Dear Students,
This month, I wanted to provide a practical guide to learning harmony, as well as tips for learning music and improving musicality. Singing harmony can be intimidating – but with a bit of planning and some strategies, it doesn’t have to be!
Learning basic music theory will help, but it’s not necessary. All of music theory comes down to one principle: harmony is the playful back and forth between tension and resolution. As you listen, ask yourself: when does the music sound unstable, as if something else needs to happen versus when does it sound stable, as though you’ve reached a point of arrival? The most decisive point of arrival or resolution happens (generally speaking) at the end of a song; but you should also listen for mini resolutions that will occur all throughout the song. When you sing harmony, sometimes you will be singing a pitch that reinforces the feeling of resolution (also known as consonance), and sometimes you will be singing a pitch that reinforces the lack of stability (also known as dissonance). Not every harmony is going to sound good out of context, but it will sound good as part of the bigger ebb and flow of consonance and dissonance.
Start by building the foundation: your ear. You can develop a familiarity with harmony while going about your day-to-day life. It’s easy to get basic harmonies in your ear just by listening to the music that you already listen to! There are only so many possible harmony combinations that occur in music, so the more you listen to harmony, the more you will develop a subconscious harmony “vocabulary” that will allow you to quickly recognize and learn various harmonic patterns.
1. Listen to music with harmonies (of any genre! It doesn’t have to be vocal music, but that will help)
2. Listen for the harmonies whenever there are multiple voices
3. Practice picking out and humming along with both melody and harmony, by turns, really noticing the difference.
As an aside, one of my favorite 3-part harmony songs is The Eye by Brandi Carlile. Give it a listen, and practice singing along with each part in turn!
General principles for singing harmony:
1. Confidence is key: my former choir director used to say “sing boldly so ye may be corrected!” Singing loudly and with confidence will make it easier for you to identify errors and to solidify the neural pathways you are trying to build while learning a harmony. One of the most common issues that singers run into while learning harmony is that they allow themselves to be pulled into singing whatever pitches
2. Sing with good vocal technique: When learning harmony, singing with good vocal technique, particularly with a resonant tone and sufficient breath support, will allow your voice to be both responsive and accurate to what you are asking of it. A resonant, supported tone is much more likely to be in tune!
3. Avoid pitch ambiguity – as you are learning harmony, you may not always know what the next pitch is and you may have to make an educated guess. Drifting between pitches will make it difficult to assess the accuracy of the pitch you just sang, and make it VERY easy to go out of tune. As a matter of fact, this can be a great tool for assessing if you actually know how the harmony goes; if you are singing the pitch softly or ambiguously, this is a pretty clear indication that you may not yet know how the harmony goes! The solution is to sing the harmony that you know up to the note you’re not sure of. Then sustain that note, until you can hear clearly what pitch it is that you are singing. It will be much easier to see if you’re singing it accurately or not.
Steps to learning/singing harmony:
1. Learn your part independently from the harmony. Sheet music is very helpful, but if you’ve built the foundation, you may be able to pick it out just by listening to an audio track. If you play an instrument, that can also be an easy way to pick out the harmony part. If you’re having trouble figuring out your part, bring it to voice lessons or to someone with experience in that area to pick out and then make an audio recording of that part to sing along with. There are also software programs that isolate harmonies. Do some research and figure out what method works best for you!
2. Learn that part as if it were the melody. This means getting to a point where you can enjoy its beauty independent of the other harmony parts.
3. Sing it with the other parts, such that you are singing much louder than the other parts (ask the people you are singing with to sing softly or turn any tracks audio down) so it's easy to drown them out with your harmony.
4. As you become more comfortable, gradually balance the volume to what it will be in your final product, while listening most to your own part.
5. Finally, open your ears to hear how all the parts fit together. This is an important final step that is often ignored. But there is a special kind of listening that allows you to each part independently, and to hear how they fit together as a consonant or dissonant chord. When you’ve really got it down, the parts will “lock in” together – a VERY satisfying feeling!
I hope this guide is helpful to get you comfortable singing harmony. Singing harmony is challenging, but one of the most rewarding aspects of being a singer and, in my opinion, a great analogy for what it is like to be in community. To be in community, you must develop and take ownership of your individual voice, while understanding how it fits in with other voices. You must stand strong in your own individuality, while figuring out how to blend in with those around you to form a culture or society (or in the case of singing – a beautiful song!). Both being in community and harmony singing require the courage and confidence to show up as who you are without apology, while demanding radical accountability and the willingness to learn and change if you make mistakes. And the sum is always greater than its parts: when people come together with authenticity, humility, and courage, something magical happens!
What are some of the rewards of harmony singing you’ve experienced? What are some of the challenges you’ve faced? What is your favorite song featuring vocal harmonies? I’d love to hear from you. Also, please send me any requests on topics you’d like me to cover in future notes!
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