Performance comparison: singing with accompaniment vs. singing and playing guitar

It’s interesting, comparing performance when I am singing and playing guitar to when I’m singing with others accompanying. When I am singing and playing there is, quite frankly, more to keep track of. The mind stays busy because I not only need to keep track of the lyrics (or, at least, of my mental map of the lyrics,) but of the map of the chords/chord structure, and have some awareness of...

Learning to sing and play guitar for performance

My challenge is that my "performance skills" were all honed around beautiful tone, lyric recollection, (melody recollection was generally automatic,) melodic variation attuned to known or heard harmony, and emotional connection to the lyrics and/or music communicated through music tone/timbre, face & body. (Hell, with rehearsal I can dance and sing if I need to...although I get out...

The Importance of “Playing by Ear”

Yesterday I was rehearsing some before a planned practice with friends. I was playing guitar and listening to a rhythm track. For the first time ever on these songs I started noticing that it was “feeling easier” – essentially, I was starting to “feel confident” as I played and sang. I’ve been thinking about that, and I have a theory: In order to play confidently, some level of...