Learning to Create Harmony

Learning to sing harmony can be a difficult task for some. There are singers who are awesome at singing lead but don't have a clue as to how to sing harmony.

The most common way of learning has traditionally been through singing along with a congregation at a church service. Most Southern congregations sing in 3 part harmony. What is 3 part harmony? Three part harmony is when you hear 3 tones at the same time. You hear soprano (the highest note) alto, (the middle note) and tenor (which is the lowest note). There are also other notes like the bass note, and baritone. For simplicity sake, we are not going to discuss the bass, and baritone notes. Generally all the men are singing tenor or bass and the women are singing soprano and alto.

The easiest way to create harmonies if you don't naturally have an ear for harmony (can hear what notes blend together) is to use a piano or keyboard. You would play three notes that are close to each other and sound in sync with each other. This is called a triad chord.

Next you would have 3 vocalists sing each note that you have identified as blending with each other at the same time. Every note can blend with numerous other notes and produce beautiful sounds vocally.

A good way of identifying whether harmonies blend is to close your eyes and listen to the three notes. Most people whether they are musically inclined or not can detect bad notes.

Listen to some of your favorite songs and try to pick out the different notes that you hear. (soprano, alto, and tenor) Listen to how they relate to each other. Notice how they appear to be the same sounds but with different tones. Lastly, test it out with 3 singers. Create a harmony for a simple song that you know and give each person one of the 3 notes that we mentioned above. This should very well put you on your way to creating beautiful harmonies. Good Luck!!

Have you ever become frustrated with your songwriting because you couldn't come up with great background vocals or great harmony? You have this amazing song with all your thoughts but just can't compliment or create beautiful background vocals!

Most awesome musicians and singers find creating background vocals to be a hurdle in the songwriting process leading to production. They allow the experience of creating background vocals and arranging harmonies to hinder the possibilities of an awesome project.