Vocal harmony

[SPLATTER]

This is a major rudimentary question:

HOW do I sing/record VOCAL Harmony?

On my vocal recordings so far, I think I'm only recording and blending different OCTIVES, not harmonizing. To do a three part harmony for example, how/where do I look-up or determine what notes the three different vocal parts will be - will these be three notes that make up all or part of the chord I'm singing to? I need to find some sort of rule of thumb or reference to know what parts to sing when harmonizing. I'd like to be able to write and sing vocal harmonies sort of like what the Beatles did on thier early stuff.
Any help appreciated! I've looked in the dictionary, on the web, can't find a basic explaination of vocal harmony. (I've learned all my instruments by ear, so I have NO music theory education)
Mark / SPLATTER

 

[mshilarious]

(I've learned all my instruments by ear, so I have NO music theory education)

Well, the obvious solution is to take a couple of class in theory or maybe just voice lessons.

Anyway, yes, splitting up a chord into three parts is a common way to create harmonies.

In terms of formal rules, you can't always simply give the same interval to the same voice (third above, fifth above, etc.) because on occasion that will cause them to sing an 'illegal' tritone. But in popular music you don't have to worry about rules so much.

But to get started, just give each voice a fixed interval around the melody, usually a third or a fifth (although I personally like fourths), taking note of what key you're in to figure if that is a major or minor third, perfect fifth or tritone. That will keep you entertained for a while.

Then you'll figure out when to switch the fifth to the sixth (octave above third below), and third to fourth (octave below fifth above), for example.

 

[manning1]

i dont know if you'll find this interesting splatter and i dont want folks with competing products jumping on me , BUT the new version of powertracks 9
at pgmusic.com in this new version is TC helicon for vocal harmonies.
from what ive read on the user forums at pg it seems folks are rather excited
about it and already users have produced songs using this feature.
so if your interested in this it might be an avenue to explore.
and talk to folks on the user forum at pg for more info.
peace.

 

[mikeh]

I agree that the 3rd above is the most common harmony line followed by the 5th above. Certainly the 4th can be a great sounding harmony. Naturally, you can also try harmonies below the melody (depending on the range of the melody).

Often the harmony line may only comprise of a few notes. In certain extreme cases the harmony may hang on one note. While keyboard triads are the easiest way to lay out harmony notes, you need to trust your ears.

Harmony can be very hard to sing if you are just starting out, since the tendancy is to fall back on the melody. I also find harmony singers often go sharp, since many harmony lines tend to have half steps and the tendancy is to go for a whole step and end up sharp. I find this intersting because people who sing melody tend to sing flat.

Listen to some of your favorite recordings and try to pick out the harmony parts - obviously Beatles material is always a great reference source.

 

[mikeh]

I just read manning's post about the software harmonizer. I own the TC Voice Prism. These types of harmonizers are great tools, however to get them to work to the best capacity, you still need a decent understanding of theory, chord struture and harmony.

In fact, they can often be more difficult to master than to simply learn to sing a harmony line!!!

I look at it as a hammer and saw - on the surface, they appear to be very easy tools to use - but if you don't know how to use them correctly, you can do more damage than good.

 

[SPLATTER]

Vocal Harmonizing, cont'd.

Thanks for the info, folks. I appreciate the info about the harmonizer, but I'm very leery of an electronic imitation of a real vocal harmony. I'm afraid it will sound too plastic, like how no drum machine can sound as good as a REAL drummer. Plus I put a high priority on my vocals being good (still working on that!), so I need to learn to really sing effective harmonies with myself or with fellow band members. The mention of taking vocal and music theory classes is a good one, and I'm planning to eventually take voice lessons for sure. Music theory I'm afraid might bog me down creatively, and even cause me to know "the rules" and therefore maybe miss writing some goods songs by following theory formulas, instead of breaking the rules without knowing it, as I may be doing now. However, since I don't even understand what thirds and fifths are, that theory class may be more needed than I want to admit! Can any of this be gleaned from chord books or theory books!
Thanks again for the help!
SPLATTER (U.S.)

