TOP TEN FAQ’s FOR SINGERS

10.   How Do I Sing Harmonies?

For some people its all about the quick fix. Learning to sing is a long process and for most of us never ends. Other

musicians get really frustrated with us when we can’t always sing harmonies straight off the cuff. They can play them,

yeah, but we don’t have the fret board or the keyboard or the fingering on an instrument to do that. Our body and

mind is our instrument and sometimes it is in fine working order and sometimes it lets us, and others, down. I was really

lucky as a child to have been bought up in Welsh culture so every Sunday after church we would go to my Grandmas

house in Wellington and after a huge roast we would settle down around the piano and sing, for hours. I had four

uncles who all sang well and had fantastic harmonies so when they and the assorted parents, aunts and uncles sang, it

became easy to just align myself up to one of them and try to sing along with them. I very rarely have any trouble

teaching Maori or Polynesian students, harmonies, because they were bought up in a similar way. Later I got into a

church choir and then the NZ Opera Company and learned to sing harmonies in an organized way but for me starting

out later on (15) in a band the best way was listening to bands like the Beatles, Hollies, Beach Boys etc as they weaved

their magic into harmonies. I would work out whether it sounded happy (major notes) or sad (minor notes) and then try

and add a different harmony to the one I was hearing and see if it sounded right. I would then slot into one of the

harmonies and sing along with it all the way through the song, then come back and do exactly the same but with

another harmony. It is still a good way of doing it and a lot of it is trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn’t.

If you are really serious about wanting to learn harmonies, join a choir. You might not like the music, but that is

irrelevant if you are learning to listen and sing a part in a song that is unique but also blends with someone else and

forms a beautiful, joyous noise. There is nothing better!

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