The Steel Guitar Forum

A few Questions on 3rd and 6th harmony.

All,

Greetings!!

About a year and a half ago, my daughter gave me Mullen’s Discovery PSG for X-mas. Since then, I have been surfing the net to find a good PSG course that would teach the basics of, as to, why and how certain notes, triads, harmony notes are picked on the PSG tabs. The best course I came across was Mr. Joe Wright’s lessons on Sierra PSG site and his technique bundle course (IMHO).

I want to learn to play Indian Bollywood songs on PSG. As most of you great players know that Indian music does not use harmony, everything is melody. Indian steel players play the whole melody up and down on a single string. I have the following dumb questions. When using a sheet music to play a song:

1. Do you play the melody note on the top string, if harmonizing?
2. How do you know when to play the 3rd or the 6th harmony?
3. Since the 6th harmony is the inversion of the 3rd harmony, does the bottom string become the melody string? Wouldn’t it change the melody note if the top string dictates the melody note?

Sorry for the long winded email. Enough dumb questions for now.


Regards,

Nobel Das
[b][/b]

Nobel Das wrote: When using a sheet music to play a song:
1.Do you play the melody note on the top string, if harmonizing?
2. How do you know when to play the 3rd or the 6th harmony?
3.Since the 6th harmony is the inversion of the 3rd harmony, does the bottom string become the melody string? Wouldn’t it change the melody note if the top string dictates the melody note?

Nobel,

These are very good questions that could probably take a semester or two of music theory classes to answer fully.

If you are using sheet music with "chord melodies" notated, the harmonies are written out for you.

If the sheet music shows only the melody line, then here is a very basic, practical answer:
1. You can choose to harmonize a melody any way you want, but it is very common to stack the melody note on top of the harmony note or notes--because that makes it stand out more.

2.The most basic harmony notes are the three notes that make up a triad chord, which are the 1, 3, and 5 intervals (notes) of the scale.

For example, an E major triad chord consists of E (1st note of the E major scale, a.k.a. the “root”), G# (3rd note of the E major scale), and B (5th note of the E major scale. No matter what order those three notes are stacked in (3,1,5 or 1,3,5 or 5,3,1, etc.), they are still an E major chord.

Notice that on your E9 neck, string 5 is B, string 4 is E, and string 3 is G#--an E major chord!
So if the melody note of a song was G#, and you picked strings 5, 4, and 3 at the same time, you have the melody note (the 3rd note in the scale) on top with the 1(root) under it, and the 5th note below the root.
In this example, the 1(root) and the 5th note are harmony notes to the melody note (the 3rd note in the scale). Make sense?

3. I’m not sure I understand your question #3 exactly, but I think the answer is “always start with the melody, and add harmony notes--if you want to.”
Once you have the melody figured out, you can choose to add one, two, three, or no harmony notes.

Check out the sections "Intervals" and “Chords and tension” at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony for far more detail than you probably need to know at this point.

I hope this is helpful.

- Dave

Nobel,You've got the coolest daughter!

Stu Schulman wrote:Nobel,You've got the coolest daughter!

He really does!

Nobel Das wrote:A few Questions on 3rd and 6th harmony.

All,

Greetings!!

About a year and a half ago, my daughter gave me Mullen’s Discovery PSG for X-mas. Since then, I have been surfing the net to find a good PSG course that would teach the basics of, as to, why and how certain notes, triads, harmony notes are picked on the PSG tabs. The best course I came across was Mr. Joe Wright’s lessons on Sierra PSG site and his technique bundle course (IMHO).

I want to learn to play Indian Bollywood songs on PSG. As most of you great players know that Indian music does not use harmony, everything is melody. Indian steel players play the whole melody up and down on a single string. I have the following dumb questions. When using a sheet music to play a song:

1. Do you play the melody note on the top string, if harmonizing?
2. How do you know when to play the 3rd or the 6th harmony?
3. Since the 6th harmony is the inversion of the 3rd harmony, does the bottom string become the melody string? Wouldn’t it change the melody note if the top string dictates the melody note?

Sorry for the long winded email. Enough dumb questions for now.


Regards,

Nobel Das

I think you got a lengthy answer and I believe it's all true.
I however think that unless you want to WRITE music sitting in a bed like Mozart is said to have done... you might just follow your EAR.
You already understand that there are min/Maj 3rds and they invert into 6ths... the musical "message" however it the "same"... just with a "narrow" or "wider" "coloring".
You listen to Jerry Byrd and you realize that he freely interchanged the two widths just to sound more intricate. Then evidently 3rds can become more "chord"-based... like playing the 5th and b7the (m3rd) to accentuate the Dom. 7th coloring.
BE, Lloyd Green and many E9th players took what JB to pedals. They played by ear, very close to the "melody" and added the adjacent string on top or below (3rds) or with usually 2 strings in between (6ths). The steel guitar with it's narrower tuning than the standard guitar really lends itself to that naturally.
Since the music most of us play is not as complicated as 19th century classical music, I would go by what your ear tells you and you will very quickly develop a natural sense for how to play and "color" (harmonies) what you seek to hear.

... J-D.

Dave,
Thanx. I am gonna sit on my guitar and digest all of this and will come back and pick your brain again.

Stu,

Thank you very much. I know she's an awful good daughter. i am the luckiest father.

