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This one throws me....I did it one time, but I'm lookin for a more technical explanation...like do you sing 1 octave higher, or 1/2, how do you know what you are doing?....for me just complete guess work...but I think there must be more to it than that...

The idea is I want to record a track of my vocal, then replay it and record a second track while listening to the first track, and make a harmony from the two...could be three or four tracks as well...

Any help would be appreciated...thanx much

Russ

If an audio engineer, a physicist, musicologist, or ANYONE gave you a "technical" answer to such an aesthetic, subjective aspect.  It wouldn't help you to make the harmonies you are inquiring about. The ability to harmonize musically, and sound "good" in a given genre requires the ability to first understand the genre, to know how to listen, and than to translate what you know.

Look at it this way,  Two pretty colors don't necessarily go together. Why they don't isn't shown by any equation. It's learned, and in the case of harmonizing, it's a skill. An ability. I couldn't explain why aesthetics are what they are in technical terms. It would be about as easy as technically explaining to you sentence structure, and composition in the english language before you've ever taken an english course. You still wouldn't be able to apply the principles.

You likely already know the technical answer, By definition "technically" you make a harmony by singing or playing something "pleasing" along with what one or more musicians are singing. Problem is no computer is going to randomly produce the whole correct harmony to a song like Hearts "Dog and Butterfly".  It's not a mathematically correct process. Harmonies don't move in even set increments.  What is pleasing is subjective. It is something you have to learn to hear first.

This is like qualitative science in the respect that you have to "Do it, and play with it" in addition to learning about it.  It requires an understanding that would take volumes.


As you can see, the best I can do, is technically point out why such an answer can't be explained in this type venue.


It would be easier for me to explain to you why some people's favorite color is blue, while others is green.  Why trick or treaters won't be pleased if you hand out chopped liver scoops during halloween.

Ear training. Listening to music, understanding about dissonance, and resolution, cadence, movement,  intervals, so many things we take forgranted when we just "do harmonies" because we have the skill to do them. There's no equation as to why a songs harmony sounds correct. It just does

Technically why are you attracted to certain features on a person ?  You can't tell me can you ?

Explaining what harmony is.  won't help you to generate a string of notes that's harmonious with several songs melody lines. It's not a simple music theory, yet a perceived aesthetic sophistication.  In time it will evolve too.  In the 50's classical music trashed Jazz.  Moving parallel 5ths were wrong in those days.

...let me try asking like this...

Say you start out with a block of singing you want to harmonize....that block of singing is sung to certain notes...to harmonize with that block I assume I want to sing higher or lower than the original block. Are you saying there is not set "distance" from the notes sung in original that generate a harmony...that it can be just any distance from the original?....

..I know this is like trying to grab jello.......

Russ

Did someone say jello?


Sorry... couldn't resist....

I do it all by ear... so I have no clue about this... please excuse the interruption and continue... I would be interested to see if there is such a precise method.

I always thought that harmonies are like piano chords..... knowing me... I'm probably wrong! !!

here's what I thought.

Ok.... if you're playing a C-chord on piano... you're hitting the following keys TOGETHER:
C, E, and G (yah I took piano for a whole year! !)

C being the prominent note....

if someone was SINGING a "C" note... and you had two ppl harmonizing... would they be singing E and G?

'course.... someone COULD just sing an octave higher or lower, but that's not technically harmony, is it?

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on the jello....you know...I haven't seen Jello in years!!!!!!!


...hey Crystal...when I'm singing its to a single note at a time, and not to a chord, but are you saying that I could sing to another note thats part of the chord for that singing part?...for example if singing C, and the chord is a c chord, C E G, then I would sing the second track in E or G?...

more jello stuff pleaze......

..hi debauchery...guess I don't know the differeence between Key and Pitch...thought they were the same thing...when you sang in the trio, then you were the Soprano while someone else was Bass, so Soprano and Bass are the different pitches when combined make the harmony?....

I only sang in female trios, auction.  Alto, Second Soprano and Soprano.  All different keys.

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OK...where does pitch fit in with the trio....

