Vocal harmony

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

is a style of vocal music

Vocal music

Vocal music is a genre of music performed by one or more singers, with or without instrumental accompaniment, in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. Music which employs singing but does not feature it prominently is generally considered instrumental music Vocal music is a genre of...

 in which a consonant

Consonance and dissonance

In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...

 note or notes are sung at the same time as a main melody in a predominantly homophonic texture. Vocal harmonies are used in many subgenres of European art music, including Classical choral music and opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 and in the popular styles from many Western cultures ranging from folk songs and musical theater pieces to rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 ballads. In the simplest style of vocal harmony, the main vocal melody is supported by a single backup vocal line, either at a pitch which is above or below the main vocal line, often in thirds or sixths which fit in with the chord progression

Chord progression

A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...

 used in the song. In more complex vocal harmony arrangements, different backup singers may sing two or even three other notes at the same time as each of the main melody notes, mostly with consonant, pleasing-sounding thirds, sixths, and fifths (although dissonant notes may be used as short passing notes).

In art music

Vocal harmonies have been an important part of Western art music since the Renaissance-era introduction of Mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 melodies harmonized in sweet thirds and sixths. With the rise of the Lutheran church's chorale

Chorale

A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....

 hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

 singing style, congregations sang hymns arranged with four or five-part vocal harmony. In the Romantic era of music during the 1800s, vocal harmonization became more complex, and arrangers began including more dissonant harmonies. Operas and choral music from the Romantic era used tense-sounding vocal harmonies with augmented and diminished intervals as an important tool for underscoring the drama of the music. With contemporary music from the 1900s and 2000s, composers made increasingly difficult demands on choir

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

s which were singing in vocal harmony, such as instructions to sing microtonal notes or make percussive sounds.

In popular music

To sing vocal harmony in a pop or rock context, backup singers need to be able to adjust the pitch of their notes so that they are in tune with the pitch of the lead vocalist and the band's instruments. As well, the rhythm of the backup harmony parts has to be in time with the lead singer and the rhythm section

Rhythm section

A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...

. While some bands use relatively simple harmony vocals, with long, slow-moving vocal harmony notes supporting the vocal lead during the chorus sections, other bands make the backup singers into more equal partners of the main vocalist. In more vocally-oriented bands, backup singers may have to sing complex parts which demand a vocal agility and sensitivity equal to that of the main vocal line. Usually, pop and rock bands use harmony vocals while the rest of the band is playing; however, as an effect, some rock and pop harmony vocals are done a cappella

A cappella

A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

, without instrumental accompaniment. This device became widely used in the end chorus section of 1980s and 1990s-era hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

 and heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 ballads as well as Horror Punk

Horror punk

Horror punk is a music genre that mixes Gothic and punk rock sounds with morbid imagery and lyrics, which are often influenced by horror films...

 (which cites influence from both Heavy Metal and Doo-Wop)

Other roles

While some bands use backup singers who only sing when they are on stage, it is common for backup singers to have other roles while they are on stage. In many rock and metal bands, the musicians doing backup vocals also play instruments, such as keyboards, rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

 or drums. In Latin or Afro-Cuban

Afro-Cuban

The term Afro-Cuban refers to Cubans of Sub Saharan African ancestry, and to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community...

 groups, backup singers may play percussion instruments or shakers while singing. In some pop and hip-hop groups and in musical theater, the backup singers may be required to perform elaborately-choreographed dance routines while they sing through headset microphones.

Barbershop quartets

One of the more complex styles of vocal harmony is the barbershop quartet style, in which the melody is harmonized in four parts. In a barbershop quartet arrangement, each voice has its own role: generally, the lead sings the melody, the tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 harmonizes above the melody, the bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes, and the baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

 completes the chord, usually below the lead. The melody is not usually sung by the tenor or bass. Barbershop quartets are more likely to use dissonant and "tense"-sounding dominant seventh chord

Dominant seventh chord

In music theory, a dominant seventh chord, or major minor seventh chord,is a chord composed of a root, major third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh. It can be also viewed as a major triad with an additional minor seventh...

s than pop or rock bands.

Doo-wop groups

Doo-wop

Doo-wop

The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...

 is a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 music, which developed in African-American communities in the 1940s and which achieved mainstream popularity in the US both in the 1950s to the early 1960s. It used smooth, consonant vocal harmonies, with a number of singers imitating instruments while singing nonsense syllables. For example, in The Ravens

The Ravens

The Ravens were an American R&B vocal group, formed in 1946 by Jimmy Ricks and Warren Suttles. They were one of the most successful and most influential vocal quartets of the period, and had several hits on the R&B chart in the late 1940s and early 1950s....

' song "Count Every Star" (1950), the singers imitate the "doomph", "doomph" plucking-sound of a double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

. Well-known hits include "In the Still of the Night (I Remember)" and "Get a Job

Get a Job (song)

"Get a Job" is one of the best known doo-wop songs of the 1950s. Recorded by The Silhouettes in October 1957, the song reached the number one spot on the Billboard pop and R&B singles charts in February 1958....

" by The Silhouettes

The Silhouettes

The Silhouettes were an American doo wop/R&B group whose single "Get A Job" was a #1 hit on the Billboard R&B singles chart and pop singles chart in 1958. The doo-wop revival group Sha Na Na derived their name from the song's lyrics. "Get A Job"' is included in the soundtracks of the movies,...

, a hit in 1958. Doo-wop remained popular until just before the British Invasion

British Invasion

The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...

of 1964.