Here is one approach to construct intervals below the melody note. The melody usually goes on the top. When considering the harmony note underneath, analyze the melody note. If it is a chord tone then the harmony note should be a chord tone as well.
| 3rds and 6ths | best |
| 2nds and 7ths | OK |
| Tritones (diminished 5ths) | rare |
| 5ths and 8ths | usually weak |
| 4ths | usually bad |
In our analysis of the Beatles we have gotten a different distribution:
| 3rds | most common |
| 4ths, 5ths, and 6ths | common |
| 7ths | less common |
| 2nds, tritones, and octaves | rare |
One way to harmonize a melody is to go through and harmonize the chord tones with chord tones. For every note in the melody, add a harmony note. Vocal harmonies in a pop song can go above the melody since the melody can be emphasized with studio techniques (pan the lead vocal to the center, double track it, make it louder, etc.). Usually with instrumental parts, especially when writing the harmony for the same instrument type as the lead, the harmony goes underneath.
See the example of harmonizing the melody of "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean". Go through and analyze the melody, noting which notes in the melody are non-chord tones. Then harmonize the chord tones using one of the two interval schemes shown above. The next step is to harmonize the remaining non-chord tones. See how the melody moves--if the non-chord tone in the melody is a passing tone or neighbor you might want to follow along in parallel in the harmony voice. In classical writing you avoid successive parallel fourths, fifths, and octaves. The best thing to do is to play you idea on the piano and see how it sounds, or enter it into a notation program like Sibelius and hear it on the synthesizer.
When considering notes to use in harmonizing non-chord tones, make a note of what the diatonically-related chords are for the key that you are in. For example, "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" is shown in F major. For non-chord tones you can look at what other chords in the key contain the non-harmonic tone in the melody. This will be shown below.
Here's the first few measures of the tune:
The "G" in the first full measure is a non-chord tone, as is the "F" in the second measure. Leaving them out, we can harmonize the rest:
Now, to harmonize the note "G", we look through the diatonically-related chords for F major, since the piece is in F.
What chords in F major have a note "G" in them? [ answer ]. Knowing that, we can use any of the notes Bb, D, C, E, or G to harmonize the "G" with [ why? ] . The same group of notes can be picked from in the next bar to analyze the "G". I chose "C" the first time, and Bb the second time:
See how the whole melody has been harmonized.
If the melody note is a chord tone then the melody and two harmony notes should form triads, based on the chord symbol in effect at the time. The degrees of the scale in the right column depend on the type of chord, indicated in the left column.
major and minor triads complete the triad with 1, 3, and 5 V7 chords you must have 3 and 7
To create a full/lush sound, jazz sound, create chords with four different pitches. Use the guidelines for 3-part writing, adding a 4th note as indicated:
| major and minor triads | Add M6, M7, or maybe M9 (if it's not
too low to avoid clashing with bass player): 1-3-5-6 1-3-5-7 1-3-5-9 |
| seventh chords | Fill out the four notes of the chord: 1-3-5-7. Assuming another instrument is playing the root down in the bass somewhere, you can
substitute 9 for 1, as long as you don't put it too low (you don't want it to clash
with the bass player): |
When you harmony you may want to leave the bass player to play the root. If you do that you can complete a ninth chord with the four harmony parts. You may with to use open or closed position.
If you want a simpler, pop sound:
Follow the same guidelines as for 4-part writing. Double the octave down an octave. Try "drop 2" to give the melody on the top some room to breath, and perhaps "drop 4" to spread out the voices even more. The "drop" technique creates more space between the melody and the harmony parts underneath it. Counting down from the top voice, the arranger using "drop 2" technique takes the second note from the top and moves it down an octave. In "drop 4" the fourth note from the bottom is dropped an octave.
©2001 Robert Willey