I had to go look up one of my old mechanics checklists from critiquing during contests (not necessarily dealing with harmonies.)  According to this, pitch and key are two different things, although I am not able to explain it.  Where's Jazzy when you need her?  :D

Intonation
Standards: Accurate and timely movement to pitches
     especially within chords
     Consistent preservation of pitch and key with in  
    each section
Corrective Actions:
• Insist on proper posture and adequate support
• Keep ensemble vocal production lyrical and forward in placement. Avoid chesty, throaty singing
• Make sure vowels are correctly and uniformly pronounced
• Guard against “dipping” into successive notes on the
same pitch
• Beware of ensemble tendency to overstep descending
intervals and understep ascending intervals
• Avoid “key fatigue” form singing in one key too long
• Experiment with raised and lowered keys, especially
when a particular vocal section appears to have tessitura
or register problems
• Vary accompaniment by having the keyboard played an
octave higher or lower or by using staccato
• For accompanied choral works, switch to a cappella performance to develop ensemble pitch awareness
• Make sure outer vocal parts are tuned and then tune inner parts

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No,  NOT just any distance,  there are rules. Yet like the artist painting a landscape, portrait, or linear type scene.  The rules change in accordance to the context.

Look at a song, as a story told.  The harmony varies in accordance to the type of composition, and story line,  the direction you wish to move.

 This is the abstract aspect that can't be explained to you in type. Yet if We were seated at a piano I could show you some basics. Crystal gave you an example of general rules of thumb that can be used for harmonizing over the tonic (or root note)  Take the key of C.   C major harmonies could include the third of that scale E, the 5th or dominant note of the scale G. This is known as a C major triad.   or as you already pointed out.... Unison which would be the octave.  This alone is VERY basic music theory,  Easy to explain. Yet conceivably depending on the nature of your song, harmony can also be minor, such is a minor 3rd Eb,  sung over your tonic C.  Yet let's say the song you want to harmonize is something like "Little Drummer boy".   THe two starting notes would be C and F.    Some songs might start with C and A as the two notes sung together.
Seldom would C and Db or C and D,   or C and B (Major or minor 2nds, or major 7th's )  serve as harmonies on your first note..... These have a dissonant quality to them when played (or sung) together.

OK,   Now this is ONLY basic concepts regarding your first note.  Several harmonies give you even more options for that first note of your song.  Several harmonies in a glee club  might even open a song with a 7th 9th or 13th chord sung...
Quite simply   C triad,  or even the added 7th    C,E,G,B   Rules can change when you add more voices.

We are still ONLY on your first note .  Think this is a mess ?  The problem is you aren't asking about harmonizing over JUST one note,  You are asking if there's a rule of thumb on song harmonization. Songs aren't just one note, there is melodic movement in a song,  harmonies are sung or played over the dominant aspect of a song  (It's melody) Yet harmonies and the movement and usage of harmony can get extremely complex.  There's tension and resolution   (Dissonance and resolution), you want to hear busy harmony ?    Listen to songs most of us know.  Christmas carols ... Now you are getting into not just harmony, yet rhythmically how harmonies can be triplets and several notes over your one tonic.  Another aspect of harmony can be called a "round", you overlap different parts of the song, and it fits together melodically. Harmony is an aspect of music composition.  It doesn't move "parallel" to the songs melody for durations.  It changes, and ideally embellishes the composition. Try singing a song where the harmony only moves in parallel intervals to the melody.  It won't work.  Music isn't that simple.  It least what WE consider music.  Some people someplace might like that effect.

The hamonies that worked however back in the beginning or first note of your song, won't often be the same harmonies you will be able to apply once your song (or story) moves in different directions.  You will want different effects.

Most here that sing harmony are lucky in the respect that they have a good enough ear to hear a song, and recognise where the melody, and harmony is supposed to move at different portions of the composition.   They take forgranted just how abstract the process of composition movement can be.

Believe it or not, I HATE music theory.  I get more confused than you are now, when I talk to a a person about advanced theory. neopolitan 6ths, figured bass, or ANY aspect of actual composition theory.

Like most,  Music is something I like to do,   not analyze.  Yet you asked for "technical".  Don't castigate me for trying to oblige

OK...

