Harmony is what makes music cool. A melody line is nice, but adding harmonies to it can take it from pleasing to an extremely emotional, uplifting swell of sound. Harmony is also the basis for chord structures in music, and there are many different modes of harmony that can be applied to give a range of different sounds and feelings. For now, let us just stick to the basics.
Instructions
Things You'll Need:
- Guitar tuned to standard tuning
- Guitar pick
- First, we'll be starting out with a basic melody in the key of E minor harmonized in major thirds. With your pick, pluck the notes E, G flat (also known as F sharp, or F#) and G. In order to do this, you must pluck the high E string openly for E, fret the note behind the second fret for the G flat and then behind the third fret for G. This is to be done all on the same string, and is the key melody.
- On the same string we'll be starting at G, this time playing G, A, B. In order to do this, you must fret behind the third fret for G, the fifth fret for A and the seventh fret for B. This is the harmony to the key melody, and is a major third, because G is three notes up from E in the musical alphabet and is major because of its "happy" sound.
- At this point you and a friend can play the melody harmonized together, each by playing one of the melodies described in the previous steps. If you want to play them by yourself, there's a little more to it.
- In order to play this harmonized melody by yourself, make sure that if you're using an electric guitar, the amplifier is on the clean channel; the distortion will force dissonance between each of the melodies. Play the key melody on the B string by fretting the first note (E) behind the fifth fret, the second (G flat) behind the seventh fret and the last (G) behind the eighth fret. You will have to use your ring finger to do this while you play the key melody with your index finger at the same time. The notes have to ring out at the same time for the harmony to sound properly.
- After you're comfortable with this, you can start experimenting with different harmonies. The most common ones are thirds, as above, and fifths, which means instead of counting up three notes, you count up five. Harmony is easiest if you stay in the key of A minor; every harmony note is a letter in the musical alphabet (A B C D E F G). If you start at A and want a third, you can play a C or an F. The same goes for any other kind of harmony.
How to play guitar harmonies
Read more: How to Play Guitar Harmonies | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5675274_play-guitar-harmonies.html#ixzz13FyskJIa
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