Simon And Garfunkel: The Harmony Struggle
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 เม.ย. 2018
- If you're like me, you have tried to sing a 3rd part along with these two geniuses for years, and have STRUGGLED. The craftsmanship of Simon and Garfunkel goes DEEP. Explore it with me and see why it is so difficult to sing a 2nd harmony part along with the masters.
If you'd like to donate to my channel, click here: paypal.me/aimn
For the worksheet, click here: www.aimeenolte.com/teaching-mu...
Follow me here:
Twitter: / aimn
Instagram: / aimeenoltem. .
Facebook: / aimeenoltefa. .
My website: aimeenolte.com
Thanks! - เพลง
With songs like "The Sound of Silence", it's very easy to overdo the harmony. I'm glad Simon went with a more minimalist approach. He only added what needed to be added, and the piece is more delicate and precious because of that.
Jragon // Learn How To Make Minecraft Commands it is easy to overdo the harmonies but never, never, never were S & G guilty of such a crime.
I agree, I think the sparseness of the unison (not even octaves) and fifths rather than always thirds is better for the substance of the song.
Absolutely, there's this sad, monklike tone with those unisons and fifths. I think Aimeé missed the mark here
I agree with many previous commenters: On a song like Sounds of Silence, if one adheres too slavishly to a triadic harmony, it begins to sound predictable and cliched, and loses its edginess. Particularly given the somber content of the song, they didn’t want to sound like the Kingston Trio. Simon’s decision to use a more drone-like harmony was an inspired choice.
The drone-like works really well.
18:30 My guess as to why Paul Simon held the Eb, Db drone line on the bottom was to anchor the dark, unmovable and ominous feeling of the Sounds of Silence, that all is not well, imho. Also, to let Art shine.
Truely said, and the mixing keeps paul low with Art far louder.
I think droning has an important function in and of itself other than flattering Art (although that may still have been a factor). Droning emphasises the melancholy of the song while the varying intervals in the 2-note harmony make for interesting listening. The fact that the remaining 3rd note is often awkward is another clue. They wanted to craft countermelodies while keeping the transitions smooth without awkward jumps.
Finely crafted melancholia. Yes.
So in a way, it's contrapunctal music more than harmonic one? That's sweet!
exactly what i was thinking. adding that hopeful sounding harmony doesn't match the words or emotions being conveyed in the verse at all.
I think with "Sound of Silence" in particular, the interval of a perfect fifth on the word "friend" illuminates the emptiness and longing of the lyrics. A perfect fifth always sounds empty, longing for the third.
I think your conclusion is right on - Simon's is a very easy, supportive part to sing. Excellent, thoughtful analysis!
More like this please! Everley Bros, Andrews Sisters, Beatles? You bring a rich background in the practice of harmony sining, and theory. Most harmony singers just "do it", without the insights and knowledge you bring.
totally agree man! I was just gonna say that Aimee is so great, I've just discovered her chanel and I'm so glad for that. Because, there is a bunch of stuff about how to understand music etc but most of it is for total begginers. I was always looking for something like this, to make a new step in building my knowledge and experience.
now I know that not going in music school when I was younger wasn't so bad decision hahah
I think it might be important to remember that Simon was also playing guitar and minimising the complexity of his part left him more of his brain to keep the guitar playing as clean and perfect as possible. Not so important when recording, but when playing live he's given himself the space to keep it spot-on without overstretching in a live situation.
Simon's an excellent guitarist and he will have taken pride in this as well as in singing and in songwriting.
This kind of in-depth look is helping me understand harmony - plus it is fascinating to watch your process, note by note -- thanks Aimee!
It is amazing soaking this in and following along.
Hit records in three different decades Paul Simon was the heart of that band
You are generous with your talents. Seeing your troubleshooting process is helpful, thanks.
Fascinating video! I’ve always loved that song and Simon and Garfunkel.
That was great Aimee I really hope you do more of these!
I am so pleased to have just discovered this channel. I could watch you analyze classic rock songs like this for days on end. This is fantastic. Thank You.
YES, this speaks to my soul. Thank you so much for this video.
I love this so much! Thanks for the lesson Aimee
I'm so happy you did this video!
Singing your new harmony part made this song, shockingly, still more beautiful. Chills anew, all these years later. Thanks, Aimee.
loved singing along with simon and garfunkel, and everly brothers when i was young, care-free and still had some voice albeit immature. Thank you Aimee for another wonderful episode. You are also a "songbird"!
Thank you for sharing this! I am an old soul and absolutely love S&G! I do the same thing you do. I am not educated in music, but I am so fascinated by music! It did surprise me when I found a lump in my throat listening to your harmony! So, so beautiful. I am now a big fan of YOU!