Teaching kids to vocalise and write songs, means that harmony is something I am forced to teach.

As Steven has stated, its not somehting that has set rules to it, and that means that you're always going to get conflicting opinions, but considering i love to harmonise and my students do pretty well at incorporating it into their songs, I guess it works...

As Crystal said... the choice of notes to harmonise with is very often (but not always) limited to those that are played in a chord.

Using her example, for a nice pure harmony... if the original note is a C, the either singing an E or a G will sound pleasing.  However, sing a D and you'll be able to hear how different it is, and unless you are really strange, you probably won't like it.  As STeven said though, there are also minor chords, and other options, but for a beginner, the major chords are your best chance of learning.

The easiest explanation I give the kids is....

Get to know a melody like the back of your hand... Learn it SO well that you no longer have to think about what you are singing, it just happens...  THEN analyse the path that the notes take as you sing, in your mind... Does the note go up from the previous one... how much?  Just a general estimation in your mind.

THEN... Listen solely to the first note of a phrase... And harmonise it... Get a harmonious note in your head... And once you have it, sing the song along with the original, starting from your new note, but following the path you followed before...

It takes practise to be able to hear music, and yet sing something different, and you'll find yourself blending back to the melody, but keep at it, and it just becomes a natural thing to do.  The more you try, whether you get it right or wrong, the easier it will become as you instinctively learn what works for you and what doesn't.

Problems come when the key changes... Key and Pitch are not the same thing...

Pitch is a note you sing... For example "C"

Key is the range of notes being played for a section of music... For example "C Major - in which case the main notes used are on the white keys of a piano, and not the flats/sharps"

Anyway - thats the basics of it...  Experiment...  Feel the way for yourself... You can hear what sounds good and what doesn't, and that is the essence of music.  So try things out, listen back and see what works...

Listen to each individual note, or pick out the notes where you think you hit a bad one, and just alter that one note on the next attempt, but keep the rest the same...

THats the best advice anyone can give I think...  Music theory serves to confuse... Feel it, and go with your natural instinct...

GOOD LUCK!

Brett x

HUH??? Brett is that really YOU???? Where ya been????

And wow.. that was a great explanation of harmonies hon!!  :worship:

Yeah hun!  Its me!!!!!!!!!!! hehehehe

And hey - I should be able to explain them... I teach kids how to do them all the time... hehehe - I love my job!

Good to see you hun!!!

xxxx

thanks so much Stephen....its gonna take me a little bit to dig out from under the pile of info you bestowed upon me....hope you don't send an invoice for the consulting session (haha).....what I'm getting to understand is its an artform, not a science necessarily....takes practice....I know that the Beatles were clueless about music theory and made their music by ear so I do agree with your basic point that its subjective...there are people who don't like Beatles music...

And Brett...your explanation of Key, Pitch triggers a memory of something I used to know...when first started out playing/singing I was into music theory more, and forgot some of it as too busy singing and playing....makes sense to get to know a song real well first...learn to listen and sing at the same time...I try to do that..listen to myself sing at the same time I'm singing...getting there slow but sure...I going to explore you first note idea....

Debauchery thats a great check list...I'm saving off this entire thread for future reference....

....something else I was thinkin' (hmmm...somethin's burnin')...anyway was that a harmony is more "easily" acheived from two different singers as the "timbre" of each is different. If the two timbre's are "harmonious", then you'll get something that sounds good...so harmonizing with a backing vocal is probably easier than with your own voice.

For some reason, over the eons, as humans we have come to accept certain frequencies as pleasant and others not so pleasant.   Each not has a frequency, like I think A is 440 hz, C is 262hz, etc.  slightly higher lower is domninant, subdominant and not pleasing...

I'm working on writing some songs and I'm using the circle of fifths as a guide. This shows which "keys" are ...I don't know...more pleasing when played on after the other...and most songs follow along with it either intentionally or not....

So if there really isnt a F=MA way to harmonize, I'm still lookin' for "tricks of the trade" as opposed to a formula....a method that his used...what one does to deliberately make a harmony...what actions as opposed to what science...

