Learning to Sing Harmony
Whether you’re singing karaoke or taking the mic for a professional performance, standing in the spotlight as a lead vocalist can be a thrilling experience. But what if you don’t want to be the star of the show? What if you love singing with others or want to sing something more technically challenging?
Singing harmony is an amazing way to expand your vocal and musical horizons, but singers are often expected to just know how to harmonize. The ability to harmonize is often talked about as though it’s so inborn talent that you’re either lucky enough to have or can never learn, but this simply isn’t the case. Harmonizing is a skill and, with a little bit of time and effort, almost anyone can learn to sing harmony.
Why learn to sing harmony?
Like any new skill, it can take a little time and effort to learn how to harmonize. But it’s time well spent! For one thing, singing harmony can be extremely fun. Singing with other people triggers the release of dopamine and serotonin in our brains. These chemicals lead to a sense of wellbeing and a strengthen social bonds with the people you’re singing with. Plus, if you ever wished you could jump in on a jam session like a guitarist or pianist, singing harmony can allow you to do that.
For vocalists that like a challenge that isn’t just “how high can I go” or “how long can I hold this note,” harmony offers a new way to engage with music. Singing harmony requires more listening and thinking than singing melody, allowing you to engage with music on an intellectual as well as emotional level.
Strong harmony singers also have additional job opportunities. Vocalists can take on far more opportunities when they’re able to perform or record as a backing vocalist rather than just as the star of the show. These gigs can be lucrative as well as great opportunities to network.
So What is harmony?
Alongside rhythm and melody, harmony is at the core of modern American music. Harmony is the combination of different notes played at the same time to create something new: a chord. While a melody - a progression of individual notes - can evoke emotions and feelings all on its own, harmony adds depth and complexity.
In their simplest form, a chord is composed of three notes which we’ll refer to as the root, third, and fifth. Chords are named for their root note (for example: A major or Eb minor). The third is, well, a major or minor third above the root and defines whether the chord is major or minor. The fifth is a major or minor third above the third and a fifth above the root and gives the chord a sense of stability while reinforcing the root note. You can think of a chord as two stacked thirds. Chords can have more than three notes; these additional notes are called tensions and add color to the chord.
Since the human voice can only produce one note at a time, it’s up to to harmony singers to create chords - or parts of chords - along with the melody vocalist. In general, both the melody and complimentary harmony lines will be composed of notes from the underlying chord; sometimes the root, third, or fifth, other times a tension of the chord. A quick tip: borrow notes from the bass, piano, or guitar parts to create your harmony line.
Different styles of music call for different styles of vocal harmony. While American Pop and Country music often features vocal harmony lines that stay a third above or below the melody (as heard in the chorus of Islands in the Stream), other genres like Appalachian music might prefer perfect fifth or fourth intervals (heard in Here and Heaven) while Baroque and Classical music rely on the tension and release of passing major seconds (as heard in this beautiful arrangement of All Will Be Well).
Most Pop vocal harmony parts don’t stay a third away from the melody the entire time, but they often attempt to stay as close to a third as possible. Learning to hear major and minor thirds - and understanding when each is appropriate - can allow you to craft a harmony part that supports the underlying harmony of the song as well as help you find your part again if you get lost. Perfect fourths and fifths are also very common in harmony parts as they are often used to complete a chord.
How to Learn to Sing Harmony
Listening: The Key to Harmony
Listening is perhaps the most important skill for any vocalist, but especially for those who want to sing harmony. Good harmony singers learn to listen to the lead vocalist as well as any instruments supporting them. They also have to learn to listen to themselves. When first learning to sing harmony, it can be easy to accidentally start singing in unison with the melody. Learning to simultaneously hear yourself and the singer you’re harmonizing with can take time, but it’s worth the patience required.
Good harmony singers also need to be able to hear the underlying harmony of the song. For many vocalists, this is something you’ll pick up just from listening to and playing music throughout your life. The Beatles, arguably some of the best harmony writers of the 20th century, had no music theory knowledge; they simply had an innate understanding of what sounds good. You can be a successful harmony singer with no knowledge of music theory or how to read music. Even if you have an instinctual understanding of harmony, learning the music theory behind harmony and training your ear to hear that theory in action can give you a valuable technical edge.
Some of the most common advice aspiring harmony singers get is to sing along with the harmonies on your favorite recordings. Most of the self-taught harmony vocalists we know have practiced this way. This method is particularly helpful for singers who don’t read music or don’t learn well using the music-theory-based methods below, but it’s a great exercise of any harmony singer.
Of course, this technique only works if you’ve learned how to hear individual parts on a recording. Before you start singing along, it’s important to practice listening. Practice focusing in on just one vocal line - or even a guitar or piano part - and following along in your head.
Many singers find it more difficult to hear and sing along with instrumental parts than vocal parts. This is very common; the human ear is designed to focus in on the human voice. Bass lines are one of the easiest parts to learn to follow and a great way to start to understanding harmony. Practice singing along with the bass and then move on to other instrumental parts to strengthen your ear. Slowing down a song - or even just a phrase, word, or syllable - can make it easier to hear parts. YouTube is an excellent resource for this; both the app and web viewer allow to choose the playback speed of your video, letting you play whatever song your studying as slow as 1/4 the original speed.
Once you’re confident in your ability to hear and follow a harmony part, practice singing along as a backup singer to your favorite artist. As you do this with more and more songs, you might start to notice similarities between the harmony parts on different recordings. In time, you’ll learn the “rules” of writing your own harmony parts by observing and internalizing common harmony practices.
