Descripción general de las instalaciones de la camaronera PESYCAM

It’s possible to create good BVs through a step-by-step approach, and that’s what we’re going to try here. But before we do, let’s lay out a couple of guidelines to consider. In fact, if you’re having trouble with your BVs, you’re probably violating one or both of these:

1. Too much BV. Vocal harmonies are more prevalent in a chorus than in a verse. That’s because vocal harmonies tend to add musical energy

to a song, and increased energy is what you’re often looking for in a

chorus. Using vocal harmonies everywhere can be tiresome. Unless it’s a style that’s known for its treatment of harmonies (e.g., Barbershop, vocal jazz, etc.), good songs often show a mix of unharmonized and harmonized melody lines.

2. Ignoring genre norms. It’s important to be listening to lots of

recorded music in your chosen genre, and try to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes the harmonies work.

So armed with those two principles, let’s see if we can create vocal harmonies for your song. It’s easier to do this if you can read and write

musical notation. It’s hard to write BVs and communicate those notes to your singers without referring to something being written down. It’s technically possible to do these steps, however, by ear – just a bit harder.

To begin, choose a chorus melody that you’ve written recently. It should go without saying that you will need to finalize the chords that will

accompany that melody. When you create your BVs, you will be creating one or more vocal lines that, at a minimum, change when the chord changes. BVs sometimes follow the melody line, either higher or lower, while singing the same words. This is what you’ll hear in The Beatles’ “Because” that I referred to earlier. Sometimes a good BV is simply singing “ooh” or “ah” on a long note while the melody is active above or below it. The Beatles used this approach with the second verse of “Hey Jude.” A lot of those kinds of decisions can be made later in the writing process.

For our step-by-step guide that follows, let’s assume that we want to create a long-note “ooh” type of BV consisting of

three voices. This kind of BV is a basic

backing harmony that works well in many genres. It requires you to understand the difference between

strong beats and weak beats. Most

songs are in a 4/4 time signature, which means that it alternates between strong beats (on beats 1 and 3) and weak beats (on beats 2 and 4). For “ooh”-style BVs, notes typically change mainly on strong beats.

Now do the following:

1. Finalize the chords that will accompany the melody.

2. Create basic BV lines that will fit your harmonies. This means singing long notes that fit the chord of the moment. To that end:

a. Be sure that the 3rd _{of the chord is always present in your BV.}

b. For most of the time experiment with the highest BV voice

mainly above the melody and the other two below.

3. Any time you change BV voices to a new note, let it happen mostly on

a strong beat. More often than not, a BV should move to the closest note possible; be very careful with having your BVs leaping to new

notes, as it tends to draw too much attention to itself.

4. “Ah” is a more energetic syllable than “ooh.” Use that to your advantage as you plan your BVs.

You’ve now written a backing vocal line that should be similar in approach to what you hear during the guitar solo in Elvis Presley’s version of “Blue

Suede Shoes.” It’s really important that you listen to lots of music in your

chosen genre to get the final tweaking of your harmonies right.

That 4-step process that you’ve just done can also work for the kind of BVs that use lyrics instead of “ooh” or “ah”. As long as the notes of your BVs are in the chord of the moment, they will work.

The best way to get nice,

sparkling background vocals is to have your singers practice

without instrumental

backing – purely a cappella. If

they can get vocals to sound great without instruments, they’ll sound great anytime, with any instruments.

Good background vocals will play an important role in giving your songs a professional touch. Once they’re written, they need to be practiced and polished. How you know they’re working is that they stay out of the way, and audiences hardly notice them. With good BVs, listeners notice the effect

more than they notice the actual notes.

Background Vocals, and the Problem With

Parallel Motion

In the writing of background vocals it’s important to consider how the various voices move relative to each other. There are four possibilities:

1. Parallel motion: two voices move in the same direction by the same interval.

2. Similar motion: two voices move in the same direction but by different intervals.

3. Contrary motion: two voices move in the opposite direction. 4. Oblique motion: one voice stays on the same note while the other

moves up or down.