....one idea I have is to sing the song, change the key, then sing it again in the second key recording only the vocal and see what happens between the two vocals...on guitar its harder to change key cause of the way the guitar appears to work, like key down by playing an F# instead of a G, so what I do is play the same chords in the same position..I just tune the entire guitar itself up or down a step or half step...that works pretty well.....

....I'm not surprised music is much smoke and mirrors...like grabbin Jello or Fog...but its what makes is so creative....

Thanx again so much for these ideas everyone....any more most welcome...

Hmmm - The thing bout changing the key of a song after you put down vocals is a bit... ummm... unbelievable... I'm not sure if it would work... but give it a try!

The other thing I wanted to comment on...



Harmonising with your own voice gives a better end result because you can't get any better blend than the same voice... It blends perfectly... Thats the whole point... (normally)  Once you get the pitch correct... (the actual harmony line)... your voice will naturally blend with itself and just simply sound good... It will just work!

You'll immediately know when you've got it right (unless you are tone deaf) because you'll be able to tell when you do it wrong!   hehehehe

Anyway - Back to work

Brett x

Adding my  :2cents:

It's like others are saying, but let's see if I can make it simple.

Standard '3-part' harmony includes 3 notes, each one full-step from the other.

As Crystal said... if you sing a C, harmony for that note would include either E and G (above the C) or any combination, like A (below) and E (above) OR G (below) and E (below). You need a '3rd' and a '5th' (either above your primary note, or below it).

For 4-part harmony, you can also add in the octave, above or below the primary note (C).

That is 'simple' harmony. If you know anything about guitar, you can also look at it as a guitar chord. Basically, any of the notes making up a guitar chord can be parts of a harmony for the primary note in that chord.

Hubby sometimes does stuff with 2-part harmony, like mixing up the 3rd & 5th parts to create a dissonance. It's all very interesting.

[font=georgia]Well.. this is a seemingly easy question, but with complicated answers.  The truth of the matter is, that for the most part, singing harmony just comes from your ear.  Training your ear to hear harmonies comes from experience singing them.  For instance, I think a lot of my ear has been developed through the years from first singing in choirs as a child, and then experinmenting with it on my own, and now it just comes naturally to pick out the harmonies in a song.  If we had to sit and figure out music theory for every song we are going to harmonize, it can be done, but would be very tedious to have to do all the time.  My advice to anyone who doesn' seem to "get" harmonizing, is to develop your ear.  Join your church choir and sing an inner part, listen to groups, (trios quartets) and sing with the different harmony singers to get your ear used to picking out the harmonies.  For instance, Wilson Phillips, or the Dixie Chicks, or some Barbershop music..

Theory-wise, most simple songs fit into triadic harmony.  That is, if you have a trio of singers like Wilson Phillips they move in triads..  IE.. it's a C chord and the melody is singing E - F - G - E, the lower harmony will sing C - D - E - C moving a third below the melody.. BUT this doesn't always work depending on what the melody note is.  Say it was a C chord again and the melody started on a C and went C - B - C - E?? If you are singing a lower harmony, a third below C is A and that would NOT fit the chord, so you find the nearest chord tone that will work and move with the melody. In this case, that would be a "G" and the lower harmony would be G - F - G - C  We end on the C because we can get back to triadic harmony there.  Also, if you use your ears, you may not like the way that "F" sounds, so you can make the decision to stay on the "G" which fits the chord.. SO G - G  - G - C   If you are going to do an upper harmony with that same line ( C B C E ), triadic harmony would work here because "E" a third above "C" does fit the chord.. So your upper harmony would be E - D - E - G.  

Now say you had the same notes (C B C E), but this time the chord is an A minor chord??  This would change things..  The lower harmony could now start on the 3rd below because "A" is in the chord (It is the root).  The lower harmony would be A - G - A - C  (or AAAC if you don't like what that G does to the sound.)  The upper harmony also fits just going a third up because E is in the A minor chord,  BUT the ending note just following in thirds WOULD be a G in that case, and in a plain old A minor chord, G is note a chord tone, so you would just take the next closest chord tone which would be the "A" .. so the upper harmony line would be E - F - E - A...