 

[tedluk]

Splatter-

Yes, you can learn theory from books. It's probably better to take a class or get a video as reading about music is pretty boring most of the time and it really helps to hear things.

About your fear of learning "rules" messing up your creativity. I'm of the opinion that knowledge can never hurt you. The more you understand, the better. The problem comes in when you allow the "rules" to alter or control your creativity. That's a choice YOU make. I think sometimes people use this excuse because they either a) Are too lazy to take the time to learn their craft, or b) They're afraid of making the commitment or afraid that it's going to be boring and dull (sadly, that's probably true). Still, having a fundamental base of understanding of what is happening will open up all kinds of new avenues of exploration for you.

Ted

 

[mikeh]

3rds & 5ths are simply steps in a scale. As an example the C major scale is c-d-e-f-g-a-b and back to c (the octave). So the 3rd is e and the 5th is g. Hopefully you already know that about a million songs are based on the I-IV-V chord progression (in C major that would be C-F-G).

Buy a book that shows keyboard chords (normally dots on the various white & black keys) a basic 3 note triad is the root, 3rd & 5th.

Candidly, if you don't even understand something as basic as a 3rd or 5th - you are going to be limited as a musician (you won't even be able to communicate with other musicians). You own it to yourself (if you hope to improve), to get better educated!

Any musician that says learning "the rules" limits the ability to "break the rules" is fooling themself. Knowledge is power regardless of industry.

I've been a musician for 35 years (mostly self taught) but I constantly try to learn new rules - and surprisingly, I constantly improve as a wrier and musician.

 

[Farview]

Spatter, The only way to become good a writing harmonies is to learn all the scales and learn how they all interact with chords and other scales. Unfortunatley, thats music theory.
You probably know more about it than you think you do just by instinct, but if you don't know why everything goes together, you are still going to be lost

 

[mshilarious]

When you consider creativity and theory, realize that they usually go hand in hand. Nearly all of the great innovators in music had a deep understanding of theory that none of us here can hope to match. I'm talking Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Coleman, Davis.

Bach could improvise a six-part fugue on the spot given any melody. Mozart was something like five years old when he transcribed from memory a nine-part opera he heard once. When Stravinsky's Rite of Spring debuted, the music (and choreography) was so shocking that half of the audience booed and demanded it stop and the other half screamed their approval just as loud. And that was a ballet!

I agree with mikeh . . . knowledge is power. Learn theory and your music gets much more creative, not less.

 

[johnnymegabyte]

I saw in the making of Bohemian Rhapsody, the approach Freddie Mercury was trying to acheive was singing 'Chords' via the overdubs.
Whether he was refering to 1-3-5 approach, or similar, let an expert answer.

 

[NYMorningstar]

i dont know if you'll find this interesting splatter and i dont want folks with competing products jumping on me , BUT the new version of ...

Manning1, try reading the posts you are spamming with your cheap software. Splatter here is trying to learn how to sign harmony, not how to fudge it. If you don't want folks to be jumping on you then simply stop spamming the boards.

 

[SPLATTER]

More good feedback...

I think all of you are right. Gaining music theory knowledge is a lot more likely to help, than hurt, my creativity. It will give me more POTENTIAL songwriting tools to work with. I can always ignore this knowledge and revert to my previous spontaneous/happy-accident songwriting techniques whenever I want to, anyway.

I just want to make sure I don't start using a "template" or cookie-cutter approach to building songs, as if from a plan, relying on a I-IV-V structure or whatever. As has been mentioned earlier on this thread though, that's something for me to control, rather than letting it control me!

