Making Harmonies

Ideas for harmonizing with a melody

In most jam sessions people play tunes together in unison, just for the joy of playing the tunes. Sometimes, for special moments, variety, or in performance, musicians like to add a touch of harmony to fill out the melody. Below are some tips on making harmonies, and at the end, I will give you an example of a harmony part I’ve written that incorporates many of these suggestions.

1. No need to play harmony notes everywhere.

Sometimes the nicest effect is to surprise the listener with a nice harmony on a long note, an ending, or a high point of a tune. Very often harmonies are saved for the repeat of a tune, so that listeners get to hear what the tune sounds like before adding the fancy stuff. You can use the ideas below to create a full harmony part or just to add bits of harmony in key places.

2. Octaves add variety and reinforce the melody.

A high tune can sound stronger with a lower octave added. Pipe tunes, for instance, are limited to a specific range, from the G just under the open A string, up to the next A (3 fingers on the E string). There is always room on the fiddle to play these tunes an octave lower, though they can sometimes be more awkward to play there. Use your ears. Once you are familiar with the tune, start on the first note an octave lower and find your from there to learn to play through the tune. Adding a lower octave generally reinforces the melody better than a higher octave.

3. Harmonies usually use arpeggio/chord notes that relate to the melody.

Experiment with a harmony by using chord notes to harmonize beat notes; don’t try to fit in with a chord for every note of the melody. The basic chord (an arpeggio is just the notes of chord played one at a time) is the first, third, and fifth notes of a scale. If your melody starts in the key of D, you can build your harmony by starting with a note of the chord that’s different from the melody note (in D major, the three chord notes are D, F# and A). The harmony can use chord notes above or below the melody notes, but avoid using too many fifths (the fifth note above the melody note, which on a fiddle would use the same fingering but one string higher). Two or more fifths in a row can sound a bit odd, unless you like that unusual sound! (But see #5!)

4. Don’t distract from the melody.

The harmony should complement the melody, not replace or overshadow it. At times, when you’re playing or making a harmony part, you might even try merging with the melody here and there, to make sure listeners are following the tune. It can be nice sometimes to start off playing the actual melody for a few notes before diverging into a harmony line. When the end of a phrase settles on a longer note, a harmony can fill in a few notes for decoration and to help lead into the next phrase. But most of the time it’s better for the harmony part not to fill in too many extra notes; sometimes try going the opposite way, and use some longer notes. You don’t have to mirror every melody note with a parallel harmony line. The longer notes help redirect the listener’s attention to the melody, since we tend to listen to the moving notes rather than held ones. This can be especially helpful if the melody instrument is a quiet one. In one of my recordings, for example, I was playing fiddle to back up a harp, and by using some longer note in the harmony part, I made sure that people paid attention to the harp as it played the melody.

5. Break the rules if you have to — ultimately it’s all about how the music sounds.

You can work with chords if you know what they are, or just work with notes that sound good to you. If your harmony sounds good but diverges from a typical chord pattern for that tune, a good accompanist can always adjust chords to fit your harmony. In other words, don’t feel trapped by music theory, but knowledge about chord progressions can inform and improve a harmony part. Sometimes a harmony part can lead to a high point or to a nice resolution, even if there’s a moment of dissonance on the way. If it sounds good, use it!

6. Make a harmony part that can stand on its own.

Even if a harmony part theoretically fits the tune, it can still sound odd or distracting if it jumps around from one place to another just to fit some rule of music theory. Just as tunes do, harmony parts can make their way plausibly from a nice sound on one beat note to the next beat note, even if a note or two in between, along the path, might sound strange if taken out of context. Once you start working with a harmony part, see if you can adjust it to have a nice flow. This not only makes it sound good but also makes it more fun to play and easier to remember.

A sample harmony part the uses most of the above ideas

Below is the tune “Hills of Lorne” with a harmony part I wrote for it. There are many possible harmonies; this is just one idea, and I don’t play the harmony this way every time, but I like this one. Note how the harmony’s first three notes are the same as the melody before moving into harmonic ideas. The harmony part itself can be played as a tuneful melody in its own right. Some notes lead from one beat to another, just like the melody does, without necessarily strictly fitting the chord of the moment — but the beat notes do fit in with the chords appropriate in those moments. Note how the high F# of the first phrase and the same note in the third phrase (same phrase of the tune) use different harmony notes implying different chords for the same note. Usually you can use the same harmony for the same phrase, but this change of chords sounded nice. At the end of the first line, the harmony jumps to a lower idea which fits in nicely and adds a new feeling, rather than just mirroring the melody. The last note of the first line is an example of a longer note allowing time for moving eighths that lead back to the first phrase; a similar idea can be seen in the second-to-last measure of the third line. At the end of the second line, the harmony leads down to the final note with an extra eighth note, without distracting from the melody arriving at the last note of the A part.

Enjoy making some harmonies. Expect to come up with a few bad ones before you get the hang of it!