Karaoke Forums

Hello Steven...

...first off this is probably the first time I've had such a thorough goin' over by a professional  music person....and in you doing so I've learned a great deal.

You said:
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.

Reply:
That is the best feedback from another musican I've ever received. It tells me I'm heading in the right direction, so now my confidence in conquering harmony singing is very much uplifted.  They way you broke it down into the various aspects is invalulable to me...You should offer this as a service to others on this site...an objective view service...


Also, you've solved the puzzle why I can't sing along with backing tracks.  I tried a few and by chance there were harmonies in the track, that's what was throwing me off....forgot which ones they were as that was a while ago...

I do have the ability to concentrate on something specific...like....I can program in the middle of the commody exchange and not hear a word...should use that same to focus on just the harmony track I'm trying to produce and ignore the melody track and/or other harmony tracks...or better still...treat the melody track as an "instrument" and "pretend" the harmony track I"m trying to produce is "the melody track" for that moment...

You asked:
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 ?

Answer:
You know, what I do is try to catch the "essence" of the song...the bottom line...so after thinking about it  all I'm doing is singing it how it sounds in  my head...which may be a modified version of the original...not really paying attention to harmony or even specific arrangement. If anything, I may be trying to capture the effect of the harmony with my melody vocal, kind of a summation of the original harmony...and in some cases I can't get the song to sound right. Now I realize why...need the harmony to pull it off...

there's no fear in me when it comes to singing (except on stage I imagine)....I'm always turning over rocks lookin for the next thing...and harmony is it at this point...

I'm using the Perfect Pitch ear training from David Burge...www.eartraining.com...
He offers a separate Relative Pitch course...

This is terrific and I can't thank you enough for all you've done to help me out Steven...thanks so much for sharing your knowledge  and intuition with me....

Awareness, and eventially Familiarity will very shortly allow your brain to also "multitask" when you hear vocals. It's VERY important that a person initially has the ability to recognise that "essence" you speak of.   Now you are building up from the foundation !

It's interesting how people put a different emphasis on various aspects of a songs composition when listening.

Since I am just an instrumentalist, and arranger, I seldom hear the lyrics...
In fact, it took me about a three days to memorize the lyrics to "Behind Blue Eyes"
I know, pretty pathetic....  Yet as you mentioned, "essence" for a singer, might be different than someone that listens for instrumental arrangements out've habit..... the layers are as follows when I hear popular music

1) Most prominent instruments  (usually guitars, and keyboards)
    (for reference let's again take a song like ticket to ride)
   Guitar and bass to me stand out even during vocals, VERY easy to hear and
   dissect. Yet I can break down what a few instruments are doing simultaneously,
   (because like listening to a few people talking at once..... we are accustomed to    
   interpretting our language.   (Music works this way too)

2) vocal melody

(after this point I have to relisten to a song a few times to try to break it down in
the case of horn arrangements, or complex harmonies such as "Stylistics" type
songs;  THere can be ALOT to absorb). Yet I always realize each instrument, and vocal part is (like components in a computer) a separate necessity, that has it's
own intricacies, yet INTEGRATES with other components to make up the system (or in this case, the song). Sure this is obvious,  Yet when trying to interpret harmony you MUST isolate the part as if it is alone on a track.

Same with watching a play.....When seated in the audience the lead roles might be the focal points, or sources you use to formulate the "essence". You can't possibly initially absorb everything. There's loads of background stuff going on. Yet when you decide you want to be an actor, or study the play you get really close to ALL the roles in time.  Yet initially you always observe from a distance. No different for musicians.  We listen, have to get rooted, and than hone in.



 3)  I'm not sure if drums or lyrics stand out more to me,  I suppose it depends
      on genre. Ballads like James Taylor,  or Harry Chapin lyrics stand out more
      than percussion.

      Groups like the Who, Drums stood out, and lyrics were always the last thing I
      processed. (If at all)




      This is REALLY a common issue for people like myself that aren't used to singing.  EVEN though I am able to isolate melody and harmony,  some of these rock backings have a harmony that just seems to yell out at you pretty loud....
I forget which groups in particular,  yet some of the harmonies just seem to appear so loud, and suddenly it almost seems rude.....      It's a matter of degree,  but I think most people at some point have problems with certain harmonies.  I've written Glee club arrangements.  These don't just break down to bass, baritone, 2nd tenor, and 1st tenor parts, falsetto etc. . In acappella arrangements the voices must also frequently fill in the parts of the instruments that are missing too.  Really get's multitimbral, distracting...

