How to Harmonise Like a Pro

“Harmonising is the ability to sing a different note from the main melody while still blending musically,” says Karpiak, who teaches and provides resources for singers under the banner the Vocal Coach London.

Several notes sung together create a “richer, fuller, and more expressive sound,” he adds, with harmonising developing “a singer’s ear, musicianship, and listening skills.”

Devonte, who runs a variety of singing groups across London, says that if you compare singing to painting, “the melody is your main picture and the harmonies are the shades and textures that bring it to life.”

The answer is everywhere in music – and very often. 

“Harmony appears in almost every musical style, including pop, rock, gospel, jazz, folk music, opera, choral music, and a cappella singing,” Karpiak says. “Whether it is a gospel choir, a Beatles recording, a musical theatre ensemble, or an operatic trio, harmony is one of the key elements that gives music depth and character.”

In musical theatre specifically, Devonte says, “harmony is used to help tell the story and heighten the emotions – or sometimes the intentions – of different characters within the narrative.”

He cites the song Hello from The Book of Mormon as a great example of harmonising in action, or Take Me or Leave Me from Rent, “where, as the song builds, the harmonies and interjections really reveal the emotional conflict between the two characters.” 

No matter what style of music you’d like to perform, learning how to sing harmony is sure to come in handy.

Credit: LightField Studios/Shutterstock

1. Learn the melody first.

For both teachers, the first step when learning how to harmonise is to get really confident with singing the main melody of the song. “If that isn’t secure, everything else becomes tricky from that point,” Devonte says. 

2. Treat the harmony like a melody.

When learning a specific harmony part, Karpiak says the second step is for singers to learn the harmony line as if it was a melody in its own right, to prevent them from being pulled back into singing the main tune. 

3. Develop your active listening skills.

The third step, Karpiak says, is to “focus on developing active listening.” He explains that “successful harmony singers learn to hear how their note functions within the overall sound rather than concentrating only on their own line.”

To explore harmonising more generally, Devonte says he will start introducing simple intervals, such as singing a third above or below the melody, once singers have a secure grip on the main melody. In simple terms, a major third is an interval that spans three letters in the musical alphabet. Devonte will also use scales to enable singers to hear how those notes sit against each other. 

He will then build in basic chord work. That may involve singing the individual notes of chords, or, in groups, singing different notes from the same chord simultaneously to create a harmonic effect. “That’s where people really start to hear how harmony is built,” Devonte says.

“Once that’s comfortable, we can start adding more colour with things like sevenths or suspensions for more advanced singers,” he adds.

Devonte says the goal is to train the ear so singers begin to recognise harmony naturally, which is especially important in styles taught orally, such as folk music and spirituals.

1. Interval awareness 

This exercise “develops interval awareness and helps singers recognise the distance between notes more accurately,” Karpiak says. “The clearer a singer understands intervals, the easier it becomes to maintain an independent harmony line.”

Karpiak recommends using a piano to find your note and a metronome (you can easily find a free one online), starting at a comfortable tempo and increasing your speed while retaining accuracy. If you don’t have a piano, there are plenty of free piano apps you can find for your phone or online.

Starting on a C, sing:

C–D–C

C–E–C

C–F–C

C–G–C

C–A–C

C–B–C

C–C–C

Then reverse the sequence back down. You can also transpose the exercise into keys other than C.

2. Octave awareness

To help develop pitch accuracy and confidence with larger intervals, Karpiak recommends the following exercise:

Sing the note C and then C an octave above. Do the same with C sharp, jumping up an octave, and then D. Continue up through the chromatic scale. (The chromatic scale contains 12 pitches within an octave, so it’s like playing every consecutive black and white key on the piano.)

3. Breaking down chords

One of Devonte’s favourite exercises to help students learn how to harmonise is to play a simple, three-note chord on a piano and ask the singer to sing each of the notes separately. “This helps them really understand how harmony is built from the inside out,” he says.

4. Tension and resolution

Karpiak says this exercise helps develop harmonic awareness and helps singers “maintain independent harmony lines within more complex musical textures.”

First, a pianist plays the notes C, E flat, F sharp, and A simultaneously as a chord, while the singer moves slowly through a sequence of the following notes:

C – C♯ – D – D♯ – E – F – F♯ – G – G♯ – A

“As each sung note interacts with the chord underneath, different harmonic relationships are created,” Karpiak says. “Some notes sound stable and blended, while others create noticeable tension through intervals such as seconds, sevenths, and tritones.”

“The singer learns to hear how each note functions against the underlying harmony and develops a deeper awareness of consonance, dissonance, tension, and resolution,” he says.

Devonte says harmonising is about “learning to listen and blend.… The singers who become great at harmony are usually the ones who develop strong listening skills and learn to trust their own part while staying connected to everyone else’s.”