The Horror of learning vocal harmony. Advice sought.

Col_Decker

So lastnight at band camp we were working on Instant Karma by John Lennon and we decided that the chorus needed some harmonies .. the All Shine On /  Moon Stars Sun ... bits.

Anyhoo, the singer naturally did the main vocals, and the keyboarder did the high part, which left me to do the inbetweeny one. A 3rd I think. OH MY GOD! A world of pain. To play the riff and sing the main part is easy. To play the riff and (hear and) sing the harmony part causes by brain to crash.

 

So is there an app / audio book thats availible that teachs you to sing harmonies? Ideally I want to do it in the car as it gives me an hour a day and nobody can hear me go thru the learning phase.

RocknRollDave

If you find an answer, let me know.
I can sing in tune, I can copy someone else's lines, but I couldn't pitch a harmony if my life depended on it.

vasselmeyer

I'm in the same boat. I can hit a note with no problem, but for the life of me I cannot hear a harmony. In the end I just bought a BOSS vocal processor which I can set to a number of different harmonies (3rd, 5th etc). You just set the key and off it goes, even offering pitch correction for any wobbles.

Danny1969

What you gotta do is learn the part in thirds or 5ths or whatever and then find the notes on the guitar. Then just before you start for song play the notes to give yourself a reminder, common harmonies like a 3rd are easy but remembering the note for a 6th or whatever isn't sometimes. So find it on the guitar and give yourself a memo from that

Practice intervals so you can visulize and pitch em quickly. Start on a comfortable note and then pitch to an interval.  I use these reference intervals to help me

minor 2nd ..   Jaws music but never gonna use that as a harmony

Maj 2nd  .....  Happy Birthday 

minor 3rd  .... Smoke on the water

Maj 3rd ....... Twist and shout chorus

4th .... Apache but some people use  Here comes the bride

Dim 5th  .... Simpsons

5th .... Star Wars 

dim 6th .... strange one this but if you like Pink Floyd use One of the few from the Final Cut

6th .... My way 

Minor 7th ..... Startrek

Maj 7th .... I normally imagine the octave and back it down one

Octave ..... Somewhere over the rainbow

The thing with Harmonies is to not to track every note in a perfect third or whatever interval but to sing something that fits in with the chord playing underneath. Sometimes that can mean staying on the same note like the verse of Please Please me .... or jumping from 3rds to 5ths . Decent harmonies rarely stay on any fixed interval but rather follow notes that fir the underpinning chords of the song. As a guitarist you can break down any given chord to it's  root, third and fifth and pick your notes from there to start with

Practice in the car. Pick a song like Chasing Cars from Snow Patrol and listen to the harmony that comes in on the 2nd and last chorus, then try singing that harmony over the first chorus. It gets easier, in the end you find yourself always picking out harmonies rather than the main melody

 

Col_Decker

Cool have a wisdom!!

 

Yeah I was trying to stay on a single note for 2 or the 3 I was singing lastnight. ie trying to sing the words in the notes D, D, B, whlie the main vocal  was singing G, B, E ..... or something. Really hard to not copy them and sing the same pitch. Add to the fact it was quite high up in pitch it made for some comedy / cringe moments.

Jalapeno

Sting's harmonies on Money For Nothing are a good starter.

Practice, practice, practice.  I find it hardest just to not follow whoever else is loudest in my ear, and me and the lead vocalist swap singing higher harmonies and I'm old so get confuddled ..... !

Cirrus

We do lots of harmonies in our band. When writing songs I find it can be very difficult to pick out harmony lines that work by ear - sometimes it's easy, sometimes you come to the conclusion that somehow the melody is occupying all 12 notes at once and there's no room for harmonies.

I find in those situations having an acoustic guitar to hand is very helpful because you can find the melody notes, and work out triads that fit the chords you're singing over - hey presto, two harmony lines!