[carol m]

I have always loved harmony in songs and often try to sing harmony to the music I hear. Some harmonies are really obvious and I think these are the sort of harmonies that are often found in hymns (I'm guessing). I think these are probably the thirds or fifths mostly and can be found by picking out chord tones within the chord etc.

But.......there are some songs, singers or groups where the harmony is 'closer' or in some way different. I remember people remarking on how the Beatles used new and interesting harmonies in many of their songs. Also the Bee Gees, CSNY, or even The Beach Boys.

Also, how do you /hear/find/think of interesting chord/harmonies for example that great F#minor at the end of the easy Silent Night or the A7/C# in the Classical Finger Waltz lesson? These are the sort of touches that makes the music interesting and different. Are there any basic ways to find these chords/harmonies, or does it only come with years of playing and listening to music?

I would really like to have a better understanding of various harmonies and how to make/sing/hear/understand different harmonies in vocals. I realise this can be a life-long study, but I don't have a whole life time left, so a few pointers would be great.

[Doug]

Good post, Carol. I'm waiting to hear responses as well. I like the fact that you link vocal harmonies with chords - something that's kind of obvious when you think about it but they're often thought of as different. It kind of gives a different perspective to chord voicings if you were to think of it in terms of a Barber Shop quintet doing it. Or maybe an organ playing each note separately until they blend into a harmonious chord. Or notes fluctuating in and out of a chord.
The music that I love to play is always based on harmonies of notes (although I really don't know what I'm doing from theory perspective). Most of the time I spend noodling is in combining notes in different ways.

[Ben_Sir_Amos]

That’s a pretty huge question, Carol and I’ll try to give some pointers - but as I haven’t got time to re-write the book, they will only be pointers and ideas, not laws, rules or commands: that means they can all be broken whenever you want. It is often the breaking of rules that makes music ‘interesting’ but if you break them all the time, it sounds like junk.

1. The two most basic approaches are a) harmonise with the chord, b) harmonise with the melody. These two approaches will give slightly different feels and might lead you in different directions. These will give you “vertical” harmonies. If you want to be more adventurous you can get into counterpoint and polyphony – like two separate melodies intertwining (bit tricky – listen to Bach for counterpoint).

2. I think that what people think of as ‘close’ harmonies tend to be thirds. A two-part harmony based on fifths can sound ‘interesting’ – that’s good if that is the effect you are trying to achieve (sometimes called ‘consecutive fifths') but usually something to avoid. Try playing a melody on a single guitar string and then use a power chord approach to harmonise to hear what consecutive fifths sound like.

3. When we were taught 4-part harmony at school, we were told that the bass line could jump up and down and the top line could dance about as much as it likes, but the two middle harmonies should move as little as possible – again this is a good rule to break if you want an interesting effect but sticking to it will give an effect of ‘close’ harmony. In practical terms this means that the harmonies – whether above or below the melody line – stick to the same note whenever possible.

4. Kids’ choirs often practice “rounds” where different sections will sing the same thing – but starting at different times (e.g. Frère Jacques). You can use this kind of technique in modern songs in a ‘call and response pattern’.

Putting these together into a song can generate a classic. Listen to the Beatles doing “Please Please Me”. In the verse, the single harmony stays on one note, in the bridge the "response" to the "call" is two voices harmonising, the hook is in three parts and the bridge harmonies are more or less reproducing notes from the chords, with a low response to the “In my heart”. Nothing particularly innovative there – but they use four techniques in a single pop song without overdoing anything. That's the song that made me pick up the guitar seriously, I think.

[Kirk Lorange]

Hi, Carol. Yes, good, but big question.

When you hear close harmonies, such as CSNY's, they are usually adding extensions to the chord. So you may be hearing one of the voices singing the major7 or 7, or 6 or 4 of the chord. Remember that any note coming from any instrument or voice in the overall sound becomes a chord tone. The trick with it always is to extend the chord in a pleasing, appropriate way.

The F#m I inserted in Silent Night: the simple change would have been back to the I chord (A in this case) from the E7 (the V chord)... I went to the relative minor instead, the F#. It's as close as you can get to the I chord, but you can hear that it didn't resolve anything, it demanded I go back and play the IV to V again so that I could finally get back 'home' to the I chord. I'm not exactly sure what inspired me to arrange it that way, but musically, it's all well within the key and is not overly complicated.

The A7/C# in the Waltz came about because I wanted the bass line to climb back up to the D. It moves up from A to B to C# to D. Chord wise There are several possibilities to choose from:

A Bm7 C#mb5 D
A Em F#m D
A G F#m D
A E7 A D
A B7 A D and more...

but to keep it nice and clean and strong and conventional sounding, I chose to stick to the I-IV-V chords: A G A7 D and put those bass notes underneath: A G/B A7/C# D.

Easy!

