What's the Best Action to Take for Vocal Harmonies?

Alright—let's talk about vocal harmonies. 

No doubt many of you reading this can remember (or are currently experiencing) less-than-stellar harmonies coming from your vocal team members. The way you stack vocals in your worship team can make or break the quality of your performances, so how do you decide which approach to take, especially if your singers are inexperienced?

First, we need to go over the features of two-part and three-part harmonies, discussing their pros and cons:

Two-Part Harmony

• Melody paired with a single harmony

• Moves in mostly parallel motion (as in, when the melody rises, the harmony rises—when the melody falls, the harmony falls)

• Pro: Easy to pull off 

• Con: Less harmonic density, which can lead to a thin sound

Three-Part Harmony

• Melody joined with a two harmony lines, either above, below, or around

• Moves in a combination of parallel (rise/rise or fall/fall), contrary (rise/fall or fall/rise), and oblique motion (rise/stay level or fall/stay level; stay level/rise or stay level/fall)

• Pro: Full harmonic density

• Con: Difficult to execute, often leading to improper "voice leading" and crossing of parts

When deciding which approach to use, you need to evaluate what your singers can do (i.e., can they maintain independent parts, or do they need to match another singer?). I always find that with inexperienced singers, they can usually grab hold of a melody and match pitch with either the leader or with the person standing next to them. So when the harmonies aren't stacking up, especially in three parts, I immediately revert to a Two-Part framework, having one member take a secondary harmony and then having the other member match the melody with me. Here are the usual formats that I work with (primarily trios of mixed voices):

Male Lead + Male Back-up + Female Back-up

• Male Back-up takes secondary harmony line, either 3rd/4th above or a 3rd/4th below the Male Lead 

• Female Back-up doubles the melody one octave above the Male Lead

• Yields octave-doubled melodies (REALLY important for reinforcement for congregation) and an added chord tone to fill out the harmonic space

Male Lead + Female Back-up 1 + Female Back-up 2

• Female Back-up 1 doubles the melody one octave above the Male Lead

• Female Back-up takes secondary harmony line, either 3rd/4th above the Male Lead or a 3rd/4th below Female Back-up 1

• Yields octave-doubled melodies and an added chord tone to fill out the harmonic space

Female Lead + Female Back-up + Male Back-up

• Female Back-up takes secondary harmony line, either 3rd/4th above or below the Female Lead 

• Male Back-up doubles the melody one octave below the Female Lead

• Yields octave-doubled melodies and an added chord tone to fill out the harmonic space

Female Lead + Male Back-up 1 + Male Back-up 2

• Male Back-up 1 doubles the melody one octave below the Female Lead

• Male Back-up 2 takes secondary harmony line, either 3rd/4th above Male Back-up 2 or a 3rd/4th below the Female Lead 

• Yields octave-doubled melodies and an added chord tone to fill out the harmonic space

Male Lead + Male Back-up 1 + Male Back-up 2 (also works for All-Female trios)

• You actually will only have no more than two voices singing at a given time (unless in intentional all-unison—use sparingly)

• Unisons in the same octave can be problematic, as there are differing consistencies in tone, pitch, and diction—avoid this, unless you use them to emphasize ending phrases of major song sections

• Male Back-up parts (only one at a time) take secondary harmony line, either 3rd/4th above or a 3rd/4th below the Male Lead 

• Yields simple melody+harmony relationship that's in tune and in tone

There are other frameworks out there, but these are the ones that consistently produce results for the teams I work with. It should go without saying, but you should use your harmonies in key points within your arrangement, alternating between solo leads and full parts, depending on the song section. 

If you have a unique approach to managing and organizing vocal teams, please reach out via our socials or at [email protected]! We'd love to share your ideas with out growing community (we'll give full credit, of course 😊).

Be blessed 👊✌️