Contents
4. Caring About Shells
In terms of kernels, fa and ti are the ones you have to care about. If you view from the other perspective, the shells, all even-degrees and 7th should be handled with care.
In the case of harmonies 3rd above or below, what patterns should you pay attention to?
This shows the overview of what notes are produced when harmonizing 3rd above and below, when the main melody is in odd shells. The red and yellow notes are the ones which needs to be observed.
As you can see, the notes you have to watch is always the same regardless of the chord—The harmony below Rt, above 5th, and above 7th. When summarized in a table, it becomes as follows.
| Main Shell | 3rd Below | ←Easy to Use | 3rd Above | ←Easy to Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rt | 6th | ★ | 3rd | ★★★ |
| 3rd | Rt | ★★★ | 5th | ★★★ |
| 5th | 3rd | ★★★ | 7th | ★★ |
| 7th | 5th | ★★★ | 2nd | ★ |
Looking at this, 3rd shells are easy in harmony construction. The ace is thoroughly an ace!
OK firstly, the lower harmony for Rt turns into 6th. This greatly inhibits stability, so you have to be careful what musical effect it brings and whether it fit to the situation.
And when the main is 7th, the upper harmony becomes 2nd. This also more or less destabilizes the sound, so it’s necessary to understand its effects.
Additionally, 7th appears when you add upper harmony to 5th. While 7th is an odd degree, it still introduces a certain dissonance, and this should sometimes be avoided.
In these cases, you can flee to the neighbor to avoid dissonance.
This is the common measure frequently taken in practical harmony arranging.
The use of even-shell harmonies requires a deeper analysis, which will be covered in Chapter IV. At this stage, it’s adequate to view it like “Even-shell harmonies need attention. So except when it feels perfect, it’s safer to shift it to a neigboring tone.”
But remember again that if a note is short or not emphasized, it doesn’t matter much whether it is odd or even. This kind of parity awareness becomes important only when dealing with long or noticeable notes.
Real Example (1) Simple Harmony
The Beatles is known for its beautiful chorus work. The first verse starts with upper 3rd harmony, but at the very point “remember“, the harmony changes to 4th.
Let’s analyze what’s happening in the moment “mem-ber”. The chord is VIm and the main melody is so–mi, 7th and 5th respectively. Compare the normal 3rd harmony and what The Beatles did.
If you simply continue with a 3rd harmony, the sub’s shell becomes 2nd and 7th. By switching to 4th harmony, both of these became odd shells. In a simple love song like this, the straightforward odd shells are definitely more appropriate.
Real Example (2) Complex Harmony
So, is keeping consonant harmonies always the best option?—Not always so.
This is an opposite example, Listen to the chorus part (1:26-). The first phrase of main vocal “I will do anything” ends with mi, the 3rd of the chord I here.
There are two sub-vocals in the left and right, now listen to the right, which mainly uses lower 3rd harmony. The main melody ending on mi, thus, if the sub were to end on do just maintaining the lower 3rd harmony, it would likely fit well because it’s the Rt shell. However, it intentionally changes the form to 4th harmony by singing ti!
Why is that? The answer is simple: here, the dissonance of ti serving as the 7th shell was desired acoustically. Dissonance is not a bad thing. In genres like jazz and R&B, the muddiness of the seventh is highly important. Therefore, it’s the opposite of the earlier case in “In My Life”; here, the change in form was deliberately made to introduce that muddiness, even at the cost of switching the form.
In this way, the ideal harmonization greatly varies based on musical preferences. It is desired to be able to arrange according to the sound sought by the genre.
5. Miscellaneous Techniques
Changing the Basic position
As already explained, keeping the same basic position throughout a aprt is the easiest form. Incorporating changes to the position midway is a bit more advanced technique.
Changing the Distance
However, a change only in distance from 3rd to 6th or 6th to 3rd is not too difficult. Just deviate from neatly following the main melody and you can easily reach the target.
This is the example. When the sub-melody takes lower 3rd harmony, the moment when the main goes up is the chance to change the position because you can easily widen the interval by moving contrarily.
However, the sudden transition from 3rd to 6th can be said to be just a bit abrupt, and stepping unnecessarily on fa, the strong tendency tone, leaves a slight regret. It might be worth considering subtly changing the notes to explore other patterns:
Here, instead of immediately transitioning from 3rd to 6th, I used 4th and 7th, which is a kind of challenge.
