WRITING VOCAL HARMONIES

This article was originally published in 2004

I. Introduction
Its happened to you before; youre working on a song, laying down some great vocal
lines, and suddenly it strikes someone that this track would be great with some
harmonies. Unless you happen to be (or have) one of those amazing vocalists who seem
to be able to pull harmony out of thin air by instinct, this may have been the point at which
things got ugly.
Harmonizing a vocal doesnt have to be painful, my friend. With a bit of theory and the
help of a nearby keyboard (or whatever instrument you want to reference pitch with), you
can work out some great harmonies; and while many vocalists can come up with a
working harmony off the cuff, with a little time and planning you can come up with
something a cut above the norm.
This article assumes you know a bit about basic theory, such names for intervals, scales,
and some things about triads and seventh chords.

II. Getting started

When you take a theoretical approach to vocal harmonizing, the two most important
pieces of information you can have are 1. the notes in the melody line and 2. the chord
changes (this is where having a keyboard around can be a huge help). Its important to
look at the melody in the context of the chord changes, because where the melody is in
relation to the current chord, and where it is in relation to the current key will both have an
impact on which notes you choose for a harmony. Try playing the melody on a keyboard
while playing or thinking about the chord that goes with it. This will help you to get familiar
with the peculiarities of the melody you are about to harmonize.
Now that youve got a sense of whats going on with the music, lets look at three basic
approaches to harmonizing a melody line: tight harmony, chordal harmony, and
contrapuntal harmony (a.k.a. counterpoint).

III. Three basic approaches

1. Tight harmony
Tight harmony is one of the most common forms of vocal harmony in use in popular music

today. Most singers who can instinctively harmonize tend to do tight harmony by default.
If you know much about music theory, you might know that Western harmony is built on
the stack of thirds; in other words, any chord is simply a succession of major or minor
thirds stacked one on the other. Similarly, tight harmony is typically done by following the
melody line a third above or below. The third is major or minor depending on what is
dictated by the key (or the current chord, if there are chords from outside the key).
Another variation of tight harmony uses sixths, since the sixth is the inverse interval of the
third (in other words, if you went up a third, then dropped an octave, youd be a sixth
down from the original note. If you went down a third, then up an octave, youd be a sixth
up from the original note). Once again, you would follow using either major or minor sixths
as dictated by the key or the current chord.
If you stopped here and didnt read another word, you could probably do an adequate job
of harmonizing most melodies with just tight harmony. But there are situations where
sticking to thirds and sixths just doesnt work out. Well look at some of those situations
and talk about what to do with them later.

2. Chordal harmony
In sharp contrast to the tight harmony approach, the chordal approach virtually ignores
the melody and simply picks chord tones from the current chord to harmonize with the
vocals. The note of the harmony line stays the same until the chord changes, and its
always on a chord tone.
This approach can be troublesome; it works great for building vocal pads, or when you
want to add a third part when youve already got tight harmony going, but it can get bad
when you are trying to harmonize one or two parts with the melody. Melodies move, and
often they hit passing notes that dont blend too well with the actual chord tones. This
usually isnt a problem when its an instrument playing the chord tones, or a choir of
voices, but if youve got just two or three parts (especially of the same vocalist) you can
wind up with some nasty dissonances if you arent careful.

3. Contrapuntal harmony
This is by far the most sophisticated approach to harmony, and takes the most work to
get right. In counterpoint, you are creating a counter-melody whose rhythm and
movement is not necessarily the same as the main melody. This can be trickier than it
sounds, because to make a really good counterpoint line, youve got to keep in mind not

only where youre at with regard to the melody and chord changes, but youve also got to
keep in mind the rules of good voice leading and melody construction to create
something that is both complimentary to the original melody and pleasing in its own right.
Of course, you probably wont find yourself writing full-blown counterpoint harmony to
beef up a rock or pop vocal; the important this to grasp is the concept that we can move
the harmony voices in different directions, different intervals, and at different times than
the melody line. All of these approaches are extremes; in practice, we can borrow a bit
from each to construct simple but effective harmony lines without agonizing for hours
over them. Many arrangers start out with one approach in mind, and modify it with the
other approaches to get out of trouble spots. Well look at some common trouble spots
and how to deal with them, but first, well talk about good voice leading.

