Karaoke Forums

Actually, ABBA DOES do some awesome harmonies, so not a bad idea there, Steve.

JAZZY - I'm sure everyone here appreciates your very knowledgable and helpful information. I was even suggesting that perhaps one of us.. would you be willing? Record a little harmony demonstration for Russ.

I was thinking of something acapella... perhaps along the lines of "Find the Cost of Freedom" (CSNY). I didn't know how to harmonize before I started working with jvj. Of course, he is VERY big on harmonies, so he gave me a crash course & I listened to lots of stuff with harmonies in it... as you were suggesting. After a time, you do start to develop an 'ear' for harmony.

I do 'ok' with it, but I still find myself bungling every so often. =p I guess that's where all of the more complicated stuff you folks are talking about comes into play, like 'finding the next note in the chord that sounds pleasing'. I'm not that great with chords myself... I just know how to play them on the guitar, not necessarily the names of the notes in the chord. But, generally if I can figure out the starting note for a harmony line, I can follow it along pretty well.

No doubt... auction could (worst case) submit a piece of his original and one of us (probably not me) could actually record a harmony for him.

Seby, ABBA's vocals are so prominent, and easy to discern harmony-wise, in that area I was serious.

OH NO,  I feel a 1976 flahsback coming on !!!!!!


No more carefree laughter
Silence ever after
Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes
Here is where the story ends
this is good bye.

Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)
There is nothing we can do
Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)
We just have to face it, this time we're through
(This time we're through, this time we're through
This time we're through, we're really through)
Breaking up is never easy, I know but I have to go
(I have to go this time
I have to go, this time I know)
Knowing me, knowing you
It's the best I can do

Mem'ries (mem'ries), good days (good days), bad days (bad days)
They'll be (they'll be), with me (with me) always (always)
In these old familiar rooms children would play
Now there's only emptiness, nothing to say

Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)
There is nothing we can do
Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)
We just have to face it, this time we're through
(This time we're through, this time we're through
This time we're through, we're really through)
Breaking up is never easy, I know but I have to go
(I have to go this time
I have to go, this time I know)
Knowing me, knowing you
It's the best I can do

_________________

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Deb, It's funny you mention him, because for some reason he is about as controversial as the former mentioned names.  *I* like Lightfoot, and have been the laughing stock of many guitar boards for admitting that.  For some reason alot of older classic rock guitarists HATE Lightfoot.  I thought he was an excellent song writer.  Harry Chapin is also among my favorites


I'll admit Taxi, and WOLD are pretty depressing songs,  yet what else can a person do besides cry when listening to "Honey" ?   I suppose there's a time and place for that stuff,  yet I'd have to allow for a full afternoon of recovery from a Bobby Goldsboro hangover

..had time to think a little and now realizing there's probably a differenct between harmony with yerself and harmony with another singer...which would be harder is not clear to me at this point...

For me, Beach Boys were the best harmony group, and some Beatles songs. Abba is male/female combine so I don't use that group as a source of what to do...

...I'll have some time today to take what's learned from here so far and experiment a little...let you know how it works out...

Oh yeah, one of the singers here who I think harmonizes with backing vocals quite well is Sheree....

Russ

Sheree and Mikey did a very difficult example of harmony in "something stupid" by Frank and Nancy Sinatra.   Yet Sheree, and Mikey both have an excellent ear. THAT is a tough tough song to do harmony on for most.

Boyz II Men... perfect example of a male... "vocal harmony group"...

Russ,  You played some piano, and guitar as a kid,  you already know the basics you've been told.

Do you still have a piano ?

An example of a GREAT duo for you to be listening to, and trying to differentiate between melody line, and harmony is Simon & Garfunkle.  You grew up in an age where they were popular.

They display basic harmony concepts, as well as a more complex round style (Scarbourough Fair).  Listen to a more simplistic song they do such as  "Sound of Silence".  Disect the melody line.   Sing it to yourself,  Study the harmony......try dubbing it over the melody you know,   Listen to yourself, and tweak accordingly. That is a relatively straightforward harmony.  NOthing frilly

I went over to your SS area, and figured that if you were able to do the melody to "baby you can drive my car", despite the strong difficult harmony to that song the beatles do, you were putting us on      Yet I than noticed you just do a melody line to your songs that you play guitar to,  Yet your ear for melody is quite good, and I think I can help you..... I'll construct a short harmony string to the beginning of a song you do in the key that you do it in..... "Ticket to ride".....If you have a piano play the notes I give you that will be the harmony over your melody...  See if you can hear what I've done  :)

L-O-L Deb Were you a hippy-flower child, born too late (like myself)?

