Harmony Singing Tip

[musicturtle]

When I recorded "Nowhere Man" earlier this year I was having some problems singing the parts correctly. Mainly because over the years, especially when I was younger, I would go in and out of the melody and harmony parts, and it was deeply ingrained.

I could sing the parts alone pretty well, but when the other two parts were playing I would go astray. I think it's important to sing the parts together when recording to make them as tight as can be and blend well(other than singing the parts without the other tracks then combining them).

So what I did was this...

I created a practice track.

I played each part solo on my guitar, then recorded myself singing each part with the guitar(on a different track so I could separate them).

I then cut and pasted this practice format for each part:

Solo guitar, guitar with voice, blank space same length as part, recording of the other two parts together to sing part with.

So I could hear the part, sing it with the example, sing it on my own and then sing it with the other two parts.

I made this into a little practice recording to sing along with on my way to and from work and it really seemed to help because as I said before when I would practice singing along with the original recording, I would end up jumping between parts sometimes. This helped me isolate what I was supposed to be doing.


This may seem like a lot to go through...but it's tough to get better without some form of practicing technique.

[rayc]

Interesting and logical process Tony, ta.

[Tadpui]

I've done this same thing before, it was a big help for sure. Any more, I just wing it and I tend to make up my harmonies on the fly and just try each part a few times then run with it. I double each harmony part so the imperfections (of which there are many) make kind of a chorus effect. When multiplied by the number of harmony lines, it comes out OK. A little panning, a little reverb, a little (or a lot) of compression, filter out some low end, and voila! A mediocre backing vocal harmony

[CrowsofFritz]

Harmonies always came easy to me. It made my ex gf who was in musical theatre jealous. It’s like the opposite problem I have with timing.