Barbershop stuff like "Bring the wagon home John" or  "Coney Island Baby" I managed to concentrate on the baritone part with my ears only partially covered  LOL   This is because I always envied the first tenors.  Even when a group I wrote for, and directed was charitable enough to let me sit in,  I always favored the higher voicings,  got distracted, and ended up lip synching..... Even though I have a good ear. Singing doesn't come easily for me.  The voice is unlike ANY other instrument !

So those of you that can sing have my envy  :)   We all have our weaknesses ~


Glad I could help you.

Thanks Russ.   I'll check this out tonight.

...this may have been said to me, but I'm realizing this about harmony in my own way...a vocal harmony is really a Chord, a combination of  two or more vocals that together form the harmony sound, The Chord.   SO it makes sense that all need to be at the same amplification, and none should engage in vibrato...the basic thing thats hitting me here is a harmony is a "chord composed of individual notes (vocals)....

We can get into a little analysis here, I think what is MOST important is that you conceptualize this in a way that makes it easiest for you to recognize the harmony LINE or LINES.  (I capitalized those words for a reason btw)

Two or more voicings in a song stacked vertically note by note DO form a chord, or interval.  I have to look at harmonies that way usually when I transcribe parts, or try to break things down. Yet sometimes harmony lines are quite busy, contain passing tones. However for the most part vertically (or on a Y axis) you have a chord.

Yet I think there's another way a person can try to grasp these parts assuming they have an ear, such as your own. A way that is actually faster.

We can call this the X axis,  or the linear direction of the melodic song flow. If you have a melody line and a harmony line.... Once you've established your "Essence" you know the prominent line.  Why not try to visualize now, the Harmony as just a somewhat parallel second melodic structure, or a second linear flow traveling at the same speed left to right over your  melody line ?  Visualize two almost parallel lines traveling left to right across the face of an oscilliscope, and the intervals between these two lines of course change throughout the path of their horizontal flow. Try to visualize in your head how the line looks, when the harmony rises, the line rises, and similarly falls when the interval to the lower melodic line is smaller.

I visualize two melodic lines flowing left to right, somewhat parallel and the distances between these two lines changes intervals.  That helps me to see the relationship between harmony and melody.

(Time to get to sleep.. later)









Russ,  There are a few books out that deal with this subject.  Firsthand I know NOTHING about any of these books.  Except the titles of course look interesting, and deal with what we've discussed.

Harmony Vocals : The Essential Guide (Private Lessons)
by Mike Campbell (Composer), Tracee Lewis (Composer)

ABCs of Vocal Harmony, Singing Lessons, Sight-Singing, Ear-Training, Singing Harmony (4 CDs + Book) by Howard Austin

Harmony and Voice Leading by Carl Schachter



These are all listed, with a brief description on Amazon.com

Have just discovered this thread and find it most interesting and informative.  I agree with the idea of harmony forming (or being composed) of notes of a chord.  The most common harmony being "major third" , i.e. the harmony note would be the third note up the scale, counting the first (or root) note.  My teacher subjected me to lot's of Everly brothers (maybe that should now read Elderly brothers ) songs which are loaded with major third harmony.  If a third voice is to be added, this would normally be a "perfect fifth"  harmony, whereby the harmony note would be 5 notes up the scale, again counting the root note.

I'm told (even though it is not one of my favourites) that the "Horse with no name" song is a great one for learning harmony as it lends itself to various harmonies which are easy to work with.

I have worked with "Big Ears" as an ear training software even though I dont claim to have anything like perfect pitch.  Can't say I enjoyed being tested on my ear training but I certainly stand by it's value.

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I completely agree with Elisha 100%...!!!

I don't think the "ear" aspects of this can be stated enough. Reason being, to even process a "chord" already assumes the listener (who must now apply what he hears) can first hear, and than apply INTERVAL relationships.  Chords are note intervals.

This IS ear training.   I think many take forgranted that there are people that have a tough time discerning maj3 intervals from a perfect 4th or 5th interval. I've spent hours with people that have a VERY tough time telling major from minor interval relationships.

Developing the ear to understand note interval relationships is what I believe is crucial here.  MANY do this naturally, yet for those that do not, I think there's a tendancy to take forgranted the complexity of what is happening here. You hear a song you like, you process certain relationships in your brain WITHOUT the convenient visual layout of a piano in front of you (where you can eliminate everything that doesn't sound like a C major chord, and MANY can't even do this). Yet to do this  you also have to be able to isolate the various parts by hearing them alone. This is more abstract and complex a process for the brain than the VISUAL task of seeing a piano and recognising 1-3-5.  ANYONE can push those three notes together. NOT all that can push those notes can hear the difference between the 1-3 and 1-5 relationship however. Some have a tough time applying this. To hear harmony and understand it, means the person understands note relationships, and can recognise them. I do like the term "muscle memory" here, because in essence, alot of this stuff needs to get carved into our brain somehow ! to isolate parts of a song, and than accurately translate what you hear is a pretty involved, and VERY abstract process.  This isn't the same as sightreading sheet music.

