(double bass music begins)
♪ Come with me ♪
♪ Into the blue sky ♪
♪ And see this ♪
♪ World from a bird's eye ♪
♪ The tiny people driving ♪
♪ Touring cars down the garish roads ♪
♪ And maybe everyone gets where they need to go ♪
♪ Well all I'm saying's ♪
♪ The world is changing ♪
♪ With or without you ♪
♪ Well, no one knows where the wind will blow ♪
♪ So move how ya wanna move ♪
♪ The plans we make ♪
♪ They stomp their way ♪
♪ We're just saving up for yesterday ♪
♪ You spend your life ♪
♪ While you got the chance to ♪
(double bass music ends)
What's up? I'm Scott Mulvahill.
And I'm here to talk to you about singing
and playing bass at the same time.
It's a subject that I love very much,
because it's really central to what I do.
I'm a upright bass player,
electric bass player and songwriter.
And a lot of my songs
are even just the voice and the bass alone.
So I've kind of developed a way
of playing and singing together.
And in a way of thinking about it,
that might help you out as well.
This is a hard concept.
You're taking two skills that take a lot of work
and you're combining them.
So if you find this frustrating or difficult, that is okay.
You're not supposed to be able to do this day one
because people spend their whole lives
learning how to sing and
learning how to be a great bass player.
This is kind of obvious,
but the better you are at each of these things,
the easier time you're going to have combining them.
Say you're a bass player,
and you're trying to add BGV's to your band,
or you're going to take the lead on some songs,
work on the voice.
Really try to get the voice strong and
sounding the way you want
outside of the bass and vice versa.
If you're a singer who is going to cover some base duty
or your band, just cannot find a bass player
and you have to do it.
Really spend some time with the instrument,
then you'll have fun when you're playing and singing it.
And you won't just be like,
I have to do this too, and it's just hard and frustrating.
I want to actually start this lesson
by combining our voice in bass into one instrument.
And eventually we'll talk about how to separate those
and play something different than what we're singing.
Say a melody over a baseline.
But I think a good first step is actually just
playing and singing the same thing so that you get used
to the feel of using your voice while you're playing.
And that that's not a whole foreign concept to you.
So we're going to start really simple.
This is in A major scale,
and first we're just going to play it because like I said,
this is two separate skills.
So let's do them independently.
A,
B,
C#,
D,
E,
F#,
G#,
A.
And then, we're going to sing that scale without playing it.
And try to be as accurate as you can.
You can get your first note.
(singing) Dah.
We might go
(singing) A,
B,
C#,
D,
E,
F#,
G#,
A.
Now we'll go back down.
(bass music begins)
(singing) A,
G#,
F#,
E,
D,
C#,
B,
A.
Singing alone is going to be the weirdest part
for you bass players.
Just trust me though,
it's a great thing for your ear and for your confidence
in knowing what notes you're about to hit.
Once you feel good about that,
play them and sing them together.
(singing and bass playing continues)
A,
B,
C#,
D,
E,
F#,
G#,
A.
Now let's go back down.
A,
G#,
F#,
E,
D,
C#,
B,
A.
Good.
So, obviously we're going to not just be
singing and playing scales up and down,
and you're going to move into a lot of complexity
as you play real songs.
Why don't we take that scale and do it in thirds
so that we're not just going linear up and down,
but we're going to go up in thirds.
Like this.
A,
C#,
B,
D,
C#,
E,
D,
F#,
E,
G#,
F#,
A.
Now, sing that without playing it.
(singing) A,
C#,
B,
D,
C#,
E,
D,
F#,
E,
G#,
F#,
A.
And we'll play it going down.
(bass music begins)
Sing it.
(singing) A,
F#,
G#,
E,
F#,
D,
E,
C#,
D,
B,
C#,
A.
And then we'll combine them.
(singing and bass music continues)
A, C#,
B, D,
C#,
E, D,
F#,
E,
G#,
F#,
A.
And back down.
A,
F#,
G#,
E,
F#,
D,
E,
C#,
D,
B,
C#,
A.
And you're home.
So now that we've played it up and down,
both just straight linear lines and in thirds.
Why don't we try improvising freely a little bit.
I'm gonna demonstrate.
But for you, this is going to sound different.
It's going to sound like whatever's in your head.
It can be so simple.
I would start really simple and just kind of
find the note you're on, match the pitch
and then go where your ear takes you.
See if you can play and sing
wherever you kind of want to go.
And so just a demonstration, I might (singing) start here.
♪ Da da da da ♪
And you don't have to sale the note names.
So I'm just going to say
just a random syllable while I do this.
(scat singing and bass music begins)
Here's what's probably going to happen.
You'll get to a spot and you might be doing well,
but you'll probably fall off the rails somewhere.
That's okay.
If that happens, go back to what you were trying to do
and see if you can get it, you know,
maybe you're going up here.
(scat singing and bass music continues)
And you kind of like miss,
(scat singing and bass music continues)
And you weren't sure what that fret was gonna sound like.
Do the line you meant to do,
and then learn to sing it and see if you can combine them.
And then you're,
I feel like your ear and your connection with your
instrument makes new ground as you do that.
So just play around with it, have fun,
and see if you can play little melodies or songs you know,
and just play and sing the same thing with your bass
and your voice.
I'm Scott Mulvahill.
Thank you so much Fender
for having me on Technique of The Week.
You can find me on socials on Instagram, TikTok,
Facebook, on Spotify, Apple Music, on my website,
scottmulvahill.com.
Go find me if you want to hear what I do
and how I actually use these techniques in my music.
Thanks for having me. I hope that helps.
(bass music ends)