sounded badass dude.

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harmonies pwn

Which interval creates that really classical "pretty" if you will harmony?

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Well that depends on your definition of pretty, but usually a lick with alternating major and minor thirds (all depending on the key) has that effect.

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When everyone was saying he has a badass metal voice I though the recording was of vocal harmonies.
Now if parallel harmonies sound insane on guitar, they must sound like Lucifer for vocals .... only bad things is that any band that wants to do this (live) will need two vocalists, both of whom are fairly good at picturing notes (so that they don't accidentally revert to the diatonic harmony, which is easy to slip into).

Good post though. I'd like to see a similar one on counterpoint, which in my opinion is much harder but so cool when properly pulled off.

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could you or someone expand on that please?

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cf...riendID=6354625
Check out the song insomnia, those kind of harmony's.

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Look up diatonic harmonies. It's the relationship of intervals within the major scale. Diatonic 3rds sound quite 'pretty', so do octaves, with some effects. I will often alternate between 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, and 6ths and create melodic lines of harmony. You can create tension and have it resolve to a smooth solid interval.

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10ths are also pretty, in a Bach/Baroque sort of way.
10ths are 3rds with an octave in between.
The Beatles "Blackbird" is full of them, and the famous bass line on "Walk on the Wild Side" uses a couple.

Here's a row of 10ths in key of C:

Just in case anyone is confused, as I sure was!

If you're struggling with the term Diatonic and how it is used in harmony and music in general, this is a great little run-down of it:
Diatonic Harmony

I know it's a Bass website but the theory still applies. Basically when you harmonize, you want to play the 3rds, 4ths, whatever you want, that are within that scale

Sorry if this is really obvious, the term 'Diatonic' just kept throwing me off. And as said above 3rds and octaves do sound very very good.

Edit: Further reading (Diatonic scales ) shows that i'm actually incorrect, sorry

Is that still a safe way to create decent harmonization by playing, say 3rds, to harmonize with regards to the scale you are working with?

So if you're using E harmonic Minor: E - F# - G - A - B - C - D# - E

So if you play E F# G you could harmonize with G A B, at least in theory?

Sweet action guys, thanks!

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No, I think you're correct.
"Diatonic" has two related meanings:

(1) a type of 7-note scale. The derivation is "though the tones" or "across the tones", and originally referred to the old modal scales, derived from joining two tetrachords (4-note groups spanning a perfect 4th). Sometimes this meaning is defined as "composed of tones and semitones" (whole and half-steps), but that strictly excludes harmonic minor, which ought to be among the set of diatonic scales we work with.

(2) "within the key or scale" (as in "diatonic harmony"). This is the sense we're using here, and it's perfectly valid. (The opposite of this sense is "chromatic", or "outside the key".)
Absolutely. The theory (as I'm sure you know! ) only follows what musicians think sounds good anyway.
Most pop or rock musicians who harmonise (at least vocalists) do it by ear, and the notes they find that they think sound good are highly likely to be diatonic ones, and will probably be chord tones - IOW, a 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th above the main note (depending perhaps on any other harmony notes present).

see "16th c. basse continue." It's all improvised, usually on a harpsicord.

If I have the time, I may see about doing one for 16th c. and one for 18th c. counterpoint, because those are 2 classes I've taken here at college.

What I personally enjoy, is medieval polyphony, or specifically "organum." Polyphony is by far my favorite for applying to death metal, which I have done many times for my large stash of MIDI tunes.

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Organum is awesome.

Experimenting with counterpoint is truly exploring the possibilities of harmony, especially in metal. It's great stuff and can be used to really enhance a piece of music. Just listen to Anata or Cynic to agree. Although I would never study it in periods, I just layer different melodies if I'm using it or experiment with completely different parts.

There was an interesting example of vocal harmony in one of Stockhausen's vocal pieces, Kontakte maybe? But there was one bit where the singers were singing at minor seconds to eachother, sounded out of this world.

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