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Author: Jim on May 28 2007 Viewed 2503 times. 10 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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So, I've been struggling to write music with solid vocal harmonies. I've been listening to a lot of the beach boys lately and I'm wondering how they do that. Anyone know any good resources that would have scores or something I could look at to learn more about the chord progressions they use?
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05/28/07
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astroid
if you figure out how to do it, let me know!
05/28/07
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magnoliafan
there are a lot of beach boys midis, most have at least two or three layers of vocal harmonies. You could dissect those.
05/28/07
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craque
a lot of that is going to be basic voice leading, any good book on traditional counterpoint and harmony will give you a good foundation
edited: May 28 2007
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Fredo
When I do multi-vocal work (which is pretty much always) I usually work with a melody first, a really basic idea, and then first start to define it harmonically by adding either very slow patterns (usually these are sung in oooooo's or aaaaaah's), or sometimes early on I will build a rhythmic counterpoint vocal to play against the melody rhythmically. Sometimes I will actually build a second solo line to work against the main line. It helps to define the harmonic structure, but also adds complexity and tension as well, whereas the slow supporting patterns usually just solidify the ideas making things less ambiguous.
At some point you may have developed enough material out of your piece that you can start to take a small portion of some melody and slow it down or speed it up, juxtaposing it to different parts of the same melody. Bartok did this amazingly well in his Concerto for two Pianos and Percussion. I remember discovering that the timpani line was just repeating a tiny piano figure slowed down like 4 times. It was like magic to me, that a composer could create such a rich tapestry from a small group of ideas. I'm not sure I have noticed the Beach Boys doing exactly that, but they definitely do a lot of the other stuff I described above!
Just have fun with it, no matter what. Try doing a little row row row your boat first and then see where this takes you! Also, if you have a pedal or some looping program such as Live it might make things a lot easier to improvise these ideas. The best stuff comes in improvisation, that's my experience. Again, just have fun and don't worry about when things don't work, but listen for when the do! 
05/28/07
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Fredo
oh, and listen to as much of this kind of stuff as possible. If you can listen to 40s pop, Tommy Dorsey did some amazing counterpoint work vocally. Check out his rendition of See You In My Dreams, if you can find it anywhere. I just looked on iTunes and it's not there. I have a cd somewhere and will see if I can dig it up in the next week or so for you.
05/28/07
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Fredo
oops, just noticed you were asking for texts... not advice. Sorry, man. I don't know any texts. I'm just really excited by the subject.
05/28/07
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daswesen
Get some text about standard classical harmony (chorals), 4-part writing. Basically it's just filling out standard chord progressions on 4 voices, with taking care of the bass and good voice leading on the other voices. It's beautiful and quite relaxing/fun to do. There are lots of exercises, general bass songs, etc... you can use. From there on you can use those ideas and chord progressions and start to "modernize" them, but even the classic cadences are so beautiful when the sung lines are interesting. It's really the exercise at music school i like the most with counterpoint.
05/28/07
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Tripnik
Obviously, you can learn by ear as well. Try singing a long with the beach boy records, and sing each of the vocal harmony parts. After you can do that pretty easily, start trying to make up vocal harmonies to songs that don't already have them. After awhile, you'll understand harmony well enough to be able to make counterlines to almost anything. Once all that stuff is in your head, then start reading up on stuff to figure out how and why it works.
I'd second the traditional 4 part harmony study, however, if you want to get down and dirty right away, check out Mark Levine's "Jazz", otherwise known as the big book of jazz theory. It goes over everything from chord and scale construction to reharmonization etc. Towards the end of the book, they start going over arranging and orchestration. Knowing the theory behind it will make things go a lot faster, and help you pinpoint problems when something just doesn't sound right. Traditional 4 part would be a better place to start, but if you're only interested in pop music, studying jazz theory will get you started right away with harmonies and melodies you're more used to (assuming you didn't grow up on a steady diet of bach).
05/28/07
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xLefr
Make a slightly dull melody. Layer "wrong" notes on top until it sounds exciting.
05/29/07
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astroid
1. be a genius
2. get beaten by your dad
05/29/07
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Jim
Thanks for the advice people. One problem is that I'm not an especially strong singer, and I tend to want to write things that are hard for me to sing. Oh well, I'm definitely getting better, and I'll check out that stuff you guys pointed me to.
05/29/07
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lunatinker
i only sing in the shower. good accoustics, nice drone of water and fan.
so, i realized that i sang drones as well, in tune with the resonance of walls, the fan motor.
you can use that simple exercise to study what harmonies work and what notes sound for sh!t.
also, if you get a good melody going doing improv or whatever, WRITE IT DOWN.
that is where the thing starts for me, then you can experiment for months with the harmonies.
i am not allowed to discuss P2p but if i did, i would mention that sheetmusic lives there and all kinds.
i don't talk about that though. and i never kiss frogs or spit in the wind.
my favorite harmonies this week are from "beta band" and from "beatles".
simon and garfunkle also kick ass. why the beach boys? that worries me!
05/29/07
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SoMuch
jim said: "and I'll check out that stuff you guys pointed me to."
dont check out everything
asstroyed said: "2. get beaten by your dad"
05/29/07
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11t1
i like reviewing the book "the beatles complete scores" on matters like this - they had some pretty decent harmony parts from time to time
another great way to learn is trial & error - always be thinking "what would brian wilson do here?" when working on a piece
sometimes a great counter-point can be found by not listening to the melody & just trying something different with the bed tracks. record ideas independently & then play them back together & see what works
05/29/07
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11t1
also worth trying out parallel harmonies, both above & below - also, if having trouble winding through the chord changes in parallel, try having the harmony voice sticking to one chord tone singing the same syllables as the lead voice - it's sort of an updated gregoirian chant pedal technique, except the pedal changes each time a new chord comes along that doesn't share the pedall tone in common (try resolving down in most cases).
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