The only reason this is even an issue for me, is that when I try to write lyrics, and then carefully, with pencil and paper, build chords and melodies around it, or otherwise pre-structure a song, it never turns out well. Dry, lifeless, like a piece of styrofoam. But the stuff that I write and record on the fly, usually with my brother on drums and me on guitar or keys for the main chord and melody parts, often I'm very happy with. I write the chords and melody as they occur to me while I'm playing and recording. After recording the aforementioned, we lay down a strong bass line and then the lead vocals and some subtle backing vocal or instrumental tracks after that. These are always the most surprising and the best songs. But the vocals would be much better with good vocal harmonizing. These songs often don't quite follow standard verse/chorus/bridge format, but they are usually close to standard format.

One thing I've learned from studying some DOORS songwriting lately, is that on a lot of thier "hit" songs, they began with an intro, followed by the chorus, THEN followed by verse/chorus and sometimes a bridge (example: "Hello I Love You"). I've compared thier songwriting structure to the usual stuff in my songwriting reference book, and it's a bit unconventional, but it works very well I think, and might not have ocurred if they had followed the usual format. On the other hand, as I recall, both guitarist Krieger and keyboardist Manzarak had serious classical musical training and skills, so obviously the knowledge didn't impair them!!! I'M GONNA CHECK OUT LOCAL COMM. COLLEGE CLASSES!
And thanx mikeh for the explaination of what 3rds and 5ths are - that's the kind of info I need! And yes, it's harder to work with unfamilier musicians, as I have to do it by ear which isn't as easy as knowing what you're playing ahead of time!
Thanks again for the feedback, 'yall!

 

[Farview]

If you learn enough about music theory, you might be able to have those happy accidents happen on purpose. If something works, there is a reason for it. Just because you happened upon it by accident doesn't mean that it isn't rooted in theory.

What you are trying to avoid are cleches.

 

[SPLATTER]

Yeah...

Good point!
SPLATTER

 

[Carter]

Spam

Manning1, try reading the posts you are spamming with your cheap software. Splatter here is trying to learn how to sign harmony, not how to fudge it. If you don't want folks to be jumping on you then simply stop spamming the boards.

 

[DeathKnell]

Thanks for this thread it has enlightened me considerably as I'm in the exact same boat...

I could learn this stuff in a matter of minutes/hours as I know most of it and used to be able to read music... Hell i played 3 instruments a few years ago (i was young..) so you'd think I would have picked up somthing.

Can someone define chord progression a bit better for me? I'm kind of confused if it relates to the whole song, or if it just defines a change in the song or somthing.. im rather confused if you can't tell..

 

[mikeh]

Chord progression is simply the order the chords follow in a song. As an example a basic 3 chord song such as Louie Louie (or a million other songs) has a chord progression of I - IV - V - IV. What ever the key of the song, that is the progression. If in C this would be C - F - G - F, in E, this would be E - A - B - A, etc.

Naturally, more complex songs may have several differnet chords (a more complex chord progression). Often musicians may talk about the chord progression in the verse and discuss the progression in the chorus as a seperate chord progression, etc.

 

[warble]

Manning1, try reading the posts you are spamming with your cheap software. Splatter here is trying to learn how to sign harmony, not how to fudge it. If you don't want folks to be jumping on you then simply stop spamming the boards.

100% agreed. I've been pretty laid back the past few days regarding this spamming crap, but Manning, your post was a blatent push for Powertracks AGAIN. The guy wants input/advice on singing the harmony, how it works, not creating it digitally. You need to start thinking about what people are asking for...not looking for a chance to jump in with "I'm not lying.....$49...blah, blah, blah". Geez.

 

[HangDawg]

100% agreed. I've been pretty laid back the past few days regarding this spamming crap, but Manning, your post was a blatent push for Powertracks AGAIN. The guy wants input/advice on singing the harmony, how it works, not creating it digitally. You need to start thinking about what people are asking for...not looking for a chance to jump in with "I'm not lying.....$49...blah, blah, blah". Geez.

Here, Here!

Where are the spam police when you really need them?

I don't usually notice this kind of stuff but this guy is just flat out spamming this shit hard whether he thinks so or not.