Vocal harmonies and the creating of said

B

bradsucks

New member
I've been looking around for information on writing vocal harmonies but haven't been able to find anything decent. Anyone I ask seems to say "you just do them" but that seems scary and wrong to me. Can anyone share any tips or guidelines or anything?

Do you just work them out methodically based on the key or do you feel your way towards them and practice eventually makes it intuitive? It seems to be hit and miss with me. Sometimes I can come up with a harmony line and other times I'm just lost.
 
i'm not much of a singer but i have taken theory classes and listened to a lot of the beatles, ha ha.....

basically, if you are doing pop rock or whatever, try singing the same line a third (major or minor depending on the root and key) higher. obviously it can get a lot more complex, but A LOT of 2 part harmonies are just that.

check out "the battle of who could care less" by ben folds five, its the first thing that comes to my head. those "do"s in the intro are all thirds.

like i said, you can obviously do a lot more, but try that.
 
The way I tell everyone to do it is to just think thirds and fifths. Sometimes you have to drop down an octave and hit that fifth. If you play the piano, you should be able to do it with no problem. At least that's where the 3rd's and 5th's are right there in front of you. You do have to have an ear for it too. Just do what sounds best to you.


bd
 
There is no harm or risk in just messing around with vocal harmonies. It's the only way to really learn.
 
There's a really good book by Hawley Ades on arranging vocal harmonies, from Shawnee Press. It's been out of print for years, but is a great resource. (The name's escaping me at the moment).

Ades did the arrangements for Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, so he's done the classical and the "pop" (but a very square side of pop) thing - but he's very good. We sang his arrangements of the Alfred Burt carols in our college choir last year, they were real inventive and sounded great.

He, and most "conservatory" arrangers, will tell you to stay away from block harmonies, parallel motions, and other things that are mainstays of rock, pop, r&b, country, and gospel styles. You DON'T really want to do that, if you're working in these genres. But you will pick up boatloads of GOOD information from the Ades book. Learn what he has to teach, then make your own decisions.

I found my copy through Amazon's Z-shops. Excellent investment.

Daf
 
Oh, and another thing...


...I just have to say that having exactly 666 posts is making me very uncomfortable.
 
Thanks for the replies, everybody. I will probably try to pay more attention to what key my stuff is in and force some 3rd and 5th harmonies. That's all a bit mystifying to me, so we'll see. I guess I'll have to learn how to figure out what key my songs are in next. :O
 
just a suggestion

I don't know for sure but it seems like if you just pick one of the other strings in the chord and go with it, it could work as harmony. right?
anyone? do you know what I mean?

help? I have the same problem, and I need that harmony in some of my songs I think.
-oko
 
I just use the old guitar when coming up with vocal harmonies. I play whatever note the lead is, then play others with it until I find one or two that sound cool with it, then play them both together over the song. sometimes just using an octave above or below the lead note is cool. Sometimes I use both. sometimes all kinds of stuff. I don't know any of the theory side of it, I just play what sounds good to me. A fun way to practice is to sing along with your favorie songs, but sing new harmonies that aren't in the song.
 
I try to avoid 5ths in my harmonies unless it is the last note of a phrase, and I never, ever do parallel 5ths. Funny, since guitarists break that rule regularly with power-chords and such. For vocals and most other things they sound terrible.
I'd say, start with thirds. They are the easiest to work out and will start to develop your ear to the sound of different melody lines moving independantly. After a while you'll get comfortable w/ that and start to become more creative with your arrangements.
One of my favorite things to do is have one line moving while another stays on a single note. Similarly, on long sustained notes I like to have one line moving while others hold a single note. Two things you should avoid are parallel fourths and fifths. Ick.

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
 
I just think of chord voicings. Personally, I like block harmony a la Donald Fagen. Start with the harmony of the song, and choose notes that are in the chords. Sit at a piano, and find maybe 3 or 4 part (or however many harmony parts you want) chord voicings that you could use for harmony vocals.

Actually, I disagree with what Aaron said about avoiding parallel 4ths and 5ths like the plague. Nothing wrong with parallel 4ths and 5ths, they're just another colour in the palette - and like any, you have to know when to use them.

The Beatles have been known to use parallel 4ths in ways that are very non-"ick".

Try out different intervals, and see how they sound. Try out parallel 4ths and 5ths, and listen to the sound. You probably won't find yourself using them often, but at least you have them in your palette.
 
moley said:
Actually, I disagree with what Aaron said...
Click to expand...

I'm sorry... that is not allowed in this forum. :D

Yes, you are right - those intervals do have a distintive sound that can be useful in the right context. Generally, though, they will sound funny.

And there will always be an exception to every rule..... Curse those damn Beatles!!!!!!!!!

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
 
Consecutive fourths and fifths are nice for a medaeval feel e.g. "Gaudete Christus est natus..." - remember that?

Fifths have a somewhat empty sound, so it's usual to resolve them into thirds or sixths. There's a type of cadence, very common, but I've forgotten it's proper name, so I'll call it "fanfare cadence", which consists of either third - fifth - sixth, or sixth - fifth - third. And very useful too.

Vocal harmonies follow exactly the same rules as any other accompaniment. If the note is part of the chord that's playing, then you can sing it. If it isn't, then resolve it with a note that is. If your song has a basic three chord accompaniment, then harmonising vocals will be simply intuitive. Otherwise you'll have to study the chord structure. I enjoy singing scat and jazz vocalise, and have to keep my ears focused on what the other instrumentalists are playing, otherwise my improvisations make no musical sense. We even have to (Heaven forfend!) practise occasionally!

Sarah
 
the approach that has worked best for me is a non-theory based approach........i just play the part of the song i need a harmony too, and just search for a nice alternative melody to that section without listening to the original melody......i'll try anything, so long as it is in key and not the original melody......then when i find something nice, i bring back in the original lead melody, and whala...i have a pretty good harmony part
 
I'm no expert as I've only been recording a short while myself, but I've been writing harmonies for a long time. I usually start with the third, the fifth, the sixth or the fourth of the primary melody and build other melodies around it...kind of like what powderfinger says. A harmony is usually more interesting if it modulates independently of the main melody. The BASIC basics of counterpoint suggest harmonies that diverge or converge; that is, lines that move away or toward each other in pitch, possibly both in the same phrase. This is most easily accomplished by keeping one harmony relatively static (key permitting, of course) while the melody moves toward and away from that pitch. Also, harmonies are more interesting the more lines there are, but I usually avoid doing more than five lines as more than that can get awfully busy for a rock song. Anyway, the easiest way for me to start out is to think of each harmony line as its own melody, and not to restrict myself to writing around another line. You can check for conflicts and correct them AFTER you've written a good hook.

I'm much less qualified to give mix advice, as I'm a total newb, but I've gotten my best results doubling, tripling or quadrulpling harmony parts and panning them away from each other to varying degrees to give phrases a nice, rich sound. When all's said and done my harmony parts often have more than 12 simultaneous tracks...

Good luck, practice always helps...
 
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