[SlavaB]

Good time of the day guys,

Spent another day in the studio and constantly questioning myself. Because I'm a solo performer at the moment, I was thinking what is better, to perform with electric guitar whilst singing or just sing without a guitar. Here is a video performing with guitar : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vul9XTeYLY&feature=youtu.be - I believe there is not enough emotions whilst I play a guitar as all concentration goes there, so without guitar I will be able to introduce more emotions which I believe an important bit of performance.

What is your thought, advise. How to be better on stage ? Ive got to perform on a local festival in august and want to get the most of it.

Thank you.
Best Regards,
Slava B.

[Johnnyuk]

Hi,
I think you've answered your own question in this post on what you should do when you said...

I believe there is not enough emotions whilst I play a guitar as all concentration goes there, so without guitar I will be able to introduce more emotions which I believe an important bit of performance.

IMO I would try both out in a live situation. As in perform two songs one with guitar and one without guitar one after the other, then ask those people there after both performances which one they felt was better?
IMO That would be the best solution for you.

Johnny

[SlavaB]

Hi,
I think you've answered your own question in this post on what you should do when you said...

I believe there is not enough emotions whilst I play a guitar as all concentration goes there, so without guitar I will be able to introduce more emotions which I believe an important bit of performance.

IMO I would try both out in a live situation. As in perform two songs one with guitar and one without guitar one after the other, then ask those people there after both performances which one they felt was better?
IMO That would be the best solution for you.

Johnny

Hi Johnny,

Thank you for your reply, nice to see that opinions match and thank you for your advise I think it is worth giving a go. I will be having a local "tour" lol around a pubs here as well, so will practice doing a mixture of performing with a guitar and without it. it is a nice idea.

Cheers.
Best Regards,
Slava B.

[Ramshackles]

Definitely try both (a number of times) then listen back to see what was the best overall performance.

Overall performance is the key here - try not to judge based on which take was the best technical performance but which take sounds best to the listener - which is inevitably a mix of best emotion plus technical performance (I always find it hard to not judge solely based on which performance had least mistakes when I'm comping).

You could also try to mix it up...we often record vocals and single instrument together then do some overdubs. E.g in the track I posted here:
http://www.songwriterforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=14557.msg145171#msg145171

After a couple of demo takes just on piano, we ended up recording piano and vocals together over a number of takes, then I split each take into sections and took the best performance of each take. After that we overdubbed other instruments. Final result is a compilation of about 4 different takes, each one piano & vox recorded together.

[cowparsleyman]

Hi SlavaB

If you want to play and sing at the same time, then just make what you play easier, then do the more tricky stuff when you're not singing, not many folk want to hear lots of solos and singing at the same time, if it demands tricky playing and singing then you might want to get another guitarist to do that.

just an idea.

hope it helps

cpm