More Harmony Singing Information and Lessons

Lesson 1. Notes of the Major Chord:

Three notes every harmony singer should know.

The first step to Singing Harmony the Natural Way is to train your ear and voice to hear and sing the notes of a major chord. Since a major chord has only three notes, this is not difficult. You can listen to track 2 on Disk One of our course for examples and practice.

Why are these three notes so important? It’s because, when we sing harmony, we’re adding notes above or below the melody of a song, and the vast majority of the time, our harmony note will one of these three chord notes.

This is especially true in folk, bluegrass, country, swing, pop and rock music. If you’ve grown up in North or South America, Europe or even Africa, you’ve been hearing this kind of harmony all your life, so its sound is has been drilled into your ear since you were young. So if you’re like most people, you’ll find that you can begin to learn this fairly fast. We recommend practicing this skill enough that you can quickly and easily sing the three notes of the major chord in any key. You can listen to track 3 on Disk One of our course to practice in a variety of keys.

Another great way to practice is to play a major chord, such G, C, D, A or E, on your guitar, banjo, mandolin, piano, or whatever instrument you’ve got, and practice singing out loud the three chord notes of that chord. Then move to a different chord and do the same thing. You don’t need to worry about the note names or numbers at this point. If you want, you can go back and figure that out later. What’s really important is to practice finding and singing these notes instinctively, so that when you’re doing some vocal harmonizing, those notes are right there in your head, ready to be sung when you need them.

We’ll be posting lots more information on this page, including singing tips and techniques, vocal harmony lessons and sound clips, so please check back soon.