Bass players can be so underrated sometimes. Sometimes it’s hard for people to understand what they do. 

The reason bassists need to learn to sing is that it allows them to become holistic musicians while improving their musical sense in every way possible. Which in turn allows them to become better at other things in the field of music.

To begin with, we must first establish what bassists and their education are like to further develop to see how learning to sing is going to help them become better and holistic musicians. Which is very important for them to do.

Bassists Develop Everything

One of the best things about being a bass player is that in a normal band context bassists will develop a good sense of rhythm and harmonic understanding.

This allows bassists to have an amazing sense of music. It however goes amiss that the only thing they lack is the ability to sing (if they haven’t practiced it yet). But, the great part about being a bass player is…

You have everything else ready to go to become a great singer. If you think about it, bassists have rhythm, they have the notes to play around with and all they kind of have to do is pick up some singing. So, as you can imagine, many bassists do.

Bassists either become backup singers or even in some the main lead singer as well. Though that is something I myself will never venture into but the fact that drum and bass duo bands like Royal Blood can pull it off so well is quite amazing.

In another article, I talk about how playing the bass helps you sing. Check it out.

But there’s so much more

Producing, arranging, and composing. All of these things are something a musician has to do in their life at some time or other. And singing only helps you out with it.

Better Producers

You see, adding the skill of singing to your already existing bass skills allows you to produce music better. Because it allows you firsthand experience into not just what lead singers do but also how the most important part of music is played. The melody. 

It also gives you the ability to record yourself singing. The added ability to write bass lines allows you to create a rich harmonic backbone for your arrangement or your composition.

While these are very important skills you must have but mixing singing with learning bass also has other advantages.

Better Arrangers

This translates very well to other genres as well as you understand how the melody is being followed by other instruments. It makes arranging, composing, and producing something that is a combination of other genres easier to follow. 

It’s when you are trying to make something sound and fit right that you feel like you’re doing a good job. Learning how to sing is going to help you understand what goes where. How?

Because learning to sing will allow you to understand what the main melody line is. Once you’ve understood that, being a bass player you now understand what rhythmic functions others and you yourself as a bass player have to perform in order to make it sound even better.

Better Composers

There it is. The cornerstone of learning music is to be able to compose. Wouldn’t you like that? Singing will not only allow you to just learn how to sing but be able to sing your own songs and be the director of your songs.

It is only when you know how something works that you can start to manipulate much better. It’s like knowing how wind instruments need to breathe in order to play, which means they can’t keep on playing indefinitely. 

And as a result, you must compose like such.

It is in such practices that you find your ‘sound’, how you write and how you want your composition to come out and be heard by people.

Better Bassists

Creating and composing better is what musicians strive to become better at. Whether they are arranging or composing. Having the ability to sing makes you understand the nuances of melody and allows you to compose better.

That in turn makes you a better bass player. Having the ability to understand how notes play off each other allows you to write better bass lines. Conversely, it allows you to write ‘less’ intricate and complicated lines to support melodies.

So, How Can You Learn to Sing?

I wrote a heartfelt article about why singing courses online are the way to go for most of us and even when you’re in a music college, having something like this is always better. It costs a fraction and has no barrier to entry. You can read it here.

So, here is the course (affiliate link). It’s called ‘The Four Pillars of Singing’. I think it’s important you know that I own this course myself as well. I found it a bit boring in the beginning but that doesn’t mean it’s not good enough. It worked when I put in the time and heard my voice gets better. You will get the book included with the link provided.

I have curated another list of courses that I believe you can use so that you are able to choose for yourself and have indicated the prices along with it so that you can save up or choose the one to your liking.

So, strap yourself in and try to get as much as possible as you know that it’s going to be a great course to get your singing chops up.

My Story

I don’t know how or why but I’m going to guess that one of the reasons why my ear was not strong enough in my early days of doing music was because I was mostly self-taught in my teen years.

Up until joining Berklee, I had no one to teach me bass. I was very proud of that.

One of the things that bass taught me and I stumbled upon it by mistake was the ability to match my voice to the notes I was playing on my bass.

This accidental mistake allowed me to develop my singing when I really tried. The initial results of my having this ability from my bass playing showed themselves almost years later but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the benefits it provided.

This is it! Please check out the blogs area to read more articles!

Whatever you end up deciding, I know you will succeed!