Guitar harmonies

AFAIK an interval of a 3rd is the most usable - check out stuff by Iron Maiden and Thin Lizzy

The Musical Director of the Cambridge Guitar Orchestra plays a Terz, which is tuned a minor 3rd higher then standard.

A :-)

Thanks Alan, yea we are already doing one Thin Lizzy song with some harmony in it "Hollywood" and we just started working on another the other day "still in Love with you" from their Live and Dangerous album. I didn't like the song at first it was too laid back for my tastes but it has been growing on me.

There's also a little harmony solo in Mr Crowley which we do.

Here's link that might help ya out a bit . . .

http://chordmelody.org/

It's jazz oriented, but the fundamentals of forming a harmonized melody line are the same, no matter what genre you're working in.

Thanks Moon I took a quick look and there's alot of stuff on that site I'll have to dig around it a bit.

hey cnev :D . I dont want to hijack your thread, but i have to honest - i dont know what term guitar harmonies means (even though i have heard it before). does it just mean playing the same chords in different octaves or is it more complex than that?

So is there any magic to determoning the best interval to use for the harmony solos?

I found a way to "cheat" at this long ago. My Ibanez Artist EQ has 9 outputs on it...no kidding. One is their standard output that is either normal or "hot" if you use the powered EQ circuit. Another pickup is split for the bottom three strings and the top three being on separate channels thru an ARP Avatar (excellent for Reggae!)...as well as a hexaphonic pickup that has six individual outputs.

But I hardly ever use the hex all the way thru to the end of the mix...I use it to come up with harmonies. If you solo out each string on your board you can quite readily use them as references...EASY as anything! :wink:

Cat

hey cnev :D . I dont want to hijack your thread, but i have to honest - i dont know what term guitar harmonies means (even though i have heard it before). does it just mean playing the same chords in different octaves or is it more complex than that?
I don't mean to hijack the answer either :lol: but it is twin leads and not at octives but at 3rds, 5th's ect. Thin Lizzy has alot of these, think "The Boys Are Back in Town".

Not to get too technical, but playing at the octave isn't a true harmony - in harmony it's called a "doubling". (Both guitars are playing the same notes; true harmony occurs when the instruments play different notes).

There are really just two ways to create a harmonized part: either you compose a new melody for the second instrument, which is called "counterpoint", or both instruments to play the same melodic line, but starting on different scale tones - that's sometimes called playing "in parallel". If you play C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C and the other guitar plays E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E, you have harmonized lines. Oh, and this is not a case of one guitar "playing in a mode" - I've heard some guitarists describe it that way, but it's wrong; both are in C major.

Playing the same line a fifth (or fourth) apart is technically a harmony, since you have different notes, but it's also pretty boring - those notes always form intervals that sound the same (C-G has exactly the same "quality" as playing D-A or Bb-F, etc). When two instruments do this, it's called "parallel organum"; when one guitar does it, it's just power chords :)

It's the other intervals that change in quality as you play. If you're both in C, C-E sounds different from D-F; the first is a major third, the second a minor third. This makes the music more interesting and complex. Seconds and sevenths are too close together to sound good when you string a whole bunch together, so almost all parallel harmonies are in thirds or sixths.

This is probably incredibly obvious, but a great way to learn to create guitar harmonies (and I'm assuming based on the original post that we're defining "guitar harmonies" as two guitars each playing single note lines that are in harmony with each other) is to listen to other insturments that, because they are monophonic (can only play one note at a time) often work in harmony together. And the best, most accessible example of that is the voice. People sing in harmony all the time.

One thing not noted here yet is that the two guitars do not have to be in harmony for every single note of a lead line. Using the occasional dissonant note and then having both parts resolve, can create very interesting harmony lines. For instance, this is a single guitar approximation for the first line of Please Please Me, by the Beatles. One voice stays on the G note (open G string) while the second takes on the moving melody line (on the high E and B strings):
E 3 - 2 - 0 - - - 0 - - - - - 0 - 2 - 0 - - - - - - - - -
B - - - - - - 3 - - - 3 - 0 - - - - - - - 3 - - - - - - -
G 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - - - - - 0 - - - - - - -
D - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
E - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Notice, too, that both guitars don't have to play note for note rhythmically, either. One guitar can hang onto a single note for a beat or even a whole measure while the other guitar plays its part of the harmony lines. There are more possiblities than one can imagine.

If you can read music, you might want to especially at hymns. They are usually written out in four-part vocal harmony and they are an excellent source for learning how melody and harmony lines can be worked out.

Hope this helps.

Peace