IV. Voice leading

Voice leading is an art that dates back to the Baroque era, and many a freshman music
theory student has agonized over its complex rules re-harmonizing Bach chorales.
Because these rules are often taught in the context of 17th and 18th century music, and
because rock musicians generally have a problem with any kind of rules, many musicians
mistakenly assume that voice leading is irrelevant to modern popular music. But if you
take the time to learn and follow these rules, youll find that they are still very relevant and
will help you construct rock-solid harmony every time. I wont go into a full-blown
description of all the traditional rules, but I will touch on some ideas that I feel are most
important and most likely to come up in popular music.

1. Avoid parallel fifths, fourths, and octaves

Parallel fifths are one of the biggest killers of a good harmony line. A parallel fifth is a
situation where the melody and harmony create and interval of a fifth, and both move in
parallel so that they again are a fifth apart. This gives a kind of Gregorian Chant effect and
has a weak sound to it (although some styles of music have used parallel fifths specifically
for the ominous effect of it, notably Grunge or Nu-metal). As the fourth is simply the
inverse of the fifth, parallel fourths are also to be avoided.
The parallel octave is considered a weak movement, though I should explain that were
not talking about a situation where the melody is doubled at an octave above or below,
which is a common arrangement technique in pop and rock music. Theres nothing wrong
with that. But in the context of creating a harmony part, you want to avoid hitting a parallel
octave. In other words, if were moving along using fifths, sixths, and so forth, and
suddenly use two octaves in a row, you will find it a weak and unsatisfying harmony.

In fact, pretty much the only intervals that can safely move in parallel are the third and the
sixth. The only intervals we havent mentioned yet are the second and the seventh, and I
have a hard time imagining a situation where youd even want to attempt to move them in
parallel.

2. Resolve tritone intervals and leading tones properly

The tritone (a.k.a. diminished fifth or augmented fourth) is the dissonant interval that
drives Western harmony. If you know much about the resolution of V7 to I, you know that
there is a note called the leading tone, which is a half-step below the root of the key, and
that a tritone away from the leading tone is the 4th of the key, which is the 7 in the V7 or
dominant chord.
If this is Greek to you, simply understand that if you have a dominant 7 chord, the third of
the chord needs to resolve up a half step, and the 7 of the chord needs to resolve down
either a half step (if its resolving to a major chord) or whole step (if its resolving to a
minor chord). This means that whenever you encounter a tritone interval between your
melody and harmony (or between two harmony parts), its going to either resolve inward
to a third, or outward to a sixth, depending on what chord its resolving too. If you get into
jazz harmony, you may find exceptions to this rule, but thats beyond the scope of what
were dealing with here.

3. Use contrary motion when possible

Contrary motion is when two of your voices move either towards or away from each other
rather than moving parallel. This is a very desirable effect when harmonizing, though it
has to be planned carefully. You can quickly wind up at a very ugly interval if you dont
turn it around at the right point.
One of the most common uses of contrary motion in writing vocal harmonies is as a
transition between tight harmony in thirds and tight harmony in sixths, or vice versa. This
can be a powerful technique to overcome the limitations of simple tight harmony.

4. Dont get too far apart

With all this contrary motion going on, you have to be careful not to let your voices get too
far apart. You should avoid letting two adjacent parts get more than an octave between
them, and there really isnt much call to even get beyond a sixth apart. If you have three
part harmony or more, of course, its not a problem for the outer voices to get further
apart than this, but no two adjacent voices should.

5. Avoid crossing voices

Crossing voices means letting a harmony below the melody cross over the melody and go
above it, or vice versa. Sometimes its unavoidable (if you have a particularly soaring
melody, for instance, with several intervalic leaps in succession), and on rare occasions it
can actually be quite nice. For the most part, its best avoided, especially in pop
productions where the same singer is likely to sing all the harmony and melody parts.