Thanks J.D. I am gonna have to stretch my ears a bit more.

Nobel Das wrote:Thanks J.D. I am gonna have to stretch my ears a bit more.

I think we need to re-learn to HUM again.

Someone once said "play only what you hear, if do don't hear nothing, play nothing at all!".
I firmly believe that anyone who picks up STEEL GUITAR out of all instruments in the world, unless being thrown one at by an awfully "loving" family member, IS MUSICAL. This is not drums or a "ding-ding" triangle and not a Banjo either, after all.
So, we ALL are melodically inclined. (well, unless you grew up like me, listening to Speedy West and felt called to make "swoobosh, bahwoom" sounds on "something").

Famous guitarist Georg Benson still today "mouths" what he plays on the guitar. I've seen him do that only 2 1/2 years ago. Evidently, it has become part of Benson doin' Benson. But I must admit that when I do it, I learn FASTER and more SOLIDLY (it stays faster in the brain) and I don't fall into a rut of playing something "else", which typically is something I already know to play.
This is like reading OUT LOUD instead of silently. Especially if you are trying to learn a new language, reading out loud takes the same time then silently, but you LEARN BOTH, to read AND speak. In my opinion it's the same with music. You're learning a new language, better make it a conscious exercise.

Set up your mind to what you want to play, and play THAT.
If you hear it from a recording, LISTEN to it until you can hum or whistle it.
ANALYZE in you head how the melody goes... "is the next note up or down?", "is it far?" and so forth, and only THEN go and hunt it down on that guitar's neck.
If it's a "sweet" melody, you can go at it right in 3rds (adjacent strings), it will force you into related positions. Play UP and DOWN the neck ALONG the strings.. like a STEEL guitar... and later across the strings, then diagonally.

... J-D.

Listen to music with two-part harmony vocals. Simon & Garfunkel, Beatles, Everly Bros, Judds, etc. There are literally thousands of examples in Country music and 60’s & 70’s Pop. Sometimes it is difficult to determine which voice is melody and which is harmony. That’s part of what makes it so cool.

Listening critically may not give you the answer of “how” they made the decision to arrange vocal parts the way they did, but the clues are in the results. I think it just a matter of deciding if you want there to be an easy natural flow to the music, make it interesting and unique some way, or if you want to shock the listener at some point.

It’s true that in a chord/melody arrangement the melody note will most often be the top voice. But in two-part harmony that is not the case. The lower voice will often be the melody with the 3rd on top, and with 6ths, the melody will often be on top. You seem to already have had a hunch about that.

Counterpoint can make a two part harmony more interesting, instead of maintaining a straight parallel 3rds or 6ths or 5ths or whatever, especially if the melody note stays the same throughout a chord change over the course of a measure or two. Bach had a pretty good Handel on the counterpoint idea.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iHNxdOTFt7c
Hard to believe there are only two lines in those pieces, they sound so full of harmony.

I don’t know how that all fits in with your affinity for Bollywood music, but I hope it’s pertinent to your question.

Thanks JD for those words of wisdom, but I am all hummed out.
I have been playing Sitar, Tabla (Indian drums), Harmonium (Key board) and singing Indian classical music (Raags) for about 20 years. All of this I learned by ear (humming). I can play any song you throw at me on a lap steel on a SINGLE STRING (no harmony). My goal to learn, systematically, the basics of harmonizing, so that I don’t have to fumble through (humming) to find the harmony. Just look at the sheet music and play a song with harmony. I used to play drums in a country western band when I was a graduate student in Nebraska, and there, I heard the band leader, also guitar teacher, instructing his students where and when to play 3rd/6th harmonies and would write that on their sheet music so that they wouldn’t forget it. I have Mr. Joe Wright’s course in which he talks, in great details, about modes and other theoretical concepts of music theory which of course is beyond me. I am sure Mr. Wright does not go humming around all day to find harmony to a song. I understand that the PSG is a very complicated instrument to learn, but no more difficult than the other instruments. My hats off to all the banjo, drums ding-ding triangle players who have paid their dues to learn and hone their craft.

Nobel

There are other answers with more detail, and it all comes down to using an informed judgment, a judgment informed by a combination of learning, experience and just listening.
I'd certainly join Fred Treece in suggesting listening to other vocal duets (and I'd add the Louvin Brothers and some of the bluegrass folks like Skaggs and Rice or the Country Gentlemen), and offer one bit that I've noticed (and had my dad mention to me):
On major beats and notes held longer than a quarter note (or crotchet, if you use those terms), you will absolutely want one of the two to be the third.

If the two parts are following in parallel/similar motion, this isn't always possible, because the simplest path will eventually land you on 1 and 5/5 and 1. So you'll want to rearrange the parts in the previous few beats to diverge so that one of the two will head for 3.
If you get used to making harmonies and add the third part to Louvins or Everlys, you'll find that third part crossing over a LOT.
For one Classic Country Gentlemen gig (my dad's Tom Gray, their bassman) that the guy on the third part couldn't make it, dad sat down with the record to learn the low part (in much of bluegrass, the melody is in the middle, with a harmony above and below). The part had to cross from its expected value sixteen times in the chorus, because the mandolin player (tenor singer) crossed from one part above to two as judgment dictated. Eddie had to find the third part without doubling or octaving one of the other two. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9s3_1OcFSHQ