Singing Harmony and Voice Lessons

Singing Harmony is an art in and of itself. There are plenty of musicians that sing great but cannot sing harmony. There are also plenty of musicians that can sing great harmony but not good lead. Here are a few tips to help you sing harmony better....

1. Be careful with your syllables. Avoid certain vowels like t's and s's. Those vowels that don't have notes on them try to avoid. I learned this in choir years ago but it helps everyone blend better. 

2. Warm up your tone- in most cases when you are singing Harmony you want to try to blend with whoever is singing the melody. A good trick to use to accomplish this is to simply warm up your tone a little bit so that you don't stand out quite as much. A warmer tone is going to blend much better then a tone that has a lot of high-end or is sharp.

3. Back off the mic- if your sound engineer has you turned down a little bit then you may want to sing into your mic but if he has you up as loud as the lead vocalist you may want to back off the Mic little bit. If you are a little quieter than the lead singer it is also going to help you blend better. 

4. Don't sing the whole time- listen to the records that you love and hear how often there is harmony in the recordings. Sometimes there is a lot of harmony but most of the time the background vocals come in and out in a song. Don't feel the pressure to sing the whole song if you're singing background vocals. Save your harmonies for the choruses and even just part of the choruses. 

5. Use the same mic- using the same kind of microphone that the lead singer is using is going to definitely help you blend better. Microphines like an sm58 are going to be great when it comes to helping everybody to blend since they share a lot of the same characteristics and EQ. if you don't have the same microphone as the lead singer in sm58 is also a good bet to go with since it will warm up your voice. 

6. Learn how to sing three part harmony- in most scenarios you will not have to learn how to sing more than three part harmony. In most working bands knowing how to sing 2 part harmony is not enough. Experiment and try adding a third part during rehearsals off mic. You don't want to be stepping over the other person's harmony if you're singing with another background vocalist.