6. Be careful with seconds and sevenths

By themselves, seconds and sevenths tend to be blunt, ugly intervals. In the context of a
chord, they can be powerful and haunting. For example, a major second, with a fourth on
the top, becomes a nice suspended 2 chord (or suspended 4 chord in inversion). Just use
your ears and be mindful of the context of these intervals in the chord.

V. Examples of common trouble spots in tight or chordal harmony, and how

to work them out.
Here are just a few odd examples of tight spots Ive run into when writing simple vocal
harmonies. While you may not run into these exact situations, hopefully reading this will
give you an idea of the kind of thought process you go through when writing a solid
harmony, and maybe some ideas of different things to try that might prove more musically
pleasing than the quickest and simplest solution.

1. Melody on the fifth of the chord using tight harmony above

Supposing youve got a song in G Major, the first chord is G, and the first note of the
melody is D. You want a tight harmony above the melody. Your first harmony note, then,
would be F#. Except, that would make your first chord Gmaj7. Nothing wrong with Major
7th chords, but they have a distinctive sound that isnt always appropriate, especially on
the I chord.
The simplest thing to do is start your harmony on G instead, harmonizing at a fourth. The
trouble is that most harmony singers instinctively want to sing with the melody, so you
just have to stay on G or make a leap off of it to make sure you dont end up with parallel
fourths.
Another option might be taking the harmony up to B and using parallel sixths (if the
vocalists range can handle it), or even hitting the A (making the chord an add9; for
whatever reason, I find that the ninth has less effect on the character of a chord than the
7th). This might be a good option if the melody moves up from the first note, because you

can use parallel motion and get back to thirds in a pretty nice way. If the melody moves
down, youll have to jump to avoid parallel 5ths or moving too far apart.

2. Melody resolves to the root with a lower tight harmony

This is a problem I hear all the time, particularly with improvised harmony. Youre doing
tight harmony in thirds below the melody. The melody resolves to the root of the key. Lets
say youre in C. When the melody hits the C, your harmony is going to be on A. Oops;
thats not resolving. What do you do?
The first and most obvious solution is to sing a G there instead of an A. If the melody is
walking up to the C, then the second to last note of the harmony is a G already. Not the
most exciting resolution, but it will work. If the melody walks down to the C, the second to
last harmony note was a B. Heres a problem. That B wants to resolve to a C. Resolving it
down a third to the G will work OK, and if youve got a band going behind you, itll
probably pass. But its a weak resolution, and a bit awkward.
I would think the best solution in this situation, provided it keeps the harmony in a good
range for the vocalist, is to back up a bit and look for an opportunity to use some contrary
motion to get the harmony to a sixth below instead of a third. Or, if the melody walks up to
the C, get that second-to-last harmony note on an F, and resolve it down to E. Much more
powerful and effective resolution than ending up on the G.

3. Tight harmony where the melody is on a non chord-tone

Melodies dont always start or stay on chord tones, and songs dont always stick to one
scale or mode, even over the course of a phrase. I was working out a harmony once on a
song where the first line of the melody was all on a D being sung over an Am chord. It got
a bit tricky to harmonize, since we wanted an upper harmony on it. Complicating the
matter more was the fact that the song changed freely from natural minor to Dorian mode
(i.e. it had both a D major chord and an F major chord in the progression), so it was
unclear whether F or F# was appropriate to use on the rest of the progression. Clearly, an
F natural wouldnt work over the Am regardless, and the F# would give it the very
distinctive minor 6 sound that isnt always appropriate, even for a song in Dorian mode.
The best thing to do here is to decide how high you want to go with this harmony, and
how far you want to extend the chord beyond the triad. Raising the harmony to a G
creates an Am7 chord (of course the melody is adding the 11). Raising it up to an A leaves
your harmony in the triad. In either of those cases, youll need to exercise caution to avoid
parallel 4ths or 5ths.

Another solution is to go a sixth above the melody to the B, adding a nice 9 to the chord.
Of course, if your melody goes up from the D, youll either need a vocalist with a great
upper range, or a little contrary motion (i.e. descending, in this case) to get you back to
thirds.

