you'd probably be best off going with rhythm guitar for the simple reason that the rhythms you'll be playing conflict less with the overall beat/tempo...the sung melody can wander anywhere, and if you have to master two arbitrary lines that don't necessarily track the beat you're twice as deep in shit. rhythm guitar also has the advantage that slight inaccuracies are less obvious when compared to lead guitar or--particularly--bass, which IMO is the most difficult rock band instrument to play while singing because the placement of bass notes is so critical. which is to say that if you make a boo-boo on rhythm it can get buried in the mix

i learned to play lead--or at least continuous fills--whle singing because there was a particular song i wanted to play which required this...it took me months of practice to master the ability to get my hands to do something entirely different while singing a melody, but once i acquired the skill--i was about 18 at the time--it's never left. i still can't sing and play bass simultaneously worth a damn, though.

IMO if you can sing even halfway decently singing and playing simultaneously is an important skill to master...there really aren't that many people who can sing passibly well in the world, and a lot of the ones who can't are in club bands. every band could use another voice, even if it's just to do unisons with the lead singer for emphasis or to double the melody like in MBV.