Pushing The Chorus - Part 2 Harmony (Weighty Ghost)

*This is part of an on going series highlighting some unique techniques to make the chorus in a song sound more prominent than the verses. For Part 1 go here.

Harmony is one of the classic techniques to make a chorus stand out. The typical way is to add a harmony only during the chorus, thus further juxtaposing the chorus against the verse parts of a song. But there are some neat ways of utilizing this that goes against the normal way of doing it... But first, what's the normal way?

One thing that is almost always true with harmonies, is that the harmony takes the secondary/background role. In other words, the main vocal melody line is either equal to, or more prominent than, the harmony vocal line(or lines). Otherwise the harmonized vocal line would...sound like the main vocal line instead.

*Even Barbershop Quartets - which can sometimes get confusing in terms of what the "main" vocal line is - have the main vocal line, and three harmony lines, so the main vocal line is still "equal" to the other lines (I should do an entry on Barbershops, they are quite fascinating...). Either way, it's really clear how once you overwhelm the main vocal line, it would get really confusing.*

So what is the normal thing to do if you added a choir to back the main vocal line? When there is a harmony to be sung, the choir would be split in half - with one half singing the harmony, and the other singing the main vocal line. All to prevent the main vocal line from getting drowned out, or confused with the harmony.

But there's a wonderful exception to this rule, and it is a great example because of it's sheer simplicity.

"Weighty Ghost" by the band Wintersleep is a song with 2 chords. That's right, only 2 in the whole entire song. The melody is incredibly simple as well...really repetitive and kind of bland..and the pre-chorus part is the exact same melody as the chorus...yet I think it's a great song, with an absolutely killer chorus. Why? because of the way harmony is used...which is a little different, but super effective (I also think the drum pattern, and the stomps/hand claps add to it, but that's for another post).

What Weighty Ghost does during the chorus, is to have a small choir (or the rest of the band anyway) to sing the harmony, essentially drowning out the main vocal line during the chorus. Exact opposite of what you're supposed to do... but it works.

Here's the song. When you listen to it, pay attention to the vocal lines from 32 seconds to 42 seconds. This will be the exact same melody as the chorus, with 2 exceptions - the lyrics are different, and the harmony is sung by one person. It's neat, but doesn't truly push the chorus. Then pay attention when the chorus hits right after - there's an entire group singing only the harmony, but it somehow really really works. *I was going to post one of the amateur covers on youtube on here, to show what it sounds like without the choir harmony, but I think posting anything on this blog as a "bad" example would go against the spirit of this blog...so I didn't.



It works because it's a simple melody line. It works because the pre-chorus is exactly the same melody but with only one person singing a harmony. That extra boost of harmony somehow pushes the songs even further, thus establishing the chorus section as the most prominent part of the song.

Neat use of breaking the "rule" of harmony.

A Novel and Creative Use of Harmony...by Kelly Clarkson

I find myself often referring to this song, because it really does something quite unique. The song is by Kelly Clarkson, called "Breakaway", and it's written by Avril Lavigne. Yes, the song structure is typical, the melody is pop, and the lyrics aren't exactly Dylan. So what am I talking about?

The harmony line.

Now at first glance, it may not seem much. But there's something quite interesting going on in this piece of music. I won't go into the details of how harmony works, because it's not about the type or style of harmonization that is going on that floors me - it's the timing.

Usually, harmonies are sung right on top of each other. That's what harmonized melody is supposed to be (as opposed to counterpoint, which I talk about in this blog post.

Yet in this song, the harmony precedes the main melody line. In other words, it's not sung together, but before the main melody line. It's just a strange thing to do, but it works. And that's what amazes me about this song. It happens during the chorus, right here around 1:09 when she sings "Make a wish, Take a chance, Make a change." Right before Kelly Clarkson sings that line - you'll hear a faint vocal line that is actually the harmony to what Kelly Clarkson is singing...but it comes before. Wow. Whoever thought of this is really creative.

Some of you might say that this is basically a "call and response" (A call and response is typically utilized in African music, where a "leader" sings a short stanza and the rest of the choir repeats it right after). But I would argue that it's a little different, for three reasons. First, it's not timed right - if the harmony is the call, and the response is Kelly Clarkson, then Kelly Clarkson is coming in too early. Kelly Clarkson doesn't actually let the harmony finish before she starts singing. Second, the fact that the harmony is leading is very strange. Third, it makes no sense to de-emphasize the leader (in this case the harmony). In short, I think this is quite a unique way of organizing vocal harmonies.