All language subtitles for The 7 Levels Of Vocal Harmony (feat_ A Capella Science) - YouTube - English

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hey welcome to 12tone we don't really

talk that much about background vocals

in my experience as a singer it always

felt like something that other musicians

just sort of

assumed you already knew how to do which

yeah some people definitely can find

good harmony lines by ear but as with

everything else in music you can get

much better results with just a little

bit of intentionality so as one of the

few vocalists on music theory youtube

i thought it might be helpful to look at

some different approaches you may not

have tried before and since everyone

else is doing these seven levels videos

i figured i probably should too

before we get started a couple notes

first i try to rank these based on how

much they stand out to the listener

which is often correlated with

difficulty but i don't mean to imply

that the higher levels are

better each one serves its own purpose

and each one is worth knowing how to do

second for the sake of time i'm just

gonna focus on adding a single harmony

line but the same principles will apply

to larger background sections too

you just do the same thing more times

that can get exponentially harder to do

especially at the higher levels but the

basic principles don't really change

and third i'm not really going to get

into complex harmony notes that's just a

question of reharmonization which adam

neely and 8-bit music theory have both

already done great videos about links in

the description

what i'm interested in are the arranging

techniques of the vocals themselves

and finally if we're going to do harmony

lines we need a main melody to work with

and while my degree is in vocal

performance i've barely even warmed up

in the last four years so instead of

subjecting you to what's left of my

voice i'm bringing in a friend who knows

a thing or two about harmony vocals tim

blay from acapella science

tim does these beautiful acapella parody

covers of pop songs with lyrics

explaining scientific concepts like

nanobots and entropic time so if you

haven't heard his stuff i'll link that

in the description too and i highly

recommend it tim what have we

to got me off discourteously

ah green sleeves it's so public domain

now that we have our melody let's get

right into level zero background lines

these aren't really harmony vocals

because they're not connected to the

melody but it's a thing you can do with

background singers so i wanted to

include it in a background line your

singer becomes just another instrument

in the band

here i have tim singing what are called

guide tones which are the third or

seventh of the chord underneath or

actually he's just singing the thirds

but in principle you can use either one

in a guide tone line these are the two

most colorful tones in the chord so they

add a sense of richness and character to

the sound whereas if he'd sung the roots

it'd sound thicker but a little bit

empty don't get me wrong root lines

sound great too but in progressions

where the root isn't just moving by step

guide tones give you more options for

smooth voice leading because you can

switch from the third on one chord to

the seventh on the next you can also

layer a bunch of these lines starting on

different notes to create a choir effect

but i didn't want to make tim record

that many parts and background lines

don't have to be these long-held notes

either

they can be anything you might do with a

normal instrument i could have had tim

sing some arpeggios instead

or do a cool rhythmic figure but if we

get into all the ways you could possibly

write a background line we're never

gonna have time for the actual harmony

parts so let's move on to level one

doubling me

wrong to cast me

the technique here is simple you take

the melody you're already singing and

just

sing it again this can be done at the

same pitch like we just heard or you can

shift it up or down an octave

[Music]

