How do you sing Bluegrass Harmony?

[twistgtr]

How do you figure this out? any examples?

[Kevin Stueve]

First the joke, How do I sing Bluegrass Harmony? not well. :D
Now a more serious attempt at an answer 1st 3rd 5th just like a major chord

[Astro]

Yeah, the hard part is figuring out how far off pitch the lead singer is and then sing the same amount off pitch but a 3rd or fifth up/down from that. When in doubt, do it louder and with a grimace.

[FLATROCK HILL]

First, listen, listen listen, mostly to Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. Study the way Bill manages to hit those high lonesome tenor notes.
When you figure out how to do the high harmony part to 'Can't you Hear Me Callin', you'll have reached your goal.
PM me at that point and let me know how you did it, 'cause I can't do it either.

And welcome to the Cafe Forum. (I should have said that to begin with!)

[pointpergame]

I think this is a great question. I spent years on the search for the keys (keys in the "ah-ha!" sense) to improvising, then to double stops. I'm now on a similar quest to figure out some generalizations for harmonizing. I believe there has been some good advice here on the forum, but it didn't generate a simple rule from which I can immediately start doing it...as happened with improvising. Even when I manage a minute of success I have to think, "That was good...but what did I just do? How can I do it next time?"

It should be easy. All kinds of people do it effortlessly. And of these three skills, harmonizing should be the easiest to practice since one can simply sing along with the radio or a friend. No need to pull out the mandolin.

[bigskygirl]

Find a teacher local or online who has experience in bluegrass singing. Not sure if they give lessons but Don Rigsby, Wil Maring, and Kate Thompson come to mind. Mike Compton does the Bill Monroe mandolin method so contact him, his website says he does online lessons. Tons of resources out there, go to YouTube and listen to singers and reach out to the ones you like if they don't give lessons they can most likely steer you to people who do.

[banjoboy]

Find a CD with the song you are trying to learn. Listen to it several times. Then try to emulate the part you are trying to learn, singing along with the CD. Baritone is the hardest part to get. Lot's of times you can't tell the part is there, but if it wasn't, there would be a definite hole in the song. I do this in my car when driving to and from work, listening to parts over and over, and then singing with the song, over and over. The more you do it, the easier it becomes.

[Mandoplumb]

If you want to learn bluegrass tenor listen to Bill Monroe, Don Reno, or John Duffy. By definition tenor is the first harmonizing note above the lead (third) but these men used a lot of accidentals. If baritone is what you are trying to learn listen to Sonny Osborne or Geroge Shuffler. They are, IMHO, the difinition of BG bari and you can hear them better than some.

[JAK]

The Nashville Bluegrass Band has a cd/download Vocal Harmony Workshop, available at Homespun Tapes or Amazon. "How To Sing Harmony the Natural Way," by Sue Thompson and Keith Little (SF Bay area bluegrass and old timey icons) at CD Baby. I've got the one by Sue and Keith = highly recommended (NFI).

[Willie Poole]

You can practice all you want to but you have to have a "feel" for it, if you have that "feel" it will come easy, if not it will be like work...some people will never get it...

[Jim Hilburn]

What Willie said is pretty much right on. I grew up going to church where singing was a big part and that along with Peter Paul and Mary, Beatles, and Byrds, and on and on, I got the hang of it pretty early. I'd also have to give Emmylou Harris a lot of credit. I was in a band for a while that was 3 part oriented but I've also played with some guys for years who do a good job with melodies but just can't find a harmony.
I just looked up "vocal harmony" on Youtube and like so many things, there's a lot to check out there.

[DavidKOS]

One part is deciding how the voices you have available can be used to their best advantage, seeing as how Bluegrass singers traditionally seemed to try to sing at as high a pitch level as possible.

So some groups had the melody in the middle and a "tenor" above and a "baritone" below; some put the melody on top, some put the melody on the bottom.

[Barry Wilson]

While it isn't bluegrass, this guys videos on harmony structure is amazing. he breaks down each song with multi screen video and mutes parts so you hear exactly what each part is. Beatles harmonies are good to learn

[SincereCorgi]

One part is deciding how the voices you have available can be used to their best advantage, seeing as how Bluegrass singers traditionally seemed to try to sing at as high a pitch level as possible.

Ha, this is the nice way to put it. I was going to say 'First, you stop the jam in its tracks to have a five minute argument about whether to do the song in F or F#.'

I second that 'Natural Way' CD set, as I used it in the car for a couple weeks and got stuff out of it. Having said that, harmony singing takes a lot of practice with other people and that's requires a certain amount of social courage and legwork. You can't just sing along in your car and then show up at jams all ready to jump in. Ideally, find some other people that want to learn and just try to get some songs going.

[DavidKOS]

While it isn't bluegrass, this guys videos on harmony structure is amazing. he breaks down each song with multi screen video and mutes parts so you hear exactly what each part is. Beatles harmonies are good to learn

Frudua has some great vocal videos. He also makes guitars.

[Don Grieser]

From the heart, through the nose.