Ah to have lived in the 60's... *sigh*

Hello Steven...don't know how to capture what someone said so just cut/paste...here's my questions

You said:
I went over to your SS area, and figured that if you were able to do the melody to "baby you can drive my car", despite the strong difficult harmony to that song the beatles do, you were putting us on

Question:
are you saying that the melody line is the combo of harmonies?)...not sure what a melody line is...like is it the dominant line that other voices harmonize to?....

You said:
      Yet I than noticed you just do a melody line to your songs that you play guitar to,  Yet your ear for melody is quite good, and I think I can help you..... I'll construct a short harmony string to the beginning of a song you do in the key that you do it in..... "Ticket to ride".....If you have a piano play the notes I give you that will be the harmony over your melody...  See if you can hear what I've done  
Answer:
This I get...sounds good to me....I don't play piano that well, but I know enough to fake it....thanks so much for your time and help.....

Russ

Russ, OK, this is a simple step by step breakdown of Ticket to ride, and how the harmony would be constructed  (off the top of my head)

I listened to your rendition, and you are playing the song in the key of D.

Here goes:

I think I'm gonna be sad,  I think it's today

A, D,   F#,  G,F#,  D,  A ,  F#, G, F#, G,A   (melody line)

the harmony over today is the first sign of harmony, and it's a D over the A
(A second beatles harmony likely sings F# making this a second inversion D
major chord)
This is interesting now,  the beatles harmonies to the next part are predominantly
parallel

the girl that's driving me mad,  has gone away
A,   C,   C,      A,G    A    A,F#, F#, G,F# G,A        (melody line)

D,    F,   F,      D,C    D    D,C,  C,   D,C,  D,E       (harmonies sung over melody)




Try playing this on the piano,  and see if you can hear what they have done here

Incidently, this is NOT an easy example of harmony,  yet it's fun

Let me know if you want any particular harmonies to a song you want to do. I can whip these out in no time.   Jealous guy would've been nice with some harmony

I'll write out the notes, and you can try to memorize the part, and sing over your melody in whatever key you opt for.  It's all I can do here.  Hopefully helping you with the harmonies to a few songs you like, will open up doors for you.  Get you used to listening to a part of a composition you aren't used to listening for yet.

Time permitting, I shouldn't have probs doing this. Doesn't take much time

If I can help someone musically, it's why I came here to begin with.

Interesting example, Steve..

Just shows that harmonies are more complicated than *I* thought. Generally, of course, once I HEAR a harmony, I can 'get it' and duplicate it... but if I were creating that harmony, those aren't the notes I would have used to do it!



Very cool stuff.

Seby, I don't sing but I'm a "cover" or copycat musician.  I don't have the luxury
of getting creative.  I have to listen, and try to recreate what the original artists have done.  By ear I recreate the instrumentals to the original (hopefully very closely)  Like putting a puzzle together.

The Beatles use a very tight strong harmony, that isn't necessarily meant to be pretty here, yet it serves as a more powerful display, this type of harmony was early beatles signiture style.   Now take songs like Norwegion wood,  or some of their slow pretty ballads,  those are different  :)


Like I was saying to Russ earlier in the thread,   A song is a story line,  This song is a song of discomfort, "she's gone away"....  THe harmonies are strong here. They use 3rds to show that.

Now they might stop harmonies after "the girl that's driving me mad", not sing them on "has gone", and resume the harmony on "away".   yet who's scrutinizing here

Russ,  Here another fun one for you,  The beatles sing the harmony UNDER the melodic line, Paul and John do these two parts.  Again this utilizes parallel 5th's and 4ths in the first line, yet resolves to parallel 6ths, and 3rds for a more harmonious bridge ending



Eight days a week,  I Lo  o  o  o  ove  you
G,        G, A,    G   ,    F, G,F, G, F,  GF,    D          (melody)
C,        C, D,    C   ,    C,D,C, D, C, DC,   A          (harmony)

notice how when the beatles use this structure it has a very
unresolved almost "indian" type parallel sound to it yet it
resolves here

Eight days a week,  are not enough to show I  care
G       G     A    G  ,     F    G       GG   G    G    G    Bb   (melody)
B        B     C    B  ,    B    D       D B   B   Bb   Bb   E     (harmony)


Now notice what is happening with the Bb in show I,   They are preparing
to take you to an end, or culmination of the chorus, and into another verse.
like lyrics, and words,  harmonies are used to tell a story  :)

....now I zeroing-in on the problem....its something like this....I'm so used-to singing a song a particular way, I can't sing along higher or lower, I want to sing "the melody line" just from habit of singing the tune that way for years and years (in the shower)...So if I try to harmonize with my vocal track, I want to sing right at that level.  And I don't know how to sing a particular note...like...look at a note and then sing it....When I try to sing at a different level...the harmony level...I'm somewhere else (and its not prit-tee)....I think this is where practice will help me achieve the goal of harmonizing....

