Recordings to practice harmony to?

[RadiationNation]

I desperately need to work on my harmony vocals and figured it'd probably be best to experiment by practicing to some recordings.

 

Just curious if any of you knew of any particularly good recordings for this purpose?

 

Thanks.

[J.Paul]

Any Eagles song should do,

if the intervals are too dense to figure out,

Bonjovi almost always has decent two part BGVs.

 

Ultimately you'll need to practice with another person or people

because once you get your pitch and part the hard stuff starts :

blending/tone, phrasing,dynamics.....

and those all need to be done w/ other people because it's a group effort (you all should be matching each other into a cohesive unit)

[grace_slick]

Eagles, yeah...Fleet Foxes...Beach Boys...or for fairly simple harmonies, Beatles...?

[Jersey Jack]

I have a training CD by Susan Anders. I haven't worked with it in a while, but it seemed helpful. Here's a link:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Singing-Ear-Susan-Anders/dp/B0009WJ2PS/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1311688752&sr=1-1

 

What is your specific problem? Is it theory-based--i.e, "I don't know which note I should sing?" Or is the problem rather that you can't find or can't hold the note you know you're suppoed to hit?

 

I can do stable harmony very well--the kind of thing featured in the Beatles Twist and Shout or in The Band's The Weight. This is a straight climbing arpeggio, and I can model on this to hit a third or a fifth above any given note. When the melody begins to move around, however.... I find it very hard to hover over a moving melody without drifting down into the melody.

[RadiationNation]

What is your specific problem? Is it theory-based--i.e, "I don't know which note I should sing?" Or is the problem rather that you can't find or can't hold the note you know you're suppoed to hit? I can do stable harmony very well--the kind of thing featured in the Beatles Twist and Shout or in The Band's The Weight . This is a straight climbing arpeggio, and I can model on this to hit a third or a fifth above any given note. When the melody begins to move around, however.... I find it very hard to hover over a moving melody without drifting down into the melody.

 

More the latter--I understand the concept of harmony singing, but haven't done enough of it to be able to do it well.

 

I do have at least one other person to practice with (my drummer, who sings great harmony), but I'd also like to do some practicing on my own.

 

And yes, I have the same problem with drifting into the melody sometimes. Maybe I just haven't developed my ear for harmonies yet, I don't know, but it's hard for me to not sing the melody at the moment.

[chamcham]

Do you know how to use a DAW (digital audio workstation)?

 

You can always record the other parts yourself and use them as your "partners".

So record all the parts with your voice and whenever you sing, mute the track that you're singing (since you're replacing it with your voice).

 

For the really difficult sections out of your league, you can try to replace it with a piano.