If there’s one thing this world needs these days, it has to be harmony. We are all individuals but cooperation in matters of common interest can only lead to the greater good of all. If only people and the nations of the world held this simple idea closer to all of our hearts every day. It makes a lot more sense than senselessly destroying the efforts of others because we failed to harmonize.
You my readers know exactly where this is going. As we head to Lodi this weekend to socialize and play music together we should make a special effort to do so in harmony. It’s been a long time since we could do so with relative freedom. For the most part bluegrass campouts are harmonious but there’s always some minor infringement, camping encroachment or jam etiquette faux pas that gets somebody into a kerfuffle.
It ought to be a lot easier to just play music and socialize. That should take care of all the rest. We can forget about all the troubles the world has gotten itself into and concentrate on harmony.
There are few things as sublime as tight three part bluegrass harmony singing. Unfortunately many jam sessions lack that for one reason or another. Sometimes a campout jam group is composed of people who haven’t played or sung together much. If a few songs are in a common repertoire maybe some lead/tenor harmony will happen but often nobody jumps in on the harmony part, much less the third part, because they’re preoccupied with playing their instrument on a tune they may not have heard for a while.
Harmony singing is fun. Perhaps my favorite music camp class of all time was Keith Little’s singing class a few years ago at Grass Valley. Keith split us up into groups of three towards the end of the class and had us alternate between lead, tenor and baritone parts. By the end of the lesson every one of us could sing every part. It was incredibly fun!
Most people gravitate to the tenor part when singing harmony. It’s natural and if that’s the only harmony you get around the campfire that’s good enough. The baritone part is harder to find but you can find the first harmony interval easily if you think of the old popular song Born Free (from the movie of the same name). The first two notes of that song define the baritone interval.
If you’re not a baby boomer (like me familiar with that old song) you either have to use a more modern song with that interval or do it the scientific way. The baritone note will be a perfect fifth away from the melody note. That will mostly be lower but “high baritone” sounds even cooler sometimes. But it’s nice to have a little cheat sometimes to just find that first baritone note on a song when you’re jamming. After that you can often just keep it going with that harmony line, When push comes to shove in a jam I just try to find the note nobody else is singing. It might take a few times through the chorus to get it right but you’re instantly popular because nobody has found that note before and people always appreciate that baritone!
Three part harmony is defined as lead, tenor and baritone parts but there are other variations. Even within three part harmony you don’t have to sing the same part at any given time. Listen to brother duets like the Louvin Brothers, the Blue Sky Boys, The Delmore Brothers or the Monroe Brothers and you will hear improvised harmony that was intuitive and worked for the song. The harmony might be all over the place alternating between tenor and baritone but it works. And if you sing 50% baritone notes in a jam but duplicate tenor notes now and then it still sounds good (especially off the fly) if you sing well.
Most bluegrass songs are “three chords and the truth”, a 1,4,5 chord progression. But occasionally you’ll hear something different with jazzy chords featuring more harmony notes than you expected. It sure is fun trying to find that extra kick to a diminished chord or that perfect cowboy music harmony. Suffice it to say, trying to sing harmony is open to experimentation and if your note doesn’t soud quite right, don’t sing as loud as you would have otherwise or sing a different note if you can find it.
Harmony can work well for instruments too. If I’m playing a mandolin solo at a jam I never mind if a good mandolinist adds my harmony line. It almost always makes me sound better. Sometimes I’m able to reciprocate but I usually ask first before the tune gets going.
Which brings me to another point. Since so many songs at a jam lack harmony there should be more coordination before kicking off songs with good harmony potential. Can you sing tenor on this? That’s always a question you want to hear at a jam session even if you’re not the one asked.
Harmony. We need more of it.
