Country & Western Harmonies

[Boris B]

Once I remember reading something about how part of the distinctive sound of country-western music comes from its vocal harmonies. I suspect that the harmonies are part of why people are so divided about country music, love-it-or-hate-it.

I even saw an electronic keyboard with a bunch of harmony presets, and one of the options was "Country". So what are these harmonies? I mean, harmonizing in thirds isn't particularly unusual ... do country dueters harmonize in fifths and sixths or something? Or do they sing sharper or flatter than other people would?

[darkcool]

Listen to an early Buck Owens recording. All will be explained.

[SqrlCub]

Country musicians in duets typically harmonize in thirds or sixths but that is relatively constant among pop/country/rock/folk musicians everywhere. Country musicians typically play in 2 or 3 time, have a thick accent (for the most part) that is discernable through singing, and often use fiddling style if they have a violin (which many of them do). It is not really a question of harmony but rhythmic and melodic style.

HUGS!
Sqrl

[Drum God]

"If ya' wanna play in Texas, ya' gotta have a fiddle in the band!"

[lissener]

Vocally, in most discernibly Country singing, there's always a slight vestige of the yodel that's somewhere in it ancestry. That little flip between a high note and a low note, that in Alannis Morisette sounds like the bark of a clubbed sealpup. You hear a lot of it in Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and especially Buck Owens. I think that's partially what is referred to as "twang."

As a sometime singer, I can tell you that it happens when you transition abruptly, without a slide, from chest voice to falsetto; perhaps someone else can supply some physiological terminology for this phenomenon.