Beginning Musician – How to Sing and Play Along On Your Guitar

OK...you are a beginning musician.  You love to sing along with the radio.  Recently you got a guitar, and learned to play a few chords.  Now you would like to sing along while you play.

But there are so many songs that you love...and you don’t know how to start. 

Here’s how.

Simply choose a simple, older song that you know all of the words to.  I learned by singing and playing the old country song, “Please Release Me”.  It’s a slow, simple song that sounds good.  I still play it at just about every party and gig where I perform.

Type the words out.  I use MS WORD because I want to get the song’s words as large as possible, and I can do this using MS WORD.  This is how...after typing out the entire song, highlight it (Ctrl-A), then, using the scrollbar at the right of the page, scroll down to where the page ends.  It doesn’t matter where the text is at this time.  Then put your mouse over the down-arrow beside the font size, so the sub-menu showing all the font sizes appears.  If you put your mouse over these font sizes, the song text size will change accordingly.  Choose the font size that will fill the page, but not spill over into a second page, then click on it.

The reason I do this is so I can hand-write in where the chord changes are as I’m playing my guitar.  Print this page, 3-hole punch it and put it in a binder.  This binder will get thicker as you add to your repertoire.  My binder holds over 400 songs, and I’m still adding.

You probably already know that the pitch of the song is determined by the key that it is in.  A song sung in the key of C is lower in pitch than a song sung in the key of D.  You will have to experiment with the key to find which key is easiest for you to sing in for this particular song.  You will find that no two songs are the same, but, over time you will find that you sing MOST of the songs in a particular key, and that is where you start.  Also, some songs just sound better in a particular key than in another key due to the makeup of the chords within the key.

Most songs use 3 main chords within the key.  For example, in the key ‘C’ you will find the C, F and G chords.  The popular keys are A,C,D,E,and G.  So the chords you need to know are: A (A,D,E), C (C,F,G), D(D,G,A), E (E,A,B7), G(G,C,D).  In other words, you only have to learn 7 chords (A, B7, C, D, E, F, G) to play most songs.

See if you can play the song using the 3 chords within the key, and, using a pencil so you can change it if you need to, mark down on your printed sheet where the chord changes are.  Play the song over and over until you can sing it and make the chord changes effortlessly.

As you play, you might find that there are places in the song that the usual 3 chords just don’t fit.  Often, if you get a song that sounds almost right, you can experiment with the chord by adding your little finger on the upper strings, or removing a finger (often the 3^rd) will give you the chord that you want.  All of these chord changes produce a different chord, and all you have to do is go on-line and google a chord chart to see what they are called.  Pencil that chord into your song, and play it over and over so you will memorize it.  You will be adding to your chord repertoire this way and soon you will find other songs that the chord will fit into.

Most music stores will be glad to mark in the chords for you if you bring the lyrics to them, and tell them what key you would like to sing it in.  Google a free chord chart to learn how to finger any unfamiliar chords.

Before long, you’ll have enough songs to perform at parties to entertain your friends, then, someday, you’ll be asked to join a band, or to perform with one at some community event.  And who knows how far your talent can take you from there.  Maybe you will get to perform for thousands of people. 

I did, and this is how I started.