Do You Struggle With Singing HARMONIES? Try THIS!
Have you ever wanted to start singing harmonies in your band?
Maybe you just want to be able to sing harmonies as a general life skill, in case of an emergency?
What many people realize very quickly - if they try it - is that singing harmonies is a little bit trickier than they thought.
Even if you know how to sing, holding on to harmony notes and not "accidentally switching into the main melody of the song" takes quite a bit of work.
There are, however, many things you can practice to become better at doing this.
First off, we need to find some exercises that we can do in the crème de la crème of vocal practice settings, which is while operating a motor vehicle. (*)
When singing along to songs in the car, instead of singing the main melody like a simpleton, try singing some type of harmony alongside the main melody.
Chances are, it’s not going to sound very good the first few times you try it, because you haven’t yet trained your voice to lock on to any interval other than the one in the main melody.
The more you do this, though, the more your voice will start to ‘latch on’ to notes other than those in the melody.
Now, when you are practicing with your guitar, there are a few other - and much easier and safer! - exercises you can try that are going to help with training your voice to latch on to harmony notes.
See the link below, and I’ll show you what these exercises are if you want to become good at harmony singing.
(*) Do I really need to specify that I'm writing this to make this article funny, and that this is not meant as actual advice? My lawyer says: "yes".
One of the most important skills if you want to play and sing at the same time is actually perfecting your rhythm. If you want to work on your rhythm and timing check out this rhythm video guide
Video Transcription
Tommaso Zillio 0:01
Hello, internet so nice to see you! This is a video of our series band problems where we use music theory to resolve the problems you may have in your band. And let's say you are a guitar player, or a keyboard player or even a bass player for your band.
And you are not the main singer, the main singer is there, he's doing his job or her job. Amazing. But one day, the singer asked you, hey, wouldn't it be nice if you could sing harmonies? Because I mean, it's kind of traditional for the guitar player or the bass player or the keyboard player, occasional even the drummer to sing harmonies to the main singer so sing other melody lines that are not exactly what the singer is singing. That could be a third higher, third lower this kind of thing.
And that go well we put the singer is singing, okay, so that everything sounds better. And maybe you already are a decent singer, maybe not. But if you haven't the faintest, you have no idea how to go about singing harmony. Where do you start in singing harmonies? Well, a student of mine asked me exactly that.
How do I learn to sing harmonies? Turns out guys, it's not as hard as it seems at first, okay, it needs a little bit of practice, but it's not super hard. Okay. And let me show you exactly how it's done. This is my answer to that student.
Speaker 1 1:27
What is the best way to learn harmony singing? You write with harmony in mind. Specifically, I'm thinking about older music like Everly Brothers, Beatles. Things that had, in my opinion, the most amazing harmonies ever. Like, translated to guitar, trying to figure out harmonies, I wonder if you can do that with a guitar or you have to do that with your voice.
Tommaso Zillio 2:01
You can you can you can now, there are several different skills that go into it. Okay, instead of different tricks that you can use or procedure you can use. I think the most important thing is to learn to sing in thirds. Okay, so here's the thing.
Okay, so I remember your extension day, you're gonna work in this key, the key of you're not going to work in the key of G. So I'm asking you to sing this scale as long as you can
Very good. Now sing the first three notes, there now you’re singing in thirds.
As it gets a target, no. No, stay there. You're in thirds with us now. You see what I'm in thirds. Yeah. Okay. So what you're doing is this first thing this gave us in the beginning of the scale. Or you're singing the harmony of thirds.
And then you just move around the scale. And you go up and down one degree on the guitar and one degree with your voice so you keep the distance the same. At the beginning, you can probably only do one step and back or two steps and back. But if you keep training, you can even do intervals and your voice will find what is the right.
Jumps to do. Okay, okay. Now, that's a skill once you got it. It's easy. learning it, it feels impossible or shaky or difficult all the time. Okay, yeah, but that's the idea. You start with the scale and using the whole scale.
You see the top voice? The guitar plays a low voice. Okay. You start with that then you start singing simple melodies.
He was in the top voice the guitars in the bottom voice. The first few things you do are the hardest one. Because you are learning the technique what was shocking to the few simple melodies, isn't it? The complex melody can particularly for free. Okay, so the progress is really slow at the beginning.
Okay, makes, every time you get stuck. We start from the scale and sing the first three notes, mentally go up a third, by singing the first three notes, and then start moving from there. It's your training at the end of the day, right? The thing is, you can learn to do these like nothing, right? If you listen to a melody and you automatically can sing the melody, a third double and then if not a third above conflict with a chord, you will also be able to learn how to change the notes, it defeats the chord.
That's another skill. Honestly, you're gonna hear it, it's really not that hard. Okay? Let's start from the from learning to sing the scale in thirds, meaning in harmony of thirds, and accents. Stay in your range. Don't push beyond your range because you can't and stay above the melody for the time being okay, and get this skill solid before you do something else. That's it. So usually he doesn't just do these and you get 90 percent of the harmony singing by doing these and then listening to your ear. Okay, that's awesome. Fantastic.
Unknown Speaker 6:26
Thank you, sir. Thank you.