How Does 5 Types of VOCAL HARMONIES Every Musician Should Know Work?

Vocal harmonies are when singers work together to make one super cool sound that’s bigger and more fun than just one voice.

Imagine you and your best friend are playing with blocks. If you both stack your blocks at the same time, the tower is twice as big, that's like parallel harmony, where two people sing the same note but it sounds like a whole group!

Now imagine you're trying to reach a high shelf, and your friend helps by standing on your shoulders. That’s like close harmony, where one person sings a little higher or lower than the other, making the sound feel cozy and tight.

If you’re playing tag with friends in the park, sometimes people shout out “Hey!”, “Watch out!”, that’s like call-and-response harmony, where one singer says something, then another answers it back, like a fun game!

When your mom sings along to her favorite song while making cookies, she might add extra notes around the main melody, that's layered harmony, adding more voices on top of the original.

And if you're all singing together in different parts, like a group dance, that’s background harmony, where everyone adds their own special part to make the music feel full and lively.

Take the quiz →

Examples

  1. A group of singers each singing a note that fits together like puzzle pieces to make a song sound richer.

Ask a question

See also

Discussion

Recent activity