Everyone Can Harmonize (Part 1)

hi and welcome to Amy Nolte music today we're starting a new series about how to sing harmony can also be about how to play harmony I think a lot of people have a hard time singing a different note than everybody else is singing that ever happened to you like you got put in a choir and maybe your voice was a little bit lower so they told you you were in Alto and then you realize that you are not singing what you want to be singing which is the melody right like if like if you got put into a choir and and everybody's singing and your part goes dah dah dah dah dah dah dah you're like that's not the part I'm not you might have just really confused you and that's normal and that happens if anybody who doesn't grow up in a musical house singing harmony learning what it is that's going to happen to you you're going to think it's weird not to be on the melody it's going to be confusing to you a lot of times what people do when they want to sing harmony is they sing a third below the pitch or a third above the pitch in fact that's what my kids do my my boy Charlie loves to sing a third above he likes to sing the high harmony kind of like Michael Scott from the office on happy birthday always sings the high harmony and my daughter likes to sing a third below so a lot of times when we're singing a song together I'll just be like Charlie you sing the high harmony I'll using the low harmony and for the most part they do pretty well and people can do that if you've got an ear and you've got some talent you can usually pick out a harmony but what about those of you who can't do it and it's a lot of you now my husband is an example he can sing harmony but only if I teach it to him if I teach it to him then he's got it and he won't forget it he's good he's got a lot of talent that way but if I ask him to just make up a base part you can't do it this video is an attempt to help people who don't feel like they know how to make up a harmony part start to actually make up a harmony part that makes sense I tried to pick a song that I think everybody in the whole world knows because I'm so happy that people from all over the world are watching my videos and and the the song that I thought of was because in the Olympics a few years ago they had Paul McCartney come out and and he played Hey Jude I don't know if you remember that I can't remember where they were maybe China I can't remember but it's not important but I remember thinking hey Jude is not the kind of song that you would play at the Olympics it's not very inspiring or anything but then they got to the chorus and the whole stadium and I know the whole world was going no no no no no and I thought that's why they picked it because everybody in the whole world knows Hey Jude so that's the song we're going to pick today I might pick another song too we might take two examples but I'm just going to try to pick one that everybody knows and that's super easy and then I'm going to show you about common tones and that's how we're going to practice singing harmony today so let's pretend like hey dude is starting I can't actually play you the recording which is what I want to do because of copyright reasons especially when it's the Beatles but I can play it myself so what I would suggest doing after you watch this is go turn on Hey Jude and this is what this is what you do you're gonna hear the first melody note which is Hey Jude don't be afraid okay so that's the first part is this hey you're going to find that note in your voice hey and then what I want you to do is keep that note just keep singing that note until it feels like it doesn't sound good anymore with the song alright so let's try that hey do you see that so the melody actually goes down hey dude but you are not gonna go down you're gonna sing the same note hey dude and you're gonna hold on to that note like your life depends on it you're not gonna leave it you're gonna go hey dude dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah I'm gonna forego the words cuz I might mix them up and get the wrong [Music] here that it still sounds fine [Music] the whole first part of Hey Jude sounds absolutely fine if you just sing middle C all of those chords is because the chords have a C in them that's an F chord and the court has a C in it they we change to a C chord that has a scene in la la la la sounds good take a sad song that's a c7 chord still has a scene and make it wither then back to an F that has a C so C is the common tone to the first two three chords of the song C is common to those that gets a little technical and I don't I don't need to get technical with this lesson today all I want you to do is just learn to grab a pitch the very first pitch that the song starts on and see if it sounds good through the song now we're just going to keep going and see when it doesn't sound good so see if you can tell I'm not going to change notes when I should change notes and the only note we're going to change to is D only two notes we're going to sing la la so you tell me when you think we should change to a D note okay said song and make it better so we're still you I'd hear it that was the place the cord actually changes to a cord that doesn't have a/c in it and those of you who are not musically inclined you don't really need to know that all you need to know is that your note that you started with la doesn't sound good anymore it's all you got to do is just raise it or lower it one step we're going to raise it but lowering it would also work [Music] now I should go back down shipments love still and then it repeats so you can do the exact same thing again you can actually sing it sing it with the recording now that you know that you've only got these two notes and you know when to switch them you can do it [Music] Oh here's our change [Music] harder to change to now we're going to do the bridge just keep your note see if it works there doesn't sound right we're gonna raise it you duh anymore so we're gonna go back down down so this Bertha goes don't you know that it's a fool we're gonna do the Dino now [Music] that pretty much takes us through the whole song I know that that's ugly I know that you would never sing that well you might if you were in a choir and you are like one of the alto parts or something that those might be your notes probably not because there's Hooper boring but they work and that is your first step to learning harmony is learning that the same note can work over a ton of the song especially if we're talking about a rock song or a pop song let's talk about another song that I think everybody probably knows if we try on three little birds by Bob Marley everybody kind of know that I think everybody kind of knows that don't worry about a thing cause every little thing it's gonna be alright okay what's our first note in the melody don't write there we're gonna hold it don't [Music] that's what we need to switch this time we could we could raise it but let's lower it this time cuz everything's gonna be you right we go right back to it right don't worry [Music] most simple pop songs it's going to work on there going to be some songs where you're going to have to raise it instead of a whole step a half step but within the space of three half steps on the piano you're going to be able to sing a common tone for like nearly every song there is if you just take one of those notes kind of a cool trick so give it a shot if you're listening to something when you're driving somewhere when you're walking somewhere give it a shot find out what that first melody note is hold on to it like there's no tomorrow and then sing it is sing the heck out of it sing it until it doesn't sound good anymore and then sing a lip higher or a step lower and until that doesn't sound good anymore and then sing the one that you started on see how many songs you can go through and sing harmony like this you might have to go to the piano and find what the note is and help yourself like hammer it out while you're just singing it over and over and over again test it on your friends to see if they can do it I mean what friend wouldn't want to be tested on this but I think it's fun to test it on people like even though my husband can't make up a harmony part like I was saying he can do this most people can do this most people can sing one note until they think it doesn't sound good anymore and they can tell when it doesn't sound good anymore and they can change thanks for listening thanks for learning with me about harmony and common tones is the first step in a harmony series the next video we are going to talk about singing thirds and how you can make up harmonies all by yourself alright I'll see you next time thanks for watching amy Nolte music

Channel: Aimee Nolte Music

Views: 189,004

Keywords: harmony, aimee nolte, jazz, sing, melody, how to, tutorial, music, jazz harmony, pop, rock, make up harmony, simple, common tones, jazz theory, music theory, easy

Id: pOzl6hiUiKw

Length: 12min 20sec (740 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 31 2017