Singing and Playing question

Gru

I have recently started singing with a few of the songs that I play.

While writing one of my own songs. I found that my voice worked best on capo 1, standard tuning (or F to f)

The question I have is, most of the songs I play fall between -2 or +2 semitones from standard tuning. With this in mind, when singing, would you transpose the song to suit your voice, or play it in the standard key so that it sounds authentic to the original?

vasselmeyer

With guitar songs, often the recognisable part of a riff or motif uses open strings. In that case, if you need to go a little higher then a capo will do the job. If you need to go lower then you can tune down. Many bands tune to Eb or even D to help with singer's voice.

I think transposing is probably the worst option. I still recall in horror the version of All Right Now I had to play when the singer in a band I was very (very) briefly part of insisted we transpose it to E. I noped out of that band after one rehearsal.

Gru

vasselmeyer;819379" said:

With guitar songs, often the recognisable part of a riff or motif uses open strings. In that case, if you need to go a little higher then a capo will do the job. If you need to go lower then you can tune down. Many bands tune to Eb or even D to help with singer's voice.

.

Maybe the use the word transposing was wrong.

What I meant was if a song was originally -2 semi tones, and chords C, Am and F, what could do is, capo up with the same chord shapes?

Is that what most would do?

BigMonka

@vasselmeyer has made a good point that if the song is based on a riff then you may need to play it a certain way to get it to sound right.

But if it's just a strum&sing kind of song then I'd say play it in whichever key you can sing comfortably it in. It's worth noting where, in respect to their vocal range, the original artist was singing it - for instance some songs have a certain power to them by the artist singing at the top of their range. If you were to transpose that kind of song then you should keep it towards the top of your range too, so that you don't lose the feel.

Gru

Thanks for the replies.

57Deluxe

just add bags of reverb on your vocal and sing with LESS intensity...