Sing and Play Bass Like Paul McCartney
Sing and Play Bass Like Paul McCartney
As the century’s foremost living songwriter and creator of dozens of singable bass riffs, Paul McCartney hardly needs to be recognised as one of the greatest vocalists too, but he is. And to celebrate, we’ve put together a list of must-know Paul McCartney bass lines to help you master singing and playing bass at the same time.
Getting Started
Singing and playing bass can look easy when you see guys like Sting or Paul McCartney do it, but the principle of doing two seemingly unrelated things at once is completely alien for many would-be singer/songwriting bass players. But like everything else you've learned to do on the bass, it can be mastered. Let’s get started with some vocal warm up tips.Warming up to sing serves the exact same purpose as warming up for any other instrument, or even sports: Getting a muscle limber so you don’t overexert yourself while using it. Note that your vocal chords can be rather sensitive muscles in this regard.
If you take vocal lessons with an instructor, they will have you spend some time gently warming up using exercises that also help develop your breathing, technique and range, which is excellent when you’re getting ready for a proper practice session. If you’re at a gig, however, and you’re not going to have the luxury of time, there are also a couple of ‘hack’ warm-ups, that can jump start your vocal chords.
1. Hum a Song You Already Know
Get started by just singing or humming a song that you know. This step serves to switch you from ‘speaking voice’ to ‘singing voice’. This is really happening in your mind more than with your voice, but unless you’re a very conscious speaker, you’ll find you exercise more control over what’s happening with your voice when singing, than you do while speaking. Plus, it’s also just a lot more fun to start with a song or melody than arpeggios or scales.
2. Sigh or Yawn Long Notes
Start on a note that’s higher than your normal speaking range and ‘slide’ it down, as low as you can go with a sigh or a yawn. An additional perk for this exercise is that it works on extending your range over time.
3. Melodic Shapes
There are a gazillion melodic shapes you can use for this, so we’ll stick with something simple here, but feel free to adapt the concept to more complex ideas as well. Sing a scale from the 1 through to the 5 and back down. (C, D, E, F, G) Do this using;
- Every vowel separately
- Any humming consonants (e.g. ‘m’, ‘n’, ‘j’, ‘z’)
- Placing non-sounding consonants in front of a vowel (e.g. ‘sha’, ‘ke’, ‘fe’)
For added perks, switch scales with every round you do this.
4. Trills
These are the exercises that kids giggle at in choir because they can sound and look a little silly. However, trills also happen to be one of the #HACK warm-ups when you’re in a pinch for time because they activate everything all at once.
Lip Trills - Kind of like starting with ‘Bl’ and then letting your lips go loose. You can run them up and down an entire scale, just 1-5-1, or even just 1-3-1. You’ll definitely want to go up and down several keys.
Tongue Trills - Sing ‘Br’ or ‘Tr’, rolling the ‘r’ as you go. As with the lip trills, run this exercise up and down several different scales and keys.
5. Get Into The Role
Once you’ve been through a couple of the above exercises, you’ll want to run some 1-5-1 lines using your actual performance voice. Project fully, use the rasp or growl, etc. This way you can check whether you’re actually warmed up enough for what you’re about to go out and do.