for what's appropriately called octave

doubling doubling is like the minimum

level of harmony vocals and i'm sure

some of you don't even think it counts

but i'm including it anyway because it's

my video i make the rules

besides doubling is actually really cool

and it can have different effects

depending on how it's used if the two

voices have a similar tone or if they're

just the same voice like tim's then they

blend together giving you a thicker

fuller version of the same sound

on the other hand if the voices are

different enough then doubling lets you

hear them separately at the same time

giving it like a casual sing-along vibe

this can be ramped up even further by

adding more voices and with enough

doubling you can create the sense of a

whole crowd just letting loose without

having split up to work out parts

beforehand

it's the simplest approach to harmony

vocals but it's still a great one

slightly more advanced though is level 2

tight harmony

wrong to cast me off discourteously

here's where we start to see actual

harmony notes the idea is to write a new

line starting on a different pitch but

following the same contour as the main

melody so when the melody moves the

harmony moves in the same direction by

about the same amount this is done by

picking an interval usually a third

above or below and trying to keep your

second line that interval

away from the melody so like when tim is

singing b flat here he's harmonizing it

with the g a minor third below

this approach runs into problems

sometimes though like here tim's singing

f and the note of third below that is d

but there's no d and an f major chord so

i had him drop down to c

instead you'll also notice that he

varies between major and minor thirds a

lot to keep both lines in the same key

this means writing a tight harmony line

does require some attention but if you

just bump every wrong note to the

nearest chord tone you won't go wrong

that said while i wasn't going to spend

too much time on fancy notes this is

often a pretty good place to sneak them

in if you want to flex a little bit

check it out

you do me wrong to cast me

off discourteously here i kept that d

using it as what's called a tension

which is an extra note that's not part

of the chord but sounds good over it

anyway

over here i used to be natural the major

third in a minor tonality to imply some

internal conflict over the word love

here i use d-flat the flat seven of the

chord turning it into a dominant seventh

to set up the following d

chord and then here i used a sharp the

sharp five because

i don't have a good reason for that one

sometimes you just gotta make big

decisions and see what happens

speaking of big decisions level three

oblique harmony you do

me wrong to cast me off discourteously

here the line just sits still it's kind

of like our background line from before

but with the rhythm and lyrics of the

melody so you hear it is more connected

oblique harmony creates an anchoring

effect one voice is moving a lot while

the other stays put adding a sense of

restraint to your otherwise free-flowing

melody

as you might imagine it's not that hard

to write but there are a couple

variations

i was doing chord tone harmony where the

line moves when the chord does usually

sticking to the root although guide

tones are an option as well but if you

really want to commit you can do petal

harmony

wrong to cast me off discourteously

will you just do one note the whole time

or okay i dropped a f sharp on the last

chord because g

does not sound good over d major but you

get the point honestly this is probably

my favorite demo in the whole video

oblique harmony is gorgeous and more

people should use it but if you must do

something more complicated you might

want to try level 4

emphatic harmony

here the line is only popping up

occasionally to emphasize specific

moments now you can do this based on

musical moments i could have had tim

harmonized say the first two notes of

each line

you do me wrong to cast me off

discourteously but i feel like that's a

waste of emphatic harmony's potential

no what makes this level interesting is

its ability to step outside of

traditional musical concerns like notes

chords and bars and engage with one of

the most important elements of vocal

music

the lyrics what is the song saying and

which words play the biggest role in

delivering that message green sleeves is

about getting in your feelings about

being rejected so i keyed in on the

words alas

wrong and discourteously these words are

carrying the narrative weight of the

line so stripping out all the other

harmonies and just shining a spotlight

on them helps drive that point home

plus they're scattered in different

parts of the bar so punctuating them

helps add another rhythmic layer to this

otherwise pretty repetitive melody and

if we're adding rhythmic layers then we

have to talk about level 5

wrong heterophony cast me off

discourteously

okay now things are getting weird

heterophony is when you have multiple

voices singing the same melody but each

of them is embellishing it differently

like dublin this can create a sense that

you have a group of people just like

hanging out and singing songs but with

hetarophany it's less rigid and more

involved it's not just one melody

anymore everyone's bringing their own

thing to the table

so how do you write it well you usually

don't i mean i did for this video but a

lot of the time heterophonic parts are

improvised

you give everyone the melody and just

let them play around with it however

they want

this does require trusting your

background singer but in my experience

background singers tend to be twice the

musician their lead is anyway so they'll

probably be fine you can also combine

heterophony with other levels like tight

harmony for

even more interesting sounds real

heterophony is pretty rare in western

popular music showing up more in the

traditional music of cultures like

thailand india the balkans and ghana but

it does appear sometimes in jazz and

soul music as well

from there we move on to level 6

counterpoint

to cast me off discourteously

here we're effectively writing a whole

new melody with a completely different

contour and if that sounds tricky good

news

it is okay that's not good news but hey

if music was easy everyone would do it

if you want to sound like say jacob

collier or whatever flashy vocal

arranger you prefer understanding how to

write a good counter line is essential

so what makes a good counter line well

the ultimate test is whether or not it

can stand on its own many of our

previous levels produce melodies that

are just slightly worse versions of the

lead but if i play my counter line

[Music]