[hb]

Thanks for the post, it gives me another opportunity to ask a silly question to a bunch of musicians, but I live with the theory that the only silly question is one not asked! I understand that the basics of harmony is "fitting in" "or going with the flow", or "sounding alike", but when one is thinking of, say, a barbershop quartet, which is what I think of as "harmony", what is really going on? I know it's a different kind of sound, but what the basis of it all? How does this sound come to be?????
thanks to all in advance,
hb

[Kirk Lorange]

Originally Posted by hb

Thanks for the post, it gives me another opportunity to ask a silly question to a bunch of musicians, but I live with the theory that the only silly question is one not asked! I understand that the basics of harmony is "fitting in" "or going with the flow", or "sounding alike", but when one is thinking of, say, a barbershop quartet, which is what I think of as "harmony", what is really going on? I know it's a different kind of sound, but what the basis of it all? How does this sound come to be?????
thanks to all in advance,
hb

Again, hb, it all comes down to chords. A plain old major or minor chord uses three notes; barber shop quartets have 4 voices, so the harmonized melody is always four notes 'wide'. You'd have to look at each tune individually to really say what's going on (as in chord flavors, like 9ths, 6ths etc.), but at any given moment, any slice in time, there's a chord going on. You often hear moving lines, where one voice is answering another with a separate melody ... it's still all chords.

[felixdcat]

Originally Posted by Kirk Lorange

it's still all chords.

Now isnt that wonderful?

[carol m]

Thanks for that reply Kirk. I followed it all until you say "I chose to stick to the I-IV-V chords: A G A7 D" . As the tune is in the Key of G, I found this a little confusing.

I'm still working on understanding your chord progression options.
(and am having some difficulty understanding that bit where it says 'Easy'.)

[carol m]

Thanks for your great reply Ben Sir Amos. I'll get down to analysing what you say after dinner.

[Fong]

Originally Posted by carol m

Thanks for that reply Kirk. I followed it all until you say "I chose to stick to the I-IV-V chords: A G A7 D" . As the tune is in the Key of G, I found this a little confusing.

I'm still working on understanding your chord progression options.
(and am having some difficulty understanding that bit where it says 'Easy'.)

He meant that in the key of G....D is the V(Fifth Chord) G A B C D

By playing I IV V of D you get D E F G A ....D G A is 1 4 5

So by playing A G A7 D he played the three chord trick of D (which always sounds nice) while staying somewhere close to G so he could get back, via the V (or 5th) chord D.

Going from V to I (or 5 to 1) is usually the way in which people spot what key you are in, it has a certain sound that is recognisable. I can't do it, but I have read that it is possible.

[Ben_Sir_Amos]

Originally Posted by Fong

Going from V to I (or 5 to 1) is usually the way in which people spot what key you are in, it has a certain sound that is recognisable. I can't do it, but I have read that it is possible.

I usually find it easier to spot the plagal cadence IV to I - which is often known as the "Amen" cadence because a lot of hymns are ended that way - often with the singing staying on the same note (the tonic) for both chords.

[hb]

Originally Posted by Kirk Lorange

Again, hb, it all comes down to chords. A plain old major or minor chord uses three notes; barber shop quartets have 4 voices, so the harmonized melody is always four notes 'wide'. You'd have to look at each tune individually to really say what's going on (as in chord flavors, like 9ths, 6ths etc.), but at any given moment, any slice in time, there's a chord going on. You often hear moving lines, where one voice is answering another with a separate melody ... it's still all chords.

Thanks for that explanation. Not being a singer, I know that one can PLAY a 7th chord in a song, but can one actually SING a 7th chord? This doesn't sound like something that can be done.
hb

[Doug]

not by one person. But four could - each singing a different note of the 7th chord.

My teacher was telling me about secondary dominant chords whereby you can precede a Dominant (or any other chord in the harmonized scale, really) with "it's" dominant. So for an example in C of a IV V I - Fmaj7 G7 Cmaj7 you could introduce the V of the G before the G so you have IV V/V V I or in actual chords, Fmaj7 D7 G7 Cmaj7. The D is the V of G so it's a secondary dominant. And I think these secondary dominants can be played before any of the in-scale chords.

[hb]

Originally Posted by Doug

not by one person. But four could - each singing a different note of the 7th chord.

Okay...........that makes sense!
hb

[Kirk Lorange]

Carol ... I think we may be talking about different lessons! Which is the one you're asking about? I had a quick look through them and found this http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/fo...part-3-4-time/

It also has finger waltz in the title. It's not it, is it?

The one you're talking about: I'm not sure what made me choose A7/C# over C ... either way I was heading for the G/D. I always experiment with various possibilities and choose one that makes my ears perk up, as I guess this one did yours.

A7 is what I'd call a 'majorised ii' (I'll use the Aussie spelling for you!) so I guess the interesting sound here is the fact that I just played the ii. The progression goes I ii I II ... that's where the ears perk up. The critical note is also the bass note, adding to the surprise.



Sorry, Fong!