Now let me use a song  we all know as an example..  These are the melody notes for silent night in the key of C:

G A G E G A G E    D D B   C C G    A A C B A   G A G E   A A C B A   G A G E   D D F D B     C E    CGE  GFD  C


I grouped the notes according to the Chord changes.. taking the notes a group at a time and using the principals I laid out above to find the lower harmony:

G A G E G A G E (happens during a "C" chord)  So we can go a 3rd down on the E since it is in the chord of C  harmony notes are:

E F E C E F E C


D D B (the chords here is G) again we can go a third down because "B" is in the chord so the harmony is:

B B G

C C G (the chord here is C)  Ok.. here the third down does not work b/c A is not in the chord.  The nearest chord tone is "G"  and that would work BUT.. IF you are only going to do the lower harmony, the third of the chord would be better to choose here so I would go for the low "E" in this case.  The "G" will work but it won't have as nice a sound.  If you are going to do an upper harmony, or even another lower harmony leaving the melody as the top, all chord tones would be accounted for, so you could go for the "g" there because the "E" would be covered by another part, but I am sticking with the scenario that we are JUST going for two part here.. SO the harmony for this part for me would be:

E E E

A A C B A (chord is F)  So the third below F will work and this is just a case of simple third down following the pattern of the melody:

F F A G F  .. simple enough

G A G E (just like at the beginning on a C chord)  stealing the same harmony from the same pattern at the beginning:

E F E C

The next line is just a repeat, so the same harmonies apply... on to the next part (sleep in heavenly peace)

D D F D B (the chord is G) The third below principal works here because B is in the chord. You may choose NOT to follow the pattern of the melody where it jumps from the D to the F if you think it changes the sound of the chord.  So you can stay on the B. Also, since the melody NEVER hits the ROOT of the chord and just doing the harmony a third down, the root doesn't occur until the end (G)... You may decide to establish that chord better so it doesn't end up sounding too much like a Bm chord (BDF).  You could instead of doing B B D B G (or B B B B G) for you harmony, do G G B D B G outlining the chord and helping to establish it better.  This would probably be my choice, depending on my mood ..  and on to "peace"

C E (C chord)  Soo A won't work but G will.. the harmony below would be G C

C G E (C chord again)  harmony would be G E C (just outlining the chord, but starting on the partial below the melody.. ie melody is going 1 5 3  .. harmony 5 3 1

G F D (Gm7 chord) same as the previous example.. the melody is just outling the chord, so for a lower harmony just do the same the next partial down so.. F D B and the last note is C which is on a C chord.. Ideally, I would like to end with  the root and the third, so E would be the note of choice.  The problem might be, that the harmony line is jumping around too much at the end, and doesn't fit smoothly.  My fix for this, would be for the harmony to cross voices at the end, and end above the melody.. I would do this on the last phrase "heavenly peace"

Instead of just outling the triad on heavenly as we discussed ( F D B ), I would choose to stay on that 7th ( F F F) since that is the "cool" note of the chord, and than just resolve it down to the "E" for the last note..  That would make the melody go down below the harmony, but that's what my ear wants to do. That's not to say that the other thing won't work because as long as it fits the chords, It should work, it's just that some things sound better and more smooth..


So you can see how dang tedious it would be to do this kind of thing to EVERY song.  When we harmonize as vocalists with things like this, unless we are reading the music, we tend to rely on our ears.  So as I said in the beginning, TRAINING that ear to be able to hear the notes in the chord and find the harmony lines appropriate to go with the melody is ESSENTIAL!  And what I showed you was just simple harmony, which most popular songs follow, but the chords and situations get more complicated, so learning to hear the harmony will suit your needs much better as a singer.  Not to say that the theory won't help you.. It can help you logically figure you're way out of a situation that your ear may not be "getting", but you must have a good ear [/font]

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I'm remembering now why I keep it so simple for the kids at my centre...



Great explanations coming out though!!!

Shows some of us actually kinda know what we're talking about

HEHE

Not just an average karaoke singer... Many of you guys have so much talent AND knowledge...

Brett xx