As vertical harmony, the 7th brings muddiness, but for this instance, the harmony’s own line, “fa–so–mi–re“, is a listener-friendly so I prioritized that horizontal beauty.
When the harmony undergoes positional changes, it’s desirable that the harmony itself stands as a small melody line. If it moves too rigidly as if it’s a “slave to the degrees”, it inevitably chips away at the charm of the song. The “poetic spirit” is also crucial even for sub-melodies. Therefore, even if it’s a “muddy” form, I prioritized the sub-melody’s organic integrity… However, this is an area without a definite right answer.
Changing Upper/Lower Positions
On the other hand, attempting to change “upper harmony” and “lower harmony” is more challenging as it requires crossing the main melody. Since it is less frequently utilized in practice, I’ll omit its introduction here.
Imitation of Half-step Progression
Let me supplement just one special case.
Here, the melodic line with movements like “do–ti–do” and “fa–mi–fa” has beautiful half-step progression, but there’s a slight issue with the sub-melody. The sub moves in whole-step motions like “la–so–la“, re–do–re“, and depending on how you view it, the smoothness conveyed by the melodic half-step may be interrupted by the sub.
If this feels inappropriate, the option to let the sub mimic the main’s half-step motion, even deviating from the original scale, can work well.
It sounds surprisingly natural, as if it doesn’t seem to have any accidentals. This is because it’s a measure born from a rightful intention of adhering closely to the main melody without causing interference. It’s not a choice that can be made at any time and might risk standing out in a strange way. Nevertheless, it’s good to know that sometimes deliberate deviation might be the correct answer.
6. Advanced Harmonies
So the basic norm for harmonizing is; “Set ‘soft’ forms as basis, especially 3rds are comfortable. If there’s an issue on the kernel/shell side, switch to the ‘firm’ forms; 4ths for 3rds, and 5ths for 6ths.” If you can follow this, you’re the master of basic harmonization.
As a supplement, I’ll introduce some harmonies with advanced forms.
Harmony of Consecutive 4th
The chorus part of “Say So” is entirely made with 4th interval harmony. Here, a uniquely transparent sound is created, something that cannot be achieved with just the 3rd harmony.
Harmony of Unison/Octaves
I haven’t touched on this until now, but of course, there are instances of harmonizing with exactly the same pitch (unison) or an octave higher/lower. In terms of texture, it becomes an even more distinctly clear and solid sound than the 5th harmony, possessing a sense of unity.
“Sad Machine” has an iconic octave unison harmony part in the pre-chorus (1:09-). The lyrics of this song tell the story of the protagonist who awakens a robot girl, and this unison harmony precisely represents the way people directly talks to him. It functions as one element that creates the world of the song, building up its atmosphere. Rather than unnecessarily complicating the harmony, it seems more appropriate in this scene to use simple octave unison.
Harmony of 2nd/7th
The strong muddiness produced by the 2nd & 7th harmony is purely for advanced users. However, let’s take a glimpse of how beautiful these dissonances can be.
“Woods” by Bon Iver is an acapella song that starts with a solo, and gradually adds harmonies within a single phrase repeat, making for a unique composition. As the harmony becomes a three-part in the third repetition, complexities arise in the harmony, and 2nd and 7th are found in various parts.
In the Chord Chapter.I, we talked about “the bitter tastes better,” and of course, the same applies to harmony. Appropriately inserted dissonance can attract the ear as a hook. Thus, as you reach the stage where you can utilize such elements, you’ll increasingly feel, “Studying theory was genuinely beneficial; with only feelings, it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve this exquisite balance.”
Such complex harmonization methods will be covered in the Chord chapters and further elaborated in the Melody Chapter.V.
Summary
Now, summarizing the positioning of harmonies looks like this.
When including unison/octaves and the “tritone”, there are a total of 5 classes. With this classification awareness and knowledge of kernel/shell, you should be able to assign the most suitable harmony to the situation.
Summary
- When constructing harmonies, two key aspects are the harmony’s own positioning (kernel/shell) and the degree relationship with the main melody.
- Regarding the intervalic relationship with the main melody, it’s simple to classify into “2-7”, “3-6”, “4-5”, “1-8”, and the “tritone”.
- Harmonies using the 3rd and 6th relative to the main are standard. And shifting to the 4th and 5th only when that do not work well is the most fundamental style.
