Estimated reading time 3 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Have you ever marveled at how some people can easily sing with a beautiful tone? Do you need help learning how to harmonize in tune? Good news! Vocal harmonizing can be learned, and the sing-along soundtracks will help. Read more to find out how it works.
You have three main skills you need to develop to harmonize well:
- Focused listening
- Vowel production
- Supported tone
This article uses musical terms. For definitions, see the Glossary at the end of the post.
Focused Listening Skills and Learning How to Harmonize
- If you want to learn how to harmonize, you need to develop the ability to do focused listening. If you don’t know what to listen for, you can’t get a good tone or sing in tune.
- Therefore, you need to listen to the overall sound of the harmonies as you sing in an ensemble. The three things you should listen for when singing:
- If you click on the above links, they’ll explain how to listen for buzz, beating, and tone color. Similarly, if you can’t hear the other vocalists in an ensemble, you won’t be able to sing in tune:
- If you want to master harmonizing, you need to put in your time practicing. You can practice by singing with recordings, by joining a vocal ensemble, or through focused listening exercises.
- I’ve developed The Intonation Flight Simulator to help you learn focused listening skills. The Intonation Flight Simulator contains links to all the Singing in Tune posts that contain sing-along soundtracks.
- Each soundtrack acts like a “flight simulator” in that the track distills the most important singing elements you need to work on to improve:
Vocal Tone and Learning How to Harmonize
- Producing solid vowels remains a critical skill to master, because it allows you to match the tone quality of the other vocalists. For example, a vowel like “ah” has many subtle vowel shadings.
- Therefore, you need to learn how to exactly match the vowels in a song. If you don’t, you won’t be able to create a seamless blend with other vocalists.
- That explains why vowels are so important in singing, because your tone comes from your vowels. Likewise, without a good tone, it’ll be impossible to tune up the harmonies properly. The following three posts show you how to adjust your vowels so that you can achieve a good tone:
- Also, the above three posts all have sing-along soundtracks, giving you practical singing exercises. In addition, the Singing Schwa Vowels post shows you how to sing into the mask, which helps with both vocal tone and blend.
The Power in Singing and Learning How to Harmonize
- When learning how to harmonize, you must sing with diaphragm support. In other words, the power in singing comes from the gut.
- Singing with support is the foundation on which all the other vocal skills rest. Without a good, solid air stream, you won’t be able to get a resonant tone.
- Also, it’ll be hard to maintain your pitch, making it impossible to stay in tune. In other words, if you don’t have enough breath, your pitch will sink, especially at phrase endings. For information on singing with a supported tone:
Concluding Thoughts to “Do You Need Help Learning How to Harmonize?”
You too can learn how to harmonize. By practicing focused listening, good vowel production, and singing with a supported tone, in no time you’ll be harmonizing like your favorite vocal groups. Have fun singing!
© 2023 Geoffrey Keith
Join me for in-person or online lessons today!
Glossary
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What Is the Point of Different Alternate Guitar Tunings?
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Singing Shape Note Parallel Minor Melodies
Have you learned how to sightread relative minor melodies, but want to be able to sing parallel minor too? We’ve already learned about La based shape note solfege minor melodies. In this post, you’ll learn about Do based shape note solfege as well. Read more to find out about singing shape note parallel minor melodies. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.
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Musical Talent and Giftedness
Music teachers: do you have students who show musical talent and giftedness? Do you need some information on how they learn? With musically gifted and talented students, just like any other students, you need to meet them where they’re at, making the adjustments in their playing based on what you see. That way, they can become better students than before they came to you. Keep reading to learn more about musical talent and giftedness. Estimated reading time 4 minutes.
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