Whether we call it "interval recognition",  "developing perfect pitch", "training the brain to understand abstract relationships". It still is considered ear training when applying what we hear in the area of music.

I've noticed... and I don't know if this will help anyone or not... that in a 1-3 harmony, the sounds blend or mesh tightly together, whereas with a 1-5 harmony, the sound is kind of dissonant (hubby says it sounds 'chinese' ).

If folks are trying to learn the difference, that might help them know what to listen for.

Seby,  Any way a person can develop a reference point works.

When I was taught interval recognition years ago.  One way to do this was to think of well known songs that have certain intervals in them.  A few things that helped me were

Taps (first two notes)=perfect 4th
Michelle by the Beatles (harmony and melody first note) = 5th
Somewhere over the Rainbow (first two notes)  Octave


etc.

WHATEVER helps us establish reference points.

It got VERY tough.

Eventually as part of Jazz training.  I'd be given one note.
IE...   "This is Eb".  From there I had to breakdown (without looking) the notes to the more complex chords someone was playing, and tell them if it was a dom7th, min7,6th,9th chord etc. SOLELY based upon a block chord they were playing in any key.

Than identify the MANY different modes and scales.

It would've been easier to play a few simultaneous games of 3-D chess

Ear training for Jazz is VERY tough.  I couldn't do most of that anymore.  

Putting your ears thru boot camp (heh)

Sad thing is,  I hated this stuff.   It wasn't fun the way I was taught it.  Most would've thrown in the towel I think.  There are some instructors, and musicians out there, that are truly gifted people.  I also thinkk they have somewhat of a photogenic memory.  They can really retain alot more than most. For me,  this was so difficult,  it took most of the "love" of music away.

Balance when learning something new like this is important.  The discipline of knowing how not to inundate yourself with new concepts and information. When to walk away from it.  I have a tendency to listen to training tapes, and want to absorb it all NOW.  I'm not the most patient person in the world.  Such a thing is really self defeating.

Russ, if you are making harmonies for songs that already exist, it's just like learning the melody -- listen to the original over and over until you learn it.

If you mean harmony that doesn't exist yet, or for original songs, then that is part of composing and you can get books about composing, counterpoint, harmony 101, ear training, etc.  It's pretty complicated.  Some people do it by ear and "What sounds right", but you probably can't do that or you wouldn't be asking.  There is actually a science to it that you can learn from the books or from classes.  The books will be over your head, though, if you don't know how to read music.  It's part of music theory and, like math, you have to start with basics and work your way up.  I learned it years ago in college, but since I never used it after the classes, I have forgotten it all.

Good luck to you!!

_________________
~Suzanne Lanoue~

Yes, you are exactly right.  The piano chord is basically taking the melody and adding harmonies.

Part of the science is learning the chord progression (how it sounds when you move from one chord to another) and how they are supposed to "resolve" (which makes it more pleasing to the ear).

Pop music harmonies are not that difficult, usually, they use pretty straight-forward major and minor chords.

Another example is choir music.  You generally have four parts (soprano, alto, tenor and bass).  The sopranos usually have the melody, the altos have the harmony.  The tenor or bass has another note in the chord (more harmony) or they might double one of the other two parts.

_________________
~Suzanne Lanoue~

key, pitch and harmony are different things, and the voice part or type (soprano, alto etc.) is something else altogether.

When you look at a piece of sheet music, at the beginning it has what's called a "key signature".  That tells you what key the song is in (or at least, what key it starts in -- it can change) such as A flat, C sharp, etc..  How many sharps and flats it has tells you what key it's in, but also the overall structure also tells you.  The more complex the music, the more complex the key structure is or how many times it changes.

Harmony is a rough term for the parts of the music that are not the melody (the main tune), which are generally sung by the altos and tenors, sometimes basses.

When you sing in karaoke, you are singing the melody.  The background trackes provide the voices that sing harmony (usually, anyway).  There is also melody and harmony in the background track's instrumentals/chords.

