WHAT
TO DO
The first thing to do is get to have a vocals-only
rehearsal in someone's living room. Once you've got a
part, commit it to memory as soon as you can, in
notation form if you're a music reader, or on
cassette if you're not. You need to be absolutely
sure of how your part goes - live, it's all too easy
to drift onto another part. I've seen
lovingly-arranged five-part harmonies degenerate over
a few gigs into one massive unison because the band
weren't concentrating and no-one could tell it was
wrong due to a dodgy monitor mix.
WHAT
TO SING
Musically speaking, rock and pop vocal parts come in
three different flavours - homophonic (blocks of
sound, following the lead vocal), polyphonic
(counter-melodies) and "washes" (oohs and
ahhs).
Homophony
(meaning "the same sound") is the vocal
sound of the Eagles and (most of the time) Queen.
It's what most people think of as
"harmonies", where one or more voices sing
the same lyric as the lead, moving up or down in
parallel, usually using intervals of thirds or
fourths. Two-part harmonies create a folky, clean
sound (the Everlys, Simon and Garfunkel). With these,
it helps to follow the vocal inflection of the lead
singer as accurately as possible. The lusher sound of
three-part is more tricky because you have to
concentrate on the chord implied by all three voices
- make sure parts don't cross each other, and don't
be tempted to move exactly in parallel with the lead
line - sometimes it sounds better to stay on the same
note. For an example of homophony, check out the
chorus of Queen's "Killer Queen".
Polyphony
is any type of harmony where the vocals do different
things with the melody or lyric. These can rarely be
improvised, and have to be worked out in advance with
all the bands singers. Examples include the Beach
Boys' "Good Vibrations" and the double
chorus of the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby",
where two entirely separate tunes with different
words lock together.
Vocal
washes with "oohs" and "ahhs" are
fairly easy to achieve, because they are independent
of the lead line - really, the vocals act as another
part of the instrumentation, replacing or
complimenting a keyboard pad. You need at least two
backing vocalists to get away with these - one
"ooh" on it's own is a lonely bunny indeed
- but as long as you sing notes of the current chord
and both parts are close together it'll sound
okay.Most harmonies sound sweeter if they stay around
the higher-pitched regions of the voice. If you try
to sing major or minor third intervals below about
bottom G it's possible that the overall sound of the
band will become muddy.
EXTRA
JAM
Never, ever try to improvise a vocal harmony "on
the fly" at a gig. You can get away with the
simple parallel third if you're experienced enough,
but anything more complex will simply sound
amateurish, especially if you're not familiar with
the chords to a song. A lead singer can get away
Whitney-esque swoopings, but the backing vocalists
need to be more disciplined altogether. Finally, as
with all vocalists, remember that your instrument is
a part of your body, and it needs taking care of. A
rum and black won't "lubricate the throat",
although it might help you not to care about how flat
you're singing.
