The Trick To Writing Harmony Lines

There's nothing quite like the sound of multiple voices singing in harmony, but with more lines comes more opportunities for error. How do you make sure your harmonies sound harmonious? As always there are lots of ways, but this week we're talking about one of the easiest and most common, tight harmony. We dive into how it works, how to use it to make wiggly lines that sound good, plus we get to see it in action harmonizing a melody that, if you ask me, sounds pretty cool! (I wrote it.)

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Ron Jones
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Ken Arnold

And thanks as well to José N., Logan Jones, Henry Reich, and Jdominioni! Your support helps make 12tone even better!

[iansalinas]

this is like minute physics but if he did music

[anthonyholroyd]

who else really, really wanted that D natural to resolve to an E at the end there?

[ILLEAGLExxx]

This channel is definitely one of the best. Maybe THE best when it comes to theory things.

[bigzingus]

did i just find the best music youtube channel ever????

[amirPenton]

This has been INCREDIBLY useful, thanks so much. I'm arranging my second song for our band to play and this is exactly what I needed.

[Pheonix]

Awesome video, guys. This is really what I've been looking for: an analysis of composition moment to moment, concerning harmony and how to achieve that via separate melodic lines. Its a huge subject to cover, and I understand most of it is subjective and yet you still pulled off an informative and balanced approach. Great job!

[Natalion]

Aaa this is so helpful! My friend and I have been trying to write two part harmony for a song we're covering, so these tips are going to make that much easier

[muhdtv]

Love your style of teaching.. Thank you!

[phoebelikebridgers]

One minute in and already I feel like i've learned more than three month's worth of music theory classes in school, this is like the best thing ever

[hazelstorer]

Thank you so much for making these videos! i found you on the music theory subreddit and everyone is surprised that you don't have more people watching your videos!

[AudioAnomalyOfficial]

To be honest, I like the 'mess' chord at 3:04 better. It sounds quartal and full.

[JakeWildMusic]

Been looking for a quick guide for this for a while. Thanks!

[imtryingiswear]

trying to write a harmony for my class's choir competition song. this is saving my neck. thanks man. youre awesome.

[Gnurklesquimp]

I remember harmonizing a melody where the harmony notes were always either a 5th diminished 5th or 4th away and it sounded cool, I was able to do a bunch of stuff like inverting it in on itself by also transposing the original melody by an octave and having the otherwise complementary voice be the strong one etc

[BookooZenny]

Aww you only teased the techniques I was curious about T-T

I hope you follow up on this soon!

[bchitnis]

This is really good! One of the best music education channels around! Big thanks and keep up the great work!

[musicpaulweber]

Loved this. Just what I was looking for.

[sircyborg]

The C major to that D natural made me all kinds of happy!

[THUNGUNS]

You explained as much music theory in 4 minutes my band teacher explained in 4 months.
PROPS!!!

[eosborne]

I’ve been a 12-Tone fan for many years and thought I had basically seen every episode, but today the algorithm in its wisdom found one that I missed from 7 years ago, and decided to show it to me right at the crucial moment that I am trying to finish a composing contest entry and struggling to arrange my strings. Thanks algorithm! Now I can finish my piece!