Thanx much for those two examples Steve...I'm going to try that out today and what I think you're saying it will do is give my ear the sound of the harmony for the song...than I have to develop the skill of staying in the "harmony sound" zone when singing...

Yup...looks like there is not F=MA for this one....

You don't think that happens to just about all people when they are listening to several voicings that are very prominent, and close in range to one another ?

That happened to me when I was trying to do "something stupid" in my head a few weeks back.  Harmony, and melody are both strong, the harmony stays close to the melody range, and wants to PULL you off the melody,   Yet that type of song is conducive to *$(%ing up both the harmony, and the melody.  It takes TREMENDOUS concentration.  I liken it to learning a tongue-twister.   This stuff just takes abit of concentration.

You might have psyched yourself out at one point by thinking this is more than it is YEARS ago.  That happened to me with Algebra,  I hated it,  flunked it when really young,  Father beat the crap out've me.....I flunked it again....and even today when I look at basic algebra,  I have a block. can't do it.

Listen to slow ballads,  and try playing parts of the harmony you grasp, on a piano,,,,
Sit down at the piano,   sing the melody, and rather than play the guitar,  try playing notes along with your melody that you think compliment the composition on the piano for awhile.  Look at this as putting together a jig-saw puzzle.

Also keep in mind, that the Beatles harmonies I posted were just for fun... They ARE NOT easy !   So when listening to them don't get psyched out because you can't piece the vocal parts to those songs together.




 Here's something that should encourage you however.  Singing the melody to "I am the Walrus" like you did IS NOT easy.  THat is a tricky song, it really does some interesting things melodically.   You do have a decent ear.  So you have that going for you.

Yet when you were singing a slower ballad such as Jealous guy,  (and I know I always hear strong harmonies in my head if I'm playing songs like Harrisons  "All things must pass",  "Beware of Darkness", etc)  Don't you hear some aspect of the harmonies in your head ?   What I'm wondering is, since you've heard these songs many times.... Is it that you fear you can't do harmony ?   or you don't really miss the harmony when you play just the melody ?  do you hear the harmonies to these songs ?   and just don't know how to apply them ?

What you do is (like with instrumentals) break down the song into parts,  you can hear the bass guitar parts, correct ?    and the different guitars ?  keyboards ?
Separate the voices too; you obviously can separate the melody from the harmony of a song.   Another thing,  these karaoke backing tracks ARE harmony ! perhaps listening to those can help too !

To me,  on some of these songs,  the harmony is such an important embellishment, I couldn't do without it, particularly on slow ballads.

Well,  I know as soon as you get even a little familiar with harmonizing,  a new dimension of music will open to you.  It really will add another dimension to your songs.  IT shouldn't be tough for you,  you have a decent pitch matching ability, and an ear for complex melodic structure.  Rhythmically you are decent too, after all you play guitar along with your subs.

This kind of reminds me of one of the most amazing guitarists I saw once.....  Funny thing is,  He couldn't play a chord,  he just learned how to play lead !  

He always wanted to be a fabulous lead player, so ALL his concentration went into scales, and riffs,   Finally when he was around 40,  he realized something was missing.  Yet up until that time,  he devoted his time to trying to clone Alvin Lee, and J.  Winter.   He pretty much did.  Amazing blues guitarist,  yet he couldn't play without an additional guitar, or keyboard in a band, since he couldn't hold down rhythm guitar parts.  ( I used to think this guy was just full of $#*^,  and really didn't want to have to play rhythm guitar while another guitarist took a lead break.)
Kind've like the HS bass player we had for awhile,  claimed he couldn't help lift equipment to, and from practices because he had an anatomical problem,  His arms were disproportionately shorter than most people given his torso size.
What's more pathetic is I think we believed him.




SLOW ballad,  (you need to walk before you can run)  something basic.

Do you have a difficult time putting a melody line with Karaoke backing ?   Does hearing just the harmony parts of a song pull you off've the melody you are trying to do ?

Sorry if I didn't quote this well.  My right click cut and paste feature isn't working in here now.


"relative pitch" is what you are referring to.


Yes,  I know they call it "perfect pitch", yet that can't be developed.  At least last studies I read.  (You wouldn't want alot of the side effects that go along with that anyway)