You can sing alone, without a band, just like any instrument can perform solo, but most of us prefer playing together with other instruments. Once you understand the different roles of the different instruments, you’ll start hearing more of the rhythmic, harmonic and melodic components, and start feeling more ‘one with the music’; instead of on an island of your own. This helps your performance enormously; for whatever it is you are doing, it’s always relative to what the other musicians are doing.
One instrument
When only one instrument accompanies you, it’s usually one of these: piano, guitar or vibes. In this scenario, they’ll have to play the bass, chords, and rhythm at the same time. It means none of these components can be as elaborate as when separate instruments play them; even though some players that are specialized in it, like guitarist Tuck of the duo Tuck & Patty, for example, can make it sound like there’s a whole band playing.
If you know and love a song in a particular setting, a vocalist with an orchestra, big band, quartet or trio, realize that it will sound completely different when you perform it in a different setting; with one instrument for example. Not worse, or better per se, but different for sure.
Performing with only one instrument has its advantages. It’s intimate, communication is simple, it’s more flexible in that it is easier for one instrument to follow you where ever you decide to go musically, and it’s a cheaper package to sell. It won’t get very loud, and it’s more fragile and scarier because it’s just the two of you on stage. It lends itself perfectly to intimate settings, storytelling, and ‘smooth’ entertainment.
With drums and bass
Add a bass, and the piano, guitar or vibes can focus on playing more complex and elaborate chords and playing rhythmic accents; contrasting with the fundamental rhythm provided by the bass.
Add drums, and the rhythm gets a significant boost. Adding drums does not mean however that the music will start to groove or swing. The more instruments you add, the more they have to adjust to each other; particularly rhythmically. They have to ‘tune in’ to each other’s feel of time – there is no real time, except on a metronome, there’s just each’s perception of time – to make the music groove or swing. The band has to synchronize their perception of time.
The vocalist has to do the same thing: tuning into the groove of the band, its perception of time. The best way to do this is to focus on the bass since it usually represents the fundamental division of time.
Variety
You don’t always have to use all the instruments at the same time. You could start a song with only the piano, ideal for rubato (free time) intros or verses, or begin with only the bass for example. Using different instrumentations provides some variety in the sound of the band, and audiences love variety!
Rubato
If you want to sing rubato, be sure the musicians that accompany you know the song well, otherwise you have to provide them a chart with the melody and preferably the lyrics as well. However, singing a song, parts of a song or a verse with musicians that don’t know it well, isn’t recommended. The ideal situation is that musicians follow you, and for that, they need to know the song. An example of rubato singing on ‘There will never be another you.’
