My approach to harmony building
Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 9:54 pm
I thought it'd be interesting to do an overview of some of the different approaches I use to build harmonies. Vocal, strings, brass, 8 bit chiptunes, you name it, I use a similar approach for any thing that consists of individual voices. Obviously, it's based on traditional line writing, just organized in a more approachable way.
I didn't mention it in the VO, but basically the trick comes down to leaving, or "making" room for all the parts to move around in. You can see that I go:
(going from top to bottom parts)
part 1: melodic motion
part 2: harmonic function, doesn't move around too much, but prioritizes functional line over style
part 3: melodic motion, not quite as much as part 1, but still has some character
And if I were to put in a part 4, it would be similar to part 2, and would maintain harmonic function rather than go for an interesting line. You end up with 2 parts that have memorable lines (or "could"). Even if you had more parts, you probably won't need more than 2 parts doing memorable lines at the same time. (classic 2 voice counterpoint) The third guy could muddy things up. Especially with modern composing, where you have drums and synth parts and all sorts of busy stuff. Apart from the 2 guys doing memorable stuff, everyone else just fills in as either supporting one of the 2 memorable lines, or just reverting to a more "comping" style strategy where they're really just telling the listener what chord is being played.
In the demo I make the parts with a synth sound, and then play with strings, just to demonstrate how well it translates.
I didn't mention it in the VO, but basically the trick comes down to leaving, or "making" room for all the parts to move around in. You can see that I go:
(going from top to bottom parts)
part 1: melodic motion
part 2: harmonic function, doesn't move around too much, but prioritizes functional line over style
part 3: melodic motion, not quite as much as part 1, but still has some character
And if I were to put in a part 4, it would be similar to part 2, and would maintain harmonic function rather than go for an interesting line. You end up with 2 parts that have memorable lines (or "could"). Even if you had more parts, you probably won't need more than 2 parts doing memorable lines at the same time. (classic 2 voice counterpoint) The third guy could muddy things up. Especially with modern composing, where you have drums and synth parts and all sorts of busy stuff. Apart from the 2 guys doing memorable stuff, everyone else just fills in as either supporting one of the 2 memorable lines, or just reverting to a more "comping" style strategy where they're really just telling the listener what chord is being played.
In the demo I make the parts with a synth sound, and then play with strings, just to demonstrate how well it translates.