Question regarding harmony

[johnjwong]

i want to join band with a bunch of friends by playing the piano part.  I don't know how to do the harmony for songs.  My friend can just play the harmony right off the bat.  Any tips?  

[dj]

well i would suggest some theory lessons to get you acquainted with how the different tones are related.....have fun

-david joe

[Shagdac]

I agree some theory books would be a great idea, also many pieces are written for different instruments. Are these an option for you? If you are able to harmonize with your voice, you can do the same with the piano. There are many different ways to harmonize, depending on the effect you want. One very simple harmony used not only in playing, but also singing...is being a third higher or lower. A very simple example would be something such as:
One instrument (or to hear it) your right hand playing
middle C, D, E, F, G, A, B...C. And the left hand playing:
middle C, D, C, D,E, F, G,..E. That's just one example, and there are many. You can think of chord patterns as well. What kind of harmony do you want? All of your chords are differnt notes that when played together harmonize into a major, minor, etc sound (chord). Possibly once you practice around with a simple song in a major key, it will be easier to do with other pieces. Hope this helps alittle. I'm sure Bernard can give you tons of advise on this. I know it can be taught....I'm just not sure how easily it is learnt!

Good Luck with your band!

Shag

[steveolongfingers]

Most guitar harmonies in metal bands and such are harmonized in thirds, 10ths, and octaves.  Or if its like death or thrash metal 5th's and augmented 4ths seem to be the most popular

[bernhard]

i want to join band with a bunch of friends by playing the piano part.  I don't know how to do the harmony for songs.  My friend can just play the harmony right off the bat.  Any tips?  

The advice will depend on your level. I will assume you know little. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Your question is simple: How can one learn to play accompaniment by ear. The answer is complex.

Usually no one has problems with playing a melody by ear. Playing the accompaniment however is always experienced as much more difficult. One of the reasons is that when listening to music we pay far more attention to the melody than to the accompaniment. Another reason is that the melody seems to be unique and full of meaning, while the accompaniment seems sort of formless.

In order to learn to play by ear you must master the following steps:

1.      Being able to listen to a melody and remember it in your mind. This is the essential step that is usually overlooked because people take it for granted. If you cannot whistle/hum/sign a tune perfectly, you will not be able to play it by ear, simply because you do not know how it goes.

2.      Being able to remember where each “sound” is on the keyboard. If you know that the sound you have in your mind is a C, and you know that where the C is in the keyboard you can play it “by ear. By the way I am not implying here that you need perfect pitch. You don’t. But you definitely need relative pitch to play by ear. Since a melody is a sequence of sounds, playing a melody by ear becomes a matter of locating on the keyboard the keys that correspond to those sounds.

3.      Even more important than recognising the sounds individually is to recognise intervals between sounds, so that given any starting note you may be able to proceed with the sequence (hence the importance of relative pitch). You do not need to be able to name or describe the interval, but you must be able to hear each interval as a unique entity, and be able to play it.

4.      As you can see from the above, music theory will not help much (although it will give you a general overview of things and a system to organise your knowledge).

5.      The skills above can (and should) be learned. All it takes is a systematic and consistent (a few minutes everyday) approach.

If you can do melodies, harmonies follow a similar process. Learn these eight basic chords in all of the 24  keys:

1.      Major
2.      Minor
3.      Diminished
4.      Augmented
5.      Seventh
6.      Diminished seventh
7.      Augmented seventh
8.      Suspended fourth

This will give you a total of 96 chords to play with. By “learn” I mean memorise their sound so that you can immediately identify them when you hear them played, and their location on the keyboard. Most people can easily tell major from minor chords. Extend this knowledge to include the other six basic chords.

To start with, practise on Nursery rhymes. Use only major chords and use only chords I, IV, V (if you are playing the nursery rhyme in C major, use the chords of C, F and G). Your aim is to fit the chord to the melody by ear. In the beginning it will seem impossible, and there will be a lot of errors in your trial and error. However human beings learn surprisingly quickly if they persist. In a couple of weeks you will be able to go along with simple melodies (= most pop music) with only these three chords. You must be able in any of the twelve major keys. Later you can start experimenting with the other basic chords.

As you can see, knowledge of scales and chords is essential.

Alternatively you can get a fake book which will have the chord progression for most pop songs (you will need to know what shorthand like C7 and Gdim7 and Bsus4 stand for).

I suggest the three following books as good starting points/references to guide you:

Colin Aston – How to play by ear correctly, how to improvise and compose music. (published by Aston & Beveridge – 39 Church Way, Longdon, Rugeley, Staffs, UK)

Norman Monath – How to play popular piano in ten easy lessons (Fireside)

Ward Cannel & Fred Marx – How to play the piano despite years of lessons (Chappell)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[comme_le_vent]

Most guitar harmonies in metal bands and such are harmonized in thirds, 10ths, and octaves.  Or if its like death or thrash metal 5th's and augmented 4ths seem to be the most popular

umm, what led you to the conclusion that mr 'wong' was in a metal band?

lol its quite a presumption to assume that every band is death metal.

[johnjwong]

thx for the helps guys
I found out something cool, the chords for most songs somehow such as titanic, and many pop songs for the teens right now all have similar pattern.  The harmony for the left hand is always like this: I, V, VI, V, IV, III, II, V.  Then again and again.  This pattern is for most of the songs somehow.  Can anyone explain why this 1 pattern fits so many songs?  And also, for some songs that doesn';t fit nice with these patterns, what should I do? Should I just try to find some more patterns?

[dj]

thx for the helps guys
 The harmony for the left hand is always like this: I, V, VI, V, IV, III, II, V.  Then again and again.  This pattern is for most of the songs somehow.  Can anyone explain why this 1 pattern fits so many songs?  And also, for some songs that doesn';t fit nice with these patterns, what should I do? Should I just try to find some more patterns?

well, the reason this chord progression fits so many songs is that it is quite a simplistic progression. all the chords are basic and none are borrowed. contemporary pop music thrives on these simple progressions.

if all you intend to do is follow along with the basic chords to pop music, then by all means, continue to look for patterns like these. they should be easy enough to distinguish; however, if you start looking into classical music, or even more complex harmonization of pop music, you are going to need a deeper understanding of how the chords fit 2gether, and also the less closely related chords in a specific key signature.