to cast me off discourteously

a strong melody all by itself and it

sounds nothing like the main one

but how do you do that there's a lot of

tricks to counterpoint but my best tip

is to try to use contrary motion as much

as possible if the lead goes up your

counter line should go down and vice

versa

of course if you do that mechanically

it's going to sound mechanical so this

should be treated more as a guideline

than a rule and i didn't follow it

strictly in my example either it's just

a good starting point when you do move

your lines in the same direction though

you have to be extra careful or else you

might run into the dreaded parallelism

now what i'm about to describe is often

taught as like

a rule of music so just to be clear it's

not those don't exist but it is a

helpful guideline when you're working

with complex harmony parts

basically if your two voices move the

same distance in the same direction they

kind of blend together momentarily into

a single line

this is the principle behind tight

harmony and it works great there but now

we really want our counter line to stand

out so that blending becomes a bad thing

this is especially noticeable if those

voices are a particularly constant

interval apart like a perfect fifth or

an octave

in those cases moving in parallel means

you completely lose that sense of

independence so if you ever find your

counter line of fifth or octave away

from the lead make sure you use contrary

motion to get out or if you

really need to go in the same direction

do it by a different interval this isn't

particularly hard when you're just

working with two voices like i was but

the more you add the trickier it gets

because not only do you have to manage

the motion between your counter line and

your lead you also have to watch out for

parallels between different counter

lines

adding more lines also means you can't

just always use contrary motion because

there's only so many ways a melody can

move so you have to be careful about

which lines are moving together at any

given moment

it's not the end of the world if you get

a couple parallels but the more you can

avoid it especially on those strong

consonant intervals the richer and more

complex your harmonies will sound

there's also a couple other official

rules of counterpoint like for instance

your lines aren't supposed to cross so

if you start below the lead you should

stay there but

i didn't do that in my example and you

don't have to either rules are for

suckers as long as you're keeping track

of the interactions between your lead

and your counter line you can pretty

much do whatever you want which brings

us to level seven

complete independence

here we've just thrown the original

melody out the window it's different

notes different rhythms the only thing

it holds on to is the lyrics

at this point we don't really have to

worry about parallels anymore because if

we're not moving at the same time our

lines won't blend but in exchange we

have to decide on a whole new kind of

phrasing the approach i used was to look

for gaps in the melody that the new line

could fill when the lead is busy the

counter line makes space for it but when

the lead is resting you've got room to

shine

you can also combine this with the

emphatic harmony approach taking a

particularly important lyric and

splitting it out into an independent

melodic line to really drive it home

or you could take the first few words

and slow it all down into something

resembling the background lines at the

[Music]

start

but once you're singing different lyrics

at the same time especially if you're

holding them for a while you need to

watch out for vowel blending

different vowels have different sounds

and if the vocal tones are similar

enough your ear will try and combine

them into one phoneme and then get mad

when it doesn't work

this isn't a huge deal if the tone is

relatively clean like tim's but as a

metal singer myself let me tell you if

you got any sort of roughness or

distortion in the voice the additional

complexity of a blended vowel can make

things pretty hard to listen to

honestly you can still hear it a bit

even in tim's voice especially when the

two vowels are close but not identical

like in love and wrong so if i was

tasked with arranging this for a real

song i'd probably want to have the

second line sung by someone with a

noticeably different tone to help

separate it out in my listener's head

but that'd require finding a second

singer and who has time for that

actually let's talk about adding extra

singers because at this level it gets

really hard to do

most of the time if you already have an

independent harmony line and you want to

add another voice the best thing to do

is going to be to write that voice in at

a lower level

so you could have say one lead vocalist

singing the main melody and then three

background singers doing the same

independent line in tight harmony you

can also employ this technique in

reverse giving the background singers

the melody while your actual lead goes

and ad-libs an independent line

it's a great way to ramp things up in

like a final chorus or whatever bringing

in new musical elements to a section

your listener is already familiar with

and finally we come to the bonus level

the second lead

that's right there's a level zero and a

bonus level which means this is secretly

nine levels of vocal harmony you're

welcome where before we were trying to

fill gaps in accent the main melody here

we don't care

we've got a whole second melody that's

just doing its own thing much like with

background lines it's unclear whether

this is actually a harmony vocal at all

and honestly once you're at this point

it's probably better to just write the

two parts together instead of trying to

fit one to the other but it's a thing

that happens so i thought it was worth

including in most songs with this

technique you'll also see portions with

other lower level approaches like tight

harmony and counterpoint where one of

the singers temporarily establishes

themselves as the real lead while the

other follows along or even just sits

out for a bit and a common approach to

double lead writing is to have each

singer take a melody from one of the

parts where they were in charge and just

sing both of them together this

sometimes leads to clashes with a

harmony like in the second bar

scarborough fair resolves back to g

while greensleeves is clearly spelling

out an f chord but as long as the

clashes are small the novelty of the

second melody can help cover them up

again this puts you at risk of vowel

blending so it still helps to have

different sounding singers but when the

lines are this distinct you can kind of

get away with it a bit more

the context makes it clear that you're

not supposed to be combining the two

parts

so how can you use all this in your own

writing well that depends what you're

trying to do if you're a lead vocalist

you might want to look for ways to make

space for these techniques in your

melodies if you're a background singer

see if you can find opportunities to try

out different levels in support of your

lead and if you're not a singer at all

but you write vocal arrangements anyway

maybe try adding in some extra levels to

see if you like the sound

sure it's easy to just always write

tight harmonies but sometimes there's a

better option out there if you're just

willing to do the experiment

but even the best harmony lines in the

world won't sound good unless they're

mixed right so if you want to learn how

to do that you should really check out

skillshare

they've got some amazing classes on

audio engineering including one called

audio mixing on the go where

professional sound engineer king arthur

teaches you how to get a great mix

without needing a whole studio's worth

of gear

it's a great class breaking down the

elements of a good mix and walking you

through the process of making one

yourself

if you want to check that out or if

you're interested in any of skillshare's

thousands of other courses on singing

songwriting and even important

non-musical skills like marketing

productivity and graphic design

then you should probably click the link

in the description because the first

thousand people to do that get free

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