Anonymous asked: hi, I'm a musician myself, and I am very comfortable playing the guitar/violin/mandolin. I have been trying to learn to sing while playing an instrument (just trying to learn covers) but I can't seem to get it in sync. Any tips?
I actually remember the exact moment I first got the two to sync. I’d been awkwardly trying to sing over power chords (White Stripes covers) for months, and one day I was sitting in my front yard with my guitar, and I just forced myself to get through a whole song. I overcame errors with volume and a will to surge forward. It probably sounded awful, but that first time opened the floodgates. That will to surge forward is at the heart of every creative process for me. Way more people are trying to create than creating. Just do it. Sometimes I give myself 15 minutes to write a song just because it will ensure that a song is written; it usually doesn’t sound amazing (though sometimes pressure creates diamonds), but if I didn’t give myself a deadline, nothing would happen. So next time you try to get them in sync, I recommend you don’t take no for an answer. Force your hands and your throat to get through the whole song and refuse to be shy or embarrassed about it.
On a more constructive note, I’ve learned over time that you often have to sacrifice the instrumentation for your vocals. That is, you can’t be doing something complicated with both simultaneously. Think of yourself as trading solos back and forth between your voice and your instrument. The problem with covers is we often cover bands. There’s no way you can sound like a four-piece band alone, so stop trying. Simplify the instrument’s part when it is time to sing, so you can focus on that. Put a song through your personal filter: alter the rhythm so it feels more natural to you, change the key, whatever it takes. I’d also recommend writing your own songs because you can build them up one piece at a time. And no one can tell you you are playing an original the “wrong way.” It’s very liberating.
With this post, I’m announcing that Ms. Delaney Gunn is joining the resident artists at Crowdsource Inspiration. Delaney is a songwriter with limitless potential, and we are glad to have her as part of the team. You can (should) check out her blog here and listen to her wonderful performances on YouTube here. I’ve added this bio I wrote for her to our Artists page:
At first, KC thought it was an accident that he found videos of Delaney Gunn playing her ukulele—a very happy accident. But then he saw it wasn’t an accident at all. You see, Ms. Gunn’s music found KC. And he’s certain her music will find all of you, too. Her sound has a certain searching, probing, open-you-up quality. It helps people find their warm, beautiful centers—that place in all of us where love germinates and our best memories wrestle with each other for a spot in our waking mind. We forget about that place deep inside of us too often, and Delaney’s music reminds us that it’s there, puts it right in front of us on a silver platter under a billboard with techno-colored spotlights. If her music hasn’t found you yet, you need it to, whether you know it or not.
The two things Delaney loves most are two of the most difficult things to love: the sea and God. This is a telling fact because while both are too big for many of us to approach (in fact, they scare KC most days), Delaney is best defined by her unusual capacity for love. Most of us are a thimble or a coffee mug waiting to be filled; Ms. Gunn is a cavern, deep and winding and bottomless. All the world’s salt water and the Father has not found her bottom yet, and so she uses music to probe deeper, ever listening and creating in hopes of filling that impossible void. With KC’s backing, and the unlimited potential for inspiration granted through the listeners of CI, she will try and try to find that bottom.
I will post our first collaboration together very soon. Stay tuned. — Kavalier
