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MASTERING HARMONY

Learning how to sing harmony and hear harmony is essential for anyone seeking a professional singing career.

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Develop A Musical Understanding And Acclimate The Ear

After two decades of relationship and as much time in discussion, Brett Manning—that’s me—and Claude McKnight synthesize vocal simplicity with harmony basics.

Claude is a 10 time Grammy winning, founding member of the greatest vocal harmony group of all time, “Take 6”.

Utilizing a collegiate understanding of intervals (spaces between notes), the singer learns to hear harmony based on seven numbers and also learns to master harmony based on twelve. The singer learns to hear notes within chords and to identify them quickly. Because one-third of singing is hearing, a singer must train in harmony and acquire fantastic pitch to develop the assets of a memorably melodic singer.

This opens up the door to alternate melodic idea within an existing song, so that your licks, trills and runs make more sense.

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“I developed the Singing Success Program after 30+ years of coaching. I’ve put my whole life into researching vocal techniques, studying anatomy, and (through trial and error) building a method that is sustainable and that gets results.”

The Ultimate Guide To Singing Harmony With Ease

Very often, artists rely on auto-tune or backup singers to add harmony or BGVs to their songs. This is a mistake! If you can’t easily sing a major 3rd harmony or even an octave melody, your voice and ear aren’t fully developed!

Having an understanding of basic music theory and training your ear to hear notes and the spaces between notes, will make you a better singer, songwriter, and a more dangerous artist. Take a hint from some of the top artists in the world, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Beyoncé – learn harmony and master it!

Here’s What You’ll Learn

  • How to sing the harmony as if it were the actual melody (this is a dirty little secret that most artists understand, at least intuitively)
  • Easy-to-sing-along-with vocal demonstrations of simple harmony arrangements
  • Simple tracks that allow you to find your ‘own’ harmony
  • Diverse styles of harmonies to suit your stylistic preference
  • The art of blending: matching tones and textures!
  • And much more…
  • How to hear intervals [space between notes] and memorize each interval
  • A simple method to identifying major and minor chords and singing the individual notes with the chord
  • Why you must hear the appropriate harmony in relation to the actual melody
  • Grasp of harmony, hear the root notes of chords, hear and memorize the subtle difference between major thirds and minor thirds. Practice singing harmony with experienced harmony singers.

*No natural ability is is necessary to eventually sing perfect harmony. Though music lessons in the context of voice coaching will expedite this process. To write harmonies, you typically need to read music.

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I tried two other singing programs and was struggling with making progress with both of them until I found Singing Success. Working through each of the SS lessons is like having a vocal coach working with you when you’re doing the lesson, like she’s actually giving you a real one-on-one lesson.

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Even though I have little experience and was really nervous, Madison made me feel comfortable and safe. They want you to succeed and are very encouraging. I’m looking forward to continuing my journey.

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Brett is amazing! So knowledgeable and caring. He has just the right amount of humor to make the hard work you do with him fun. You will see improvement right away if you are coachable.

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  • Learn to hear intervals
  • Understand different styles of harmonies
  • Blend & match tones and texture
  • Develop an understanding of major/minor chords
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VIP access will get you nearly every one of my courses. This is the highest level of online learning available. Singing harmony is great, but you need pitch, duration and quality. Singing lessons with one of our coaches can transform you quickly, but the online programs allows you to learn as much as you can find time to learn. It’s truly transformative!

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Vocal Harmony: The Basics

Learning to harmonize is crucial for any singer, whether they dream of being lead in a band or a solo artist. Everyone in the music industry has benefited from learning this essential skill sooner rather than later.

Harmonies are designed to supplement the vocal melody with additional notes. In fact, every instrument, every chord, lick or melody represents a harmony.

All music is harmony…even when it’s an acapella melody. You see that the melody typically implies chords. That’s why pianists (starting with me) can hear melody and instantly add cords.

When singing harmony, these additional notes must fit the underlying chord structure, and the goal is to make the melody fuller, stronger, and more memorable. What harmonizing is not is singing random notes and hoping they stick.

When someone thinks of vocal harmonies, they might think of a group of singers singing in unison as they back up a single lead. You might also think of a choir singing in four or more parts. That’s another excellent example! Both of these examples include a lot of design, arranging, and practice. The music was well thought out by the composers before performers ever set voices to it.

The truth is that vocal harmonizing has found its home in nearly every genre of music. Mastering harmony is an essential skill for every musician. Harmonizing is a great way to fill out a song with layers that listeners will love.

What is Harmony? 

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “Harmony” as, “the structure of music with respect to the composition and progression of chords.” To state it more simply: harmonizing is arranging one or more lines of music in a way that compliments the melody line.

These lines of music can be used to add weight, texture, and depth to a song, as well as highlight important moments, create or release tension, and add or subtract movement.

Harmonies are used in almost every genre of music, including classical, opera, folk, rock, theater, and so on. Some examples of harmony singing that you might be familiar with include duets, backup singers, and boy bands.

It’s very common for harmonies to be a third above or below the melody. You will also commonly see fourths and fifths but there is no rule that states you have to stay inside that range.

Harmonic intervals can change drastically within music genres. Most singers don’t sing harmony on seventh chords, but they are very tasteful. Vocal parts can be close harmonies or a perfect fifth apart. Making music interesting nearly always relies on the main melody. Although, harmony parts in popular music—like duets—often give equal ultimacy (same value) to the main melody and the harmony line. So, both parts can be thought equally as the main melody or the harmony.

