I notice when I just play the rhythm, it sounds empty…and when i play rhythm with melody…its like a bad karaoke tape.
do I play the bass notes, or melody…or rearrange everything??!!
hello! when you say playing the melody, do you maybe mean following the vocal melody on the piano? because that seldom sounds very good or interesting. what might be nice i would suggest is to find a midpoint – to include some simple (very, to start with) melodic lines with your rhythm, that don’t mirror, but rather just support your singing.
for example to insert a connecting note between two chords on the last beat of a bar, e.g. CMajor (chord) 2 – 3 – CMajor with a passing D note – FMajor – 2 – 3 – 4.
you can try countless variations and levels of complexity. a next step could be for example to do two passing notes on that last beat before the F, such as D then E. all depending of course on what sounds okay with the vocal melody!
experiment! it can be helpful to ignore any rules that you’ve learnt.