Estimated reading time 4 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Have you ever felt embarrassed because someone said you sang or played out of tune? Does harmonizing seem like a puzzle you can’t solve? Knowledge is power. Therefore, I will show you how harmony and melody tune differently, and how it impacts singing and playing in tune.
Specifically, this post returns to the discussion about singing in tune started in 10 Elements that Impact Singing in Tune. We will look at element number one (Harmony and Melody Tune Differently) from that post in more detail.
This article uses musical terms. For definitions, see the Glossary at the end of the post.
Harmony and Melody Tune Differently: Harmonic vs. Melodic Tuning
How Harmony and Melody Tune Differently
In 10 Elements that Impact Singing in Tune, we talked about how melody relies on memory. Your brain compares the memory of past notes with notes happening now. Conversely, harmony happens when you play notes at the same time. You can directly compare them as you fine tune while playing.
Musicians develop melodic tuning skills by memorizing melodic sound models, like when singers practice solfege while banging out the melodies on a piano. That is, you memorize the melodic interval sizes as you sing the solfege syllables.
For more information on solfege and singing melodies in tune using sing-along songs to help with melodic ear training:
Ear training for harmonic tuning usually happens when singers practice in an a cappella setting. However, I advocate using special harmonic sound models to develop harmonizing skills. For a practical example:
It also has sing-along tracks that help foster barbershop quarter level tuning accuracy.) The special ear training benefits both singers and instrumentalists.
Harmonic tuning has three parts:
- Musicians can use the color shift from changing harmonies as a tuning cue.
- The buzz created by the critical bands between consonant and dissonant intervals creates another tuning cue.
- Finally, and most importantly, the beating between mistuned harmonics makes a third tuning cue.
Therefore, harmony focuses on tone color, while melody focuses on melodic interval distance. In a nutshell, this shows how harmony and melody tune differently.
The Striking Contrast of Harmonic vs. Melodic Intervals
“Vertically, the span of an octave is the path of least resistance, as natural and effortless as the flow of water… Melodically, the opposite – the difference of frequency results in a tremendous leap requiring great energy. An octave is quite dramatic” (Gorow 77).
The quote shows that the melodic octave produces an extremely different experience from the harmonic octave. The melodic octave creates a striking event, but with the harmonic octave the notes disappear into each other.
When you realize that harmony and melody tune differently, it frees you to work on each intonation skill separately. However, harmonic tuning is more accurate than melodic tuning. It remains a critical addition to the ear training repertoire and can be used alongside melodic distance drills.
Harmony and Melody Tune Differently: The Barbershop Quartet Story
Barbershop Quartet Video
In harmonic intonation, the intervals tend to compact, while in pure unaccompanied melody, the intervals tend to stretch. (This statement oversimplifies things, but it captures the essence of what happens.) This means singing involves a constant balancing act between harmonic and melodic intonation.
For example, about fifteen years ago, my wife and I went to the annual First Night Celebration at Rockport, MA. The town hosted a number of events: magic acts, kid’s shows, music, etc. One event we went to featured a barbershop quartet.
For those of you not familiar with them, barbershop groups contain four men who sing without instrumental accompaniment. This allows them to tune their chords better than they would if they had a piano playing with them. (The term Barbershop probably comes from the time when barbershops acted as community centers, including hosting board games and amateur singing.)
I vividly recall that at one point in the barbershop performance they had a tuning mismatch between the melody and harmony. It happened when they switched from one chord to the next. As they brought the new harmony in tune, they pulled the top melodic interval out of tune.
At the time, it felt to me like they had stretched the melody like taffy. This is when I realized you can be harmonically in tune and melodically out of tune. (The guys in the video above, though, do it right.)
Conversely, when singing with the piano, the melody will sound in tune, but the harmonies will sound at the edge of being in tune. This gives an alternate example of how harmony and melody tune differently that many singers have experienced for themselves.
Harmony and Melody Tune Differently: Balancing Harmonic and Melodic Tuning
I have shown you that harmony and melody tune differently, but do musicians really think about this stuff? Yes, many do, at least among pros.
For example, Arnold Steinhardt states, “The difficulty in string-quartet intonation is to determine the degree of freedom you have at any given moment. Two factors come into play: the linear and the vertical” (qtd. in Duffin 69).
When he says linear, he means the melody, and when he says vertical, he means the harmony. Then, he talks about what goes into balancing the linear and vertical elements of string quartet music.
This is why almost all of the sing-along exercises in the Singing in Tune posts get tuned to balance harmonic and melodic tuning. Because mature intonation skills reflect a give and take between the two elements.
Conclusion
Knowledge is power. Therefore, knowing how harmony and melody tune differently allows you to listen, and thus tune, more effectively. In the next Singing in Tune post, we will return to practical harmonic intonation ear training exercises.
© 2021 Geoffrey Keith
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