Importance of Learning How to Sing Harmony

Singing in harmony not only sounds good, it’s good for you. It can improve your vocal skill and make you a more versatile singer. If you don’t believe us, start using your singing lessons to experiment with more than just a melody note. Broaden your styles and tones to include harmony and you will find that the world of music is more welcome to you.

You will quickly find that vocal harmony will improve your musical ear, which will make you more secure as a performer. Additionally, not all singers are meant to be the lead. If you can sing harmony, it’s more likely you will be able to land a gig.

Most important…. harmony is vibration. Extreme and beautiful. Moving and emotional, harmony lines can run through a sense of reminiscing. The vibrations penetrate your soul!! This may sound common, but really, it’s life giving, healing, and changes your mood for the better or the worse. This is why you have to get really good.

Music Theory Basics

Music theory knowledge is crucial to your development as a musician, especially as you stray from the melody line and begin to practice harmonizing. Here are some fundamentals to get you started:

Understanding Musical Intervals

Intervals are how we measure the distance between two notes. In music theory, we define them in two ways: intervals are either harmonic or melodic. Harmonic intervals are when they’re played at the same time (they’re harmonizing with each other) and melodic intervals are when they’re one after the other (just like a melody).

Understanding Musical Intervals

Intervals are how we measure the distance between two notes. In music theory, we define them in two ways: intervals are either harmonic or melodic. Harmonic intervals are when they’re played at the same time (they’re harmonizing with each other) and melodic intervals are when they’re one after the other (just like a melody).

Importance of Ear Training

The reason we like the music we like is because of our musical ear. Those who don’t develop their musical ears will primarily hear the parts of music that are front and center, such as guitar riffs and lead vocals. However, the more trained your ear is, the more layers to the music you will be able to hear. New things might come to light, such as how the melody develops or what the bass line adds to the piece.

Learning to hear music in greater detail will make you a better musician by deepening your appreciation of music overall. You may notice that your taste in music broadens as you learn to hear more. In fact, starting in 2019, I finally dusted off my old sheet music of Bach and Chopin and decided to STOP being average. (I still feel average amongst my amazing peers.) The musical knowledge has made me a better coach, better singer, better songwriter/composer and FAR better at harmonizing notes.

On top of opening your mind to new music pathways, ear training will determine your ability to harmonize. Singing harmonies requires musicians to have a strong tonal center and confidence in their pitch. You gain that by training your ear. Do NOT let other singers talk you out of this learning process. Other singers may have a philosophy of finding their own harmonies by chance…and they may get lucky. But my own harmonies—personally speaking—are based on the character of how the melody moves, major chords, minor chords, and other sophisticated chords like diminished and augmented.

Vocal Harmony Techniques

Not all singers sing harmony well without some training. If harmonizing doesn’t come naturally to you, here are some ways you can work towards it:

Learn Basic Music Theory

One of the best ways to learn your way around music is to learn why music is the way it is. Music theory is the language of music. Without it, we’re just making sounds without any idea what they mean or how they’re happening.

To learn more about harmonizing, spend a little time learning about diatonic harmony. It will walk you around intervals, scales, chords, and more, which will, in turn, give you the confidence you need to not only sing basic harmony notes, but build them as well.

Avoiding Clashes (with Exceptions)

Learning to harmonize vocals doesn’t mean you pick some random notes and think they’ll work well together. Finding the harmony note is a deliberate process that requires quite a bit of time and thought.

Depending on the scale your song is in, you might immediately reach for a major third and find that it sounds pretty bad. If that’s the case, try switching it out for a minor third instead. If not that, reach for a perfect fifth or even an octave. Some of it is trial and error, but having a knowledge of intervals and scales will help you avoid ugly clashes.

However, (dang… I love that word ‘however’…. makes you think differently) some songs may have a momentary clash (think Prince, Bach, Barbershop quartets, and some modern Jazz). The different intervals can be learned by starting on the first note, and then gradually climbing or descending the scale one half step at time, while a singer singing the first note, stays on that note. This is advanced, so you’ll need a good, experienced, knowledgable vocal coach or band director who can help you make tasteful decisions!

Blending Your Voice with Others

Singing with others is a great way to build confidence in your own abilities. You can start with a duet (two people singing together) to build your skill, then see if you can upgrade to singing in a three-person group. In groups that are more than two people strong, you will have the opportunity to practice harmonizing with singers.

Adding different lines of music is important to your growth because it allows you to hear how everything works together as opposed to only ever hearing the melody line.

Perfect Your Pitch

It’s important that you get your pitch to a point where it’s solid and consistent. You don’t necessarily have to have perfect pitch, but you do need to be intentional and not just leave it up to guesswork or even autotune.

Harmonizing can be tricky even if you are confident in your pitch. Sometimes it just takes a little time to get used to singing something other than the melody.

Singing Along with Recordings

A great way to introduce yourself to harmonizing is by taking songs you already know and singing along with them. Find acoustic versions of your favorite songs where it’s just the lead vocalist and an instrument or two. When you have that, see if you can sing your own line of notes that compliments what the singer is doing.

This is a great way to exercise your harmonizing abilities! Just make sure that you’re singing notes other than the harmonies from the original recording of the song (otherwise there’s no point to the exercise) and make sure your part sounds good.

Final Thoughts

Improve your signing across the board by signing up to learn about harmonization. Don’t wait until you find yourself passing up a gig or an incredible opportunity because you can’t sing anything except the melody line.

And….. get my Harmony course featuring 10 time Grammy winner, Claude McKnight of Take 6. It’s incredibly easy to use and is a fantastic way to accelerate your mind, ear, and your voice!

Or, call or email us for a private session!

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Brett Manning Vocal Studios
1301 16th Ave S,
Nashville, TN 37212

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