4. Chordal harmony where the melody hits clashing notes

As I mentioned before, the problem with chordal harmony is that very often the melody
moves into a place where it clashes with the chord tones a bit. This doesnt seem to be an
issue when the voice is against instruments, but against other voices, the dissonance
seems more noticeable.
A simple example: were singing a melody over D major. Youre harmonizing it with F# and
A. The melody walks up from D to A, with the A hitting on the next chord change. When
we hit the E, therell be a little dissonance with the F#, but nothing terrible. When we hit
the G the dissonance will be a bit harsher. So we want to do something about the F#. You
could move it to G when the melody does, but wed rather not have our melody and
harmony in unison. A better solution is to move the harmony down to an E when the
melody goes to G. Of course, in this case the F# will still be unison, and the voices will be
crossing. With chordal harmony, youre almost guaranteed to have voices crossing, so we
can let that slide for now.
Another solution is to have the harmony hop down to D when the melody hits F#. Again
were crossing voices, but thats almost unavoidable in this case. Well also have a little
dissonance when the melody hits E, but thats doable. But when the melody goes from G
to A, were going to run into a problem with the upper voice. Its going to have to get off
the A before the melody gets there, but where to? Suppose, to make it interesting, that
the next chord is G, making the melody note (A) a 9th. What to do with the harmony now?
If we stick to the chordal approach, well go to B. Not only will this leave us with a major
second between the melody and harmony, but well have come from a major second,
giving us (yuck!) parallel major seconds. Not good. Our only real option, if we want
chordal harmony, is to launch it up to D; rather a clumsy harmony line
Because you can easily end up in situations like this, I dont generally recommend using
the chordal approach unless you can keep the harmony out of the way of the melody,
either by putting it in a different octave, or by mixing it in such a way that its perceived
quite separate from the melody line. Its better to take a chordal approach for short
spaces here and there where tight harmony might fail you, or by combining it with tight
harmony in multiple voices (for example, if you look at the four part harmony used in many

traditional hymns, the soprano and alto voices are in tight harmony, while the bass and
tenor take a chordal approach), or by using it with a vocal pad (where the voices are
singing vowel tones instead of lyrics, thus separating them from the melody). Well
discuss pads below.

5. Resolving a diminished block triad.

As we discussed under voice leading, tritones always resolve a certain way either
inward or outward in contrary motion. If youve got a 3 part harmony, you can run into
trouble because of this fact if youre harmonizing either a diminished triad, or the top
three notes of a dominant 7 chord (which is simply a diminished triad). Say youre in G,
and youve got the vii triad F#-A-C as your harmony. The F# wants to resolve to G, and
the C wants to resolve to B. So where does the voice with the A go to? Either way you go,
youll be in unison with one of your other parts. While this is one option, its unfortunate
that you cant make good use of all those harmony voices. You could cross voices, but we
try to avoid this. Perhaps the best thing to do is re-voice the harmony.
Classical harmony often used the diminished chord in inversion, with the third in the bass,
which in this case would make our chord A-F#-C. We can see why now. The triad would
resolve to G-G-B (with the two Gs an octave apart), a much stronger resolution than the
others weve proposed. The only problems you face doing this would be that the A might
be your melody line, so moving it might be out of the question; or theres the fact that pop
music generally doesnt use the bass voice, so your lower line might get too low to be
acceptable for pop or rock. (of course, you could move the F# up an octave too, though
this would mean having two upper harmonies for the whole phrase, so you dont cross
voices. If you have an upper and lower harmony on a song, youll want to keep it that way.
Chances are youll run into this sort of problem a lot, though).

VI. Some easy-to-apply contrapuntal techniques

While a complete study of the art of Baroque counterpoint would probably be a waste for
most pop and rock musicians, we can certainly draw on the basic idea of counterpoint to
take our background vocals to the next level. Weve already discussed the use of
techniques like contrary motion and changing the intervals in tight harmony; here are a
few more simple ideas to get a more contrapuntal feel.

1. Simplifying the rhythm

When youve got a melody thats syncopated or that moves fast, you can create a nice
background part by simplifying or slowing down the rhythm and singing it against the

melody in chordal harmony. You may have to drop words or phrases in the lyrics to make it
all work out together, and sometimes this can work out nicely from a poetic standpoint
(kind of like the background vocals are giving you the summarized version while the lead
vocal explains the details).

