All Matters Music
When you hear beautiful music presentations in theaters, school stage, or church choir, you are transported to a serene place. You cannot even begin to grasp the enormity of your inner joy as you listen to the subtle tranquility of the songs. And all that is thanks to the spectacular harmony that the combination of singers perfectly showcases in their performance. So how do you learn to sing harmony and be an accomplished singer? Well, we can discuss that in this post. First, let us find out what harmony is.
Table of Contents
What is vocal harmony?
Harmony is the not-so secret ingredient to creating more alluring and interesting melodies. It beautifully complements the melody, while the melody is the note you sing.The harmony has its own notes that are completely different from the melody. And they often have chords that are in line with the melody. Once you learn how to sing harmony, you will never listen to songs the same way again. With harmony, you listen to signals from the melody and sing harmoniously.
Before you can learn how to sing harmony, you need to master the art of singing in tune first. Once you are quite excellent with singing in pitch, learning harmony is not so difficult anymore.
How to sing harmony
To sing harmony, you need to practice methods to perfect your craft.
Sing along
In order to sing harmony, you should practice singing along with recorded music involving clear harmony. Record both the recorded harmony and your singing along together, and play it back later. You will vividly hear the differences or similarities from your harmony and the music’s harmony. And you work harder to achieve your timing. After you are comfortable with singing along other harmonies, you proceed with singing your own version of harmony.
Sing with a group
The best thing you can do to practice more with singing harmony is to sing in a group. You can join music clubs, or a choir, where you can sing melodies and harmonies and strengthen your knowledge and expertise about vocal harmony. Indeed, singing with a group in utter unity is a great practice to hone your skills in singing.
Harmonic ear training
With the use of a piano or a guitar, practice playing notes and singing them. Start with the highest key, then move on the lowest note, and then select a middle tone. Follow the top, bottom, and middle note sequence in your practice, in order to enhance your singing harmony better.
Utilize knowledge of music theory
If for some reason you have a hard time grasping a harmony, you can optimize your music theory knowledge to map out the line of harmony you need. Simply look for the first chord of the harmony line and the melody note. By knowing where to start, you can easily find your way to sing harmony.
Exercises for singing harmony
There are many things that you can do to sing harmony, and there are two exercises that would prove beneficial to you. One of the activities requires a piano, so gain access to one. And the other does not need one.
Random piano note selection
First, get your recording device ready. It could be a traditional recorder, or your phone. And then randomly choose a key on the piano, play it, and sing the tune. Experiment on how you can sing the chosen note as harmony. Then choose another random note, press it, and sing the tune again in harmony. Continue with this exercise for fifteen minutes, choosing different notes randomly.
Put a stop to the recorder, and play back what you have recorded. You will realize as you listen that you can actually learn a lot from this exercise. You can easily hear when you were able to pick up a tune and sing with harmony, and when you missed.
Another good thing about this exercise is your ability to find the relationship between the different notes. You can turn into a very good harmonizer once you learn how to distinguish the different relationships of the notes. Practice more with this technique, and within two weeks, you will have the perception to tell the different harmonies in every note.
Crafting harmonies
The second exercise that you can do to sing harmony is to craft harmonies in a song. You do not need a piano to engage in this activity. All you have to do is select a song, and create new harmonies in some parts of the song that does not have one. Remember to record your singing so you can listen to the result after. In listening to your recording, you will hear the different ways that you can harmonize a song. And how the blend of the original song and your harmonization made a huge difference.
Conclusion
A music harmony is a group of notes that combines together to give the melody a huge boost. Harmonizing is not a walk in the park, but it is not that hard either. You simply need to find your balance, search for your own harmony, and sing harmoniously with others. The key to singing harmony is practice. When you practice often enough, you will be singing harmony to your heart’s content. Plus, you get to perform with like-minded people who love the same type of music as you do.