Learn to sing intervals
An interval is the distance between two notes. Learning what different intervals sound like and how to sing them is great first step to learning to sing harmony. Not only will you learn to listen and hear in new ways, you can directly apply this skill to singing harmony. Understanding where your part is in relation to the melody can prevent you from getting lost and even help you write your own harmony parts.
A great way to memorize how different intervals sound is to develop a set of references. Look for songs that you know well where the interval in question happens ideally in the first two notes. You can find lists of interval references online, but we’ve found EarMaster’s interval reference chart generator to be one of the best. Practice singing these intervals using your references to guide you (and a piano, keyboard app, or guitar to check your pitch).
While there are plenty of ways to practice intervals but some of our favorite exercises involve using numbers. The first involves moving up and down the scale stepwise. Start with 1 (a.k.a. do, the tonic, or the root) and go up and back to each note in succession, sounding something like this:
1, 1 2 1, 1 2 3 2 1, 1 2 3 4 3 2 1, 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1, etc.
Once you’re confident moving up and down the scale, it’s time to start jumping directly from the root to your goal note. The exercises will sound like this:
1, 1 2 1, 1 3 1, 1 4 1, 1 5 1, etc.
Start with the notes of the major scale before moving to chromatic intervals (i.e.: half steps).
Join a choir
In addition to singing along with recordings, many self-taught harmony singers have spent time singing in choirs. Not only are you usually given a pre-written harmony part, Choral singing has many benefits beyond just learning harmony. Group singing allows shy vocalists to perform without having to stand alone in the spotlight. The dopamine and serotonin released while singing with a choir provide a sense of general wellbeing and deepen your connection with your fellow singers. Plus, choirs can be a great place to learn to read music outside of a classroom setting.
While many people associate choirs with a religious setting, there are plenty of non-religious volunteer choirs around the world that accept singers wherever they are on their singing journey. If you’re joining a choir to learn about harmony singing, make sure you’re not placed in the first soprano section - or the soprano section in general if the choir doesn’t have first and second parts. Sopranos are frequently given the melody and have fewer opportunities to practice singing harmony.
Refining Your Skills
Learn to sing collaboratively
Singing harmony is about more than just hitting the right notes. As a harmony singer, you’re role is to support and blend with the melody vocalist. There are several important things to keep in mind to give your best, well-blended harmony performance: volume, timbre, vowel shape, consonants, timing, and approach.
Volume is the simplest to address: don’t sing over the melody singer. Match or - better still - stay below their volume. If you’re singing as part of a live performance or in a studio setting, the person working the soundboard will usually adjust the volume of your microphone. But if they don’t or if you’re singing without amplification, it’s up to you to manage your volume through mic technique or just plain singing quieter. A good rule of thumb: if you can’t hear the lead vocal, you’re too loud.
Timbre is the tonal quality of your voice (breathy, raspy, brassy, rich, sweet). While most of us can’t perfectly mimic someone else’s voice (and wouldn’t want to, anyway) we can adjust our timbre to better match the singer we’re supporting through breath control and placement. If the lead singer has a breathy voice, a brassy backup vocalist can overpower or distract from the melody even while singing at a quieter volume. Pay attention to the tonal quality of the melody singer’s voice and try to compliment it by adjusting your timbre.
If you really want to sing like a pro, matching the melody singer’s vowel shape is a must. In sung English, we tend to hold out vowel sounds the longest (imagine trying to sing a “t” sound for two bars!) and - while we might think of vowels as simply a, e, i, o, u - these sounds can be very nuanced and complex. Two native English speakers with different accents might pronounce the same word completely differently - even adding diphthongs or extra syllables. If the lead vocalist is singing the word “stand” with a British “aw” sound and you sing it with a bright, American “ah,” listeners may actually perceive this mismatch as pitchy-ness - even if you’re perfectly in tune!
Consonants and timing are closely related. Unless you’re singing a part that is intentionally out of time with melody (a.k.a.: asynchronous), it’s important to make sure you’re not getting ahead of or falling behind the lead vocalist. What does this have to do with consonants? Extremely late or early consonants will stick out like a sore thumb, particularly at the end of a phrase. Some harmony singers will deemphasis or even drop sing the final consonant of a phrase to avoid conflicting with the melody singer.
Finally, how you approach each note is very important when doubling a part or singing a beautiful blended harmony line. There are five ways to get to a note: scoop up, scoop down, wobble around it until you find it (“torpedo”), miss it completely, or hit it straight on (“arrow”). In general, our goal as singers is to hit the note straight on; but a harmony singer’s goal is to match the lead vocalist. If the lead singer is hitting every note dead center, the harmony vocalist should follow suit. At the same time, if the melody singer is scooping up to a note, the harmony singer needs to follow suit by scooping up to their note at the same pace.
Less Is More
A well written harmony line should be almost as easy to sing as a melody, avoiding big jumps and moving stepwise as much as possible. While you might be singing the lyric in time with the lead vocal, you don’t necessarily have to change notes at the same time. Staying on the same note and allowing the melody to move around it can create interesting harmonic tensions while allowing you to create a more stepwise harmony line.
Simpler harmony parts can allow the melody to shine. Runs and dramatic leaps are generally reserved for the lead vocal. Remember, the role of a harmony singer is to support and enhance rather than draw attention from the lead.
Schedule a Lesson Now to Learn to Sing Harmony Like a Pro
Whether you want to sing duets at karaoke night or backups with a touring band, learning to harmonize can open up a world of musical possibilities. It takes a little effort and patience to learn, but it’s well worth it. While you can absolutely learn on your own, it’s always helpful to work with a vocal coach. Reach out to schedule a lesson with Zelda and get started harmonizing today! Enjoy the journey and remember to love your voice!
If you’re ready to improve your harmony singing, reach out and schedule a lesson with Zelda!
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