How can I learn how to sing?

How can I learn to scat sing what I play?

• I'm a jazz guitarist for the most part, influenced by a lot of different music though. As I've never been able to sing my playing style developed into Tuck Andress/Joe Pass sort of style, jamming as many different parts into one guitar as possible, also jazzing it up to make it more complicated and interesting. In some way's not being able to sing has been a benefit, it means even while I was fairly beginner I never got into the pop strumming simple backup chords and singing style which a lot of people do, I have a far more unique style. But in the interest of getting better and what I want my style to be I want to become a decent enough singer to sing as I accompany myself, but also be able to give myself some Bobby Mcferrin accompaniment, things like scatting a melody, and improvise play/scat, while I play it on guitar, while also sounding good. After however many years playing my ear is easily good enough to hear what I'm playing and copy it, but my voice skills suck. My range is about from the low E on a guitar (drop D if I try) to the high E string, and a 4th above that in head voice. But my voice doesn't sound very good which is the whole point. Even though I can often sing what I'm playing (improvisation too) just because I play guitar a lot and have good ears so it comes almost naturally now, my voice isn't good enough to be perfectly in tune and sound good, basically my voice just sounds not very good. How can I get to this point? Also to be able to really be free to do what I want, the guitar goes another 11th above my voice so I want to be able to sing up there too. How can I do this all? Cheers.

• Answer:

  It sounds like you'd like to do something like what Slam Stewart used to. He was Benny Goodman's bassist for a long time, and he used to sing his solos an octave higher as he improvised them. It sounded really cool! He's one of my favorites for this reason. It's a good skill to have though, even if you don't do it loud enough for everyone to hear. It shows that the music is coming from within you and your mind instead of just being a bunch of technical stuff that your hands remember. Try singing a simple melody, then playing it... sort of a call and response sort of thing. Think of an arpeggio, like a root position 7b9 or something, sing it, then play it. Always try to sing it first. Playing it, then singing it back won't help you as much as doing it the other way around. If you just want to be a better singer, then I suggest taking some singing lessons. There's lots of technique that goes into good singing, and you can save a lot of time and frustration by just having somebody teach it to you.