Three-part harmony

I’ve scoured the web for this, but just get sites advertising books on it, but what are the basics for arranging three-part harmony (eg for a group like the Sugababes uses).

What intervals are you supposed to use etc?

I have basic knowledge of scales and minor and major thirds and fifths etc, but not of complicated chord transposition.

Since this is somewhat about the Arts, let’s try Cafe Society.

Moved. samclem

It really does depend on the tune.

What are you looking to arrange?

Just a pop song. I wondered what the general principles were. I know a lot of higher harmonies are sung a third up, but I wasn’t sure about the lower ones.

I don’t know about the Sugababes, but I’m unaware of any special rules for three-part harmony. It is just like standard four-part harmony except you don’t have to worry about which note to double in a triad.

So I suggest just looking into four-part writing. Four-part harmony is a basic technique so you can find lots of books on it–and the skills you pick up are perfectly applicable when dealing in three parts.

No cite, but it seems to me that certain things would be more acceptable in 3-part than in 4. For example, I doubt that parallel fifths would be quite as heinous in 3-part writing, and the focus on knowing which inversion of the chord you’re using would be diminished as well, especially if there isn’t one part that’s much lower than all the others. Even if there is a lowest part, it may not function as a “bass” quite so much. But in general, four-part technique is probably not a bad place to start.

Yep, 4-part harmony is the place to start. As TJdude825 says, 3 parts offers much greater flexibility and freedom in some ways, without forcing you to worry about complex harmonic situations - you can quite easily double a melody for a whole phrase at the interval of a third above, for instance.

Such books not being really available here, I really just wanted some basic guidelines. But if these are quite complex I understand.

Thanks anyway :wink:

An old-fashioned love song, perchance?

I don’t know if this is a hijack or not, but I only know a little bit about music and wanted to ask here. I always thought harmonies were set up like any other chord structure. Like if I wanted to play an A minor on the guitar or piano, I could also just figure out the individual notes in the chord and have three (or however many) people sing each note. Is that how it works? Is that even “harmony” or just some other musical concept? Just wondering. Thanks.

DrCube, I believe that harmony in its most basic sense merely means that two or more tones are sounded simultaneously. Not always a pleasant sound, but harmonic nonetheless.

A friend of mine who is somewhat musical but primarily is familiar with the piano wrote a song in four part harmony. He did ok as far as keeping within the vocal ranges of his singers, but because he didn’t know much about music, he did badly at making it singable. It apparently jumped around oddly, had difficult intervals, made it difficult for the singers to judge what they should sing based on each others notes, and had no discernable melody.

He was surprised. I mean, he had no idea how badly he was breaking the rules of harmony–which in simplest form (I’m open to correction from people who disagree) amount to this (for four part harmony).

Soprano sings melody
Alto sings a third below
Tenor sings whatever–it’s not unusual for tenors to sing a lot of a very few notes
Bass sings the root of the chord–whatever key the chord is in

Of course, that’s not the only form of harmony that is out there --Barbershop Quartets usually consist of four part harmony, and the melody is often sung by the second tenor, which is represented by the alto in the four part grouping I described above. Bass still usually sings the root of the chord, but I can’t explain how the other two parts usually function–it’s beyond my level of knowledge.

So DrCube isn’t neccessarily entirely wrong, but figuring out what the chord should sound like for one note is only a small part of arranging harmony for an entire song.

Harmony is chord structures, and how one note sounds with another. It’s also about how one note follows on from another, and how to make suitable sounds which follow a tune from beginning to end, with numerous chords and all sorts of things going on in the background. If you just take each note of a melody, find any random chord that this note fits in, then string the whole lot together, it’ll sound awful. How to put together sequences and progressions of chords is crucial.