There is more harmony used in certain artists' vocal music than others.  Groups with a lot of harmony include The Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Eagles, and CSNY.  Doo wop music uses a lot of vocal harmonies, including more recent groups like Boyz II Men and N'Sync.  Pop music of the 70's had a lot of harmony; they started moving away from it in the 80's, but the boy bands and the R&B bands brought it back again.

pitch is  the actual note you sing, whether it's in the melody or harmony.  If you sing the note exactly as it should be, you are "on pitch".  If you sing it a little too high, you are "sharp".  If you sing it too low, you are "flat".  If you sound the wrong note, that is being "off-pitch" or "off-key", both more general terms than saying someone is sharp or flat.  Frankly, I never heard the term "pitchy" until I came here.  That's not a very accurate phrase musically.

Hope that helps explain it a little!  I am definitely not a music theory expert.  You might want to search on Google for a good music dictionary or a fundamental music theory site that will explain things better.

_________________
~Suzanne Lanoue~

It's both, and that's why it's so complicated.  



That's true of most popular musicians...few are trained vocalists or instrumentalists.  They play by ear.  That doesn't mean they have no understanding of music, it just means they understand it in a more visceral way.



It's more like...we are used to what we hear.  Music always changes, grows and progresses throughout history.  When music first started, it was very simple and has since gotten more complex.  There were always "rules" about what you could and couldn't do in terms of writing music (talking classical music here), partly because most of the music was done in or with the church and certain chord progressions were thought to e "demonic" because they had more dissonance (that's why the notes sort of grate each other or don't fit in with the overall key....according to the rules and the people that favored them).  Over time, music has become more dissonant and has fewer rules.  Classical music got very radical and dissonant in the 20th century, even weird.

Pop music is far simpler than classical music in its harmonies and rhythms, yet it still follows certain rules about how the chords work, just like classical music.




Music really isn't smoke and mirrors.  It's very mathematical.  If you don't know the math, it may seem very complicated and even mysterious.  The more you learn about music theory, the less mysterious it will seem.  As in most things, knowledge is the key!

_________________
~Suzanne Lanoue~

You can't leave out that infants, (and primates developing in the womb) learn consonance, and disonance, rhythm, pitch recognition and a few other aspects before they can (in the sense of humans) even talk.

In OUR development, We learn music as language.

I studied the "science" of "music", YEARS ago.   Rather than touch on aspects of this area.  I'd rather forward those of you that might be interested in some of these aspects regarding HOW our mind learns to recognise some of these things.

A little conglomeration from a "science of music" publication that I happened to read ages ago, has been thrown together for you here somewhat nicely.  I think if you wish to take the time to read this blog put together by someone at Depaul University, It will make you appreciate the intricacies of HOW, and WHY we absorb and recognise, even feel as we do.

http://musicalcrematorium.blogspot.com/

This is the class blog for DePauw University's First Year Seminar on Understanding Music:


I chose to study alot of these aspects of musicology back in the days I was a music teacher, trying to market my own version of  "You too can be a musician"


(OK, go ahead laugh...see what I care)  :ppfftt:

"usually anyway".. yeah, tell me about it! :p

I decided to sing "Closer to Fine" (Indigo Girls) and realized that the karaoke part you are supposed to sing, switches back & forth between the melody & the harmony!!  :shock: Well, after a few attempts I ironed it out, but still don't have quite enough confidence to record it. heh

Bloody karaoke!!

...I do all my songs from scratch, so there is nothing to carry me through...the one song I can harmonize on, and only on one part, is Penny Lane, "wet between the blue suburban skys"...when I get to that part, the melody doesn't go "up" in pitch, but the second vocal track goes way up in pitch...together its a great harmony...Now I need to record myself singing both with CarryATune, then see what notes I'm actually hitting...I'll report back on that...

 :worship:    :worship:  :worship:  :worship: Thanks so much Steven, Jazzy, Suzanne, Crystal, Syber and everyone for all your help so far...its helping me get there....this is much fun learning to do this....

Russ

OK..got a way to do it...in my business this might be called reverse engineering...

I have basically three tracks, vocal, guitar, synth.

So what I do is sing the song just like always....recording the melody track.

Next, I lower the pitch of the guitar track till it sounds good again with the melody vocal track (I mute the synth track). When I first start lowering the guitar track everything goes "sour" then it gets "in sink".. I can lower the guitar track while its playing do its not lower, run, lower, run... but  realtime which makes it much easier,  with audition..great tool for producing music...

When the guitar and melody vocal sound ok, by ear, then I lower the amplitude of the melody vocal track and sing the new harmony vocal track to the lowered (or raised) guitar track....voila...harmony...

Other things are no effects on the vocal tracks when doing this, and very important to keep amplitude the same on both melody and harmony vocal tracks...

I'm not there yet by no means..need to get more coordinated, but now I have a way to get there or at least get started in my music environment...


Thankin everyone for their help again

Any comments about what I've said here are appreciated....

Russ