In vocal writing, the ideal is to use a good mix of all four. But parallel motion can be problematic in certain circumstances.

When two voices sing together they produce an interval. Some intervals can sound rather stark or “bare” – perfect 4ths and perfect 5ths in particular. If, during the creation of your background vocals, two voices form a perfect 5th_{, it can sound unpleasant to follow that interval with} another perfect 5th_{. For example if your lower voice is singing a C with the} upper voice on G, a parallel 5th _{happens if the lower voice moves up to an} E and the upper voice moves up to a B. This situation, known as a

“parallel 5th”, draws attention to itself in a way that might work in some

genres, but not in others. It’s the vocal equivalent of “power chords”, which sound great in some styles, but would be startling in others. The problem comes from the bare, hollow quality of the perfect 5th_{: it tends to} draw attention to itself in a way that’s not ideal for background vocals. They’re often best avoided.

Some great examples of background vocals from decades past, and why they worked so well:

1. “Close To You” – The Carpenters. Richard & Karen Carpenter were known for their excellent harmonies. These harmonies are a good mix of “ooh & ah” and text harmonies. The harmonies don’t kick in until the second half of the song.

2. “Sail on Sailor” – Almost anything by the Beach Boys will be a good demonstration of good backing vocals. The “oohs” where the harmonies start in this song are lush and warm.

3. “California Dreamin’”- The Mamas & the Papas were great

harmonizers. This song demonstrates how to fit text in and around the main melody line.

A couple of great examples of more contemporary backing vocals: 1. “Earth” – Imogen Heap, from her album “Ellipse” (2009). The

backing vocals are complex, creative and extremely effective. 2. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” – written by Christopher

"Tricky" Stewart, Terius "The-Dream" Nash, Thaddis "Kuk" Harrell and Beyoncé Knowles. The effectiveness of the backing vocals is in part due to the fact that they’re only used very occasionally, and also to the tightness of the writing, meaning that each voice in the 3-part harmonies are as close as chord tones will allow.

 Badly tuned BVs are worse than no BVs.

 Recording BVs is different from recording the main vocal line. Get

professional advice.

 “Close harmonies” or “close spacing” refers to the circumstance where the voices are as close together as the chord allows; there are no “vacant” chord tones.

 “Open harmonies” or “open spacing” refers to the circumstance where the voices are spread out, leaving some tones unsung within an octave.

 Close spacing in harmonies tends to increase musical energy, while

open spacing often helps to relax musical energy.

 Be judicious when using BVs. They don’t need to (and shouldn’t) go everywhere in a song.

 The lower your BVs are (especially in male voices) the muddier they get.

 BVs should ideally use a mixture of parallel, similar, oblique and

contrary motion.

 The sound of BVs has a lot to do with the genre. What’s acceptable for

s a songwriter, it goes without saying that there’s one kind of list that you don’t want to find your song on. That’s any list of “The Worst Songs Ever.” People love talking about the songs they love, but they’re even more excited to list the songs that turn their stomach. What

makes a song bad is hard to define. It’s one of those things that you find hard to put your finger on, but you know it when you hear it. There are lots of things that make a song bad. But more often than not, the one song element that seems to be responsible for bad music, above all other song elements, is the lyric. Look at any list of “The Worst Songs Ever”, and you’re probably looking at a list of “The Worst Lyrics Ever.”

We communicate directly to the audience through lyrics. Lyrics aren’t the only way, of course. All song components work together to present a message to listeners. But while melody, chords, tempo, rhythm and

instrumentation convey mood and attitude, a lyric conveys its message in a much more straightforward way. And if we don’t catch the meaning of a lyric, or don’t understand what’s being said, we’re more likely to ask “What does that mean?” with reference to lyrics, than we are about any other song element. No one listens to a melody and says, “What does that melody mean?”

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