2. Complicating the rhythm

Alternately, if you have a slower, smoother melody, you can create a faster rhythm for your
harmony part to sing. You may have to add some lyrics here. Chordal harmony works
great here as well. Notice how much better chordal harmony works when you arent
singing tight with the melody rhythmically.

3. Echo and hold

This is a very old technique used in everything from barbershop quartet to doo-wop to
Queen to modern vocal pop. It works well when you have a melody with a significant break
at the end of a phrase (like 3 or 4 beats) and with at least 2 harmony parts. Basically, just
like vocal pad, you hold out oohs, aahs, or even the first word of the phrase in a
chordal harmony until the break; but then you echo the last line or last few words of the
phrase in tight harmony (letting one of the harmony parts repeat the melody; alternately,
you can echo just with harmony lines, omitting the melody line in the echo). When the
melody comes back in, you let the harmonies hold again until the next break.

VII. Advanced Vocal pads

The basic vocal pad is just 2 or 3 vocal parts holding out aahs or oohs in chordal
harmony. Of course, you can do this with just about any synthesizer, but the results when
doing it with a real vocalist can be much more satisfying, especially for more organic
styles of music. And theres nothing that says all the voices have to change at the same
time or stick to block chords. If youve got a songs that has that chord-chord-chord
feeling, this can be a great way to smooth it out. Take advantage of passing tones,
suspensions, common tones, contrary motion, and other voice-leading techniques to
diminish the blocky sound that straight chord changes can often give. Here are some
examples:
Passing tones: Say youve got a progression going from C to G with two-voice harmony.
You are harmonizing the C with C and E. You could walk the upper voice to a G (to
harmonize the G chord) by going E-F-G. The F is called a passing tone. The C could
move down to B in this case, giving you G and B over the G chord. (Note this is also an
example of contrary motion).

Suspensions: This time youre going from C to F. Youve got 3 voice harmony, singing CE-G over the C chord. You could move the upper voices up to F and A to harmonize the A
chord (taking advantage of the common tone in the bass), but instead lets just move the
E to F and leave the G until halfway through the next measure, when well move it to A.
This creates a suspended 2nd, and breaks up the movement of the chord a bit.
Common tones: We saw in the preceding example the use of a common tone in the bass.
If you wanted to smooth out that chord change even more, move the C to the upper voice
(so the harmony would start E-G-C, the C being up an octave from the last example).
Thus, between the two chords, the upper voice stays on C, drawing attention away from
the change and smoothing it out. Common tones are even easier to use when you employ
chord extensions 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths in addition to the triad notes, because
very likely at least one tone in a chord will be an extension tone in the next chord. In the
C-F example, you could just hold out the C triad over the F (provided you had other
instruments establishing the change to F, and the vocal harmonies were high enough to
be extension tones and not clash with the triad tones), making it an Fmaj9 chord.
Contrary motion: As Ive mentioned before, contrary motion is when two parts move
away from or toward each other rather than parallel to one another. Its a very strong
movement and usually very pleasing to hear. A common place to encounter contrary
motion is resolving a tritone, as we discussed under voice leading. Tritones resolve in
contrary motion (when theyre resolved properly, anyway), either in or out depending on
how the chord is voiced. For example, in a D7 chord harmonized D-F#-C, the tritone
would resolve inward to make a G chord. If it were voiced, D-C-F#, the tritone would
resolve outward.
Using these voice leading techniques and others, you can get a better control of how the
harmony moves in your music, whether you want to smooth out a blocky progression or
liven up a static phrase. These techniques work not only for vocal pads, but also for
arranging string or brass lines, synthesizer parts, guitar harmony, etc.

VIII. Parting words

Great vocals and harmonies are a wonderful way to spice up an arrangement. If you want
to learn more, check out a good music theory book and read up on chorale writing.
Remember to always keep in mind the range of your vocalists, and whats appropriate for
the style of music. Happy harmonizing!