[sunburst]

It depends on your vocal range, but the Bluegrass tenor harmony is the one that comes most natural to most people. As for me, I can't reach Bluegrass tenor notes, no way, no how. For me, Bluegrass baritone puts me right near the top of my vocal range, and that is where we need to be in order to sing authentic Bluegrass-sounding harmonies. When we have to sing high, or in other words, sing near (but not at!) the upper limits of our vocal ranges we can really get behind the notes and put them out there. To me, it sounds awful when people are straining for high notes, but it sounds weak when they are down in the middle or lower parts of their ranges, so finding your range will determine what part (or parts, some people can sing lead or tenor, or lead and baritone, but few can "sing all the parts" and really have the 'oomph' behind their voice on all three) puts you in your "power range".
How did I learn to sing Bluegrass baritone? Singing along with records. If you want to learn the baritone harmony, I recommend listening to (and singing along with) JD Crowe.

[Robbie Hamlett]

I learned to sing bluegrass tenor listening and singing along with John Duffy and the Seldom Scene long before I ever thought about learning to play bluegrass music. Now I'm doing a little of both and I sometimes get asked to sing lead but I am a natural alto and lose a lot of volume singing lower. I've always described bluegrass tenor as singing it from the head and pushing it really hard out your nose!

[Mandoplumb]

I guess everyone's definition of thru the nose is different. I can't think of one well known BG tenor singer that I would say sings thru his nose. Now head voice is a different thing, all I'm thinking of use a lot of head voice, but realistically all male and most female singers except maybe opera singers or very serious "longhair" singers use head voice to some extent.Frankie Vallie was all head voice and I for one loved it.

[bigskygirl]

Try to find a workshop at a local BG festival, usually they have singing and harmony workshops.

[Spencer]

Some recordings separate (partially or fully) the different voice tracks on different channels. By adjusting the balance, or removing a headphone/earplug you can better hear the part you are trying to learn on these recordings. This is especially important if you sing baritone, as they are often recorded lower in the mix and harder to hear. Some people develop a feel for the harmony, others have to learn it note by note and practice, but if you can learn harmony, it is one of the things I enjoy most about playing bluegrass. Good luck with it.

Spencer

[DHopkins]

I've found that there are some people who simply can't sing harmony. They can sing along with the lead but they don't seem to know what harmony is. We've had female singers try out for our band who said they could harmonize when, in fact, they would simply sing the lead an octave higher. I don't know whether they were never taught or it just wasn't in them.

My whole family was musical and I think that made a difference for me. My mother played organ and piano in church and sang a wonderful alto. I believe she's the reason harmony comes so easily for me. She taught me how to read music. In the 30s and 40s, my father played his Slingerland guitar and sang at barn dances back in the Ozarks of Arkansas. (I still have that guitar.) He was a great fan of the Chuck Wagon Gang and Jimmie Rodgers.

[Ky Slim]

This is a good explanation from a similar thread this past summer:

Bluegrass harmony is maybe its own thing. The idea of three part "close harmony" is what drives most of these vocals where the parts are melody or lead, and the other two are tenor and baritone. In other words, the appropriate harmony notes are the ones closest to the melody note. The way I was taught is the melody note is almost always one of the three notes of the chord you are on at the moment. The melody note could be the root, the third or the fifth of the chord. The tenor note is always the next note above the melody in the chord, and the baritone note is the other one. In the key of C (C,E,G) for example, if, say, the first melody note is the root, then the tenor sings the E and the baritone sings the G, usually below the lead. But this can be stacked in different ways depending on the voices involved. Now if the next melody note is E, and the chord hasn't changed, the tenor signs the G and the baritone sings the C. and continuing on to the melody on the G the tenor sings C and the baritone has the E. If the chord changes to F, the same rules apply but now the singers are singing F,A, and C. The voices are usually stacked low baritone, lead, and high tenor, but this can be stacked differently. I believe the Osborne brothers sang with a high lead, low baritone and low tenor below that. The notes that each part gets follow the same rules but they can be sung an octave below or above the lead. Clear as mud?

[Timbofood]

A slightly different twist on the first joke,
Not as well as I used to!
But that's is also a fact, since the guys I pick with and I do not get together as much as we used to (rehearsal one night gigging between two and four) I don't feel like I do as well as in those busy times.
Good information shared here as always but, I'm with Flatrock about "feel" there are songs that we got virtually from the first time together others that we worked on for months and finally we looked at each other and realized that it was simply not going to work so, we would walk away from it for a while, try again and if it was still a dog, sometimes it got shot!
But, the short answer (from my perspective) is listen all the time, song along with recorded things you like, try to sing different parts on the same song so you start ti understand the intervals and relationship to the others. If you get to where you sound like Bill Monroe or John Duffey, or Ron Spears (Special Concensus) we will be forced to get together and play until fingers are numb!
Listen as much as you can, sing as much as you can, be prepared to miss a few now and then.

[mando.player]

Get a copy of Skaggs and Rice. You can try to match Tony and Ricky, or you can harmonize with them. It's something you learn by doing, you're not going to find a magic book.