Not only do I enjoy your singing voice but I also enjoy your talking voice as well. So smooth and easy to listen to. Keeps me and my short attention span engaged.
wonderful video! thanks Aimee.
Excellent explanation! Thanks for all the work that went into that.
That's a great lesson ;-) Their music is wonderful and this is a lovely little insight...Thankyou.
Great video Aimee! You're answering questions I've always wondered about. Figuring out harmonies is fascinating.
Great insight. Thanks for taking the time to pull this together.
Love your voice it sounds beautiful with the original track,
Your theory is as usual spot on👍🎧🎼🎹
Love this vid and love you! I was a teen when the album came out, and on the radio, and trying to sing along, no musicians in my family, no music in school, I thought I couldn't sing was the problem. I read about music though - it is fabulous the way you combine "the reading" with a recording and you singing, and video. Thanks muchly!
That was wonderful and very interesting! Thanks!
Beautiful, thanks so much for the lesson!
Nice job of analysis & thank you for sharing the walk through.
great video! not only you're a great teacher but also you make a great analysis of music and have a sensible approach towards different styles and their features.
Fabulous dissection and hypothesis!
Delightful, Aimee, thank you!
This is a great study. I've often been stunned at what I thought of as "Scottish" harmony or "note-under" harmony. Starting with the Everly Brothers. Garfunkel often doing that above and then below in the same song. The Association used it a lot; Beatles; Big Country; Byrds. Having learned music by ear, I didn't identify the intervals, but suspected it had much to do with 4ths and 5ths above, and 3rds below. This morning my old brain said why not study it, and I landed on this. Thanks, sister!
Fascinating. Your video really helped this non- musician appreciate exactly how professional and dedicated to their art these guys were.
Thanks! You have a beautiful voice.
This is so cool! Someone else who fills in the 3rd harmony part, wherever and whenever! 😀 I've never seen that before - but I've never searched for it, either! Thanks for this great video!!!
This was a fantastic video. I'm so glad I stumbled across it.
I've always been one of those people who have tried to find harmonies with everything; I love singing them. They fascinate me. I've been in a bunch of bands (guitarist, I like to harmonise w/ my instrument too :)) where it's been my favourite thing to do and even now, when I just jam with friends, I always try to find something unique naturally. EXCEPT with S&G. Always end up on the same note in places. It was really cool seeing the harmonies laid out like this, even if I have trouble reading music.
Thanks so much. Definitely checking out more of your videos!
I too love the harmonies of s&g and csny too like you do. Those guys really knew what they were doing. Generations come and go and each generation will love those harmonies. Those harmonies are eternal. Art Garfunkel...... What can I say..... His voice is angelic. His solo albums are great too. Another voice is that of Jon Anderson from the YES. Really mystic voice. I love your harmony lessons Aimee. Thanks.
Super awesome Aimee! Yes it doesn't have to be all perfect 3rds. And what makes their harmony special is the spots where they land on open 4ths and 5ths.
I actually really liked the harmony you added. It enhanced the song, although you’re right it doesn’t need it. Thanks for the excellent harmony lessons from your videos. They’ve really helped me to teach a bit to my ukulele friends.
Thank you so much Aimee for all of your videos! I can't wait to try using these ideas to write three part harmonies for my sisters and I to sing together :)
I love your answer at the end. Thanks! 😊🙏
Working on harmony’s during Covid. So happy I found you. Something I always wanted to learn. ☺️
love these and the "everyone can harmonize" videos. thanks aimee!
Great video! Thank you kindly
Lovely, great job.
I love adding the third part harmony as well. I'm always doing that in the car when I'm driving. I just discovered your channel. Great job!
I love your videos so much I am JUST starting to learn about theory and the language of music and your page is amazing. I think that simple harmony leaves a haunting chant quality to it which given the topic fits.
thx for sharing my favorites ...feeling of words over matched music...simply they're genius
This video.. what a gem!
This is awesome watching you write parts for an existing song - so cool
As a kid growing up I would listen to these records, the early Simon & Garfunkel and early Beatles albums. They taught me how to sing or at least find the right notes to sing. Fun stuff.
Well done working out that part young lady.
Your voice suits Simon and Garfunkel beautifully! Love your voice.
Fantastic content and beautiful tune! thanks
SO Informative. Thanks Aimee. Takes me back to music theory classes in college... So long ago.
Thank you so much for this wonderful video Aimee! Your explanation was very educational and insightful!
Brilliant analysis. As a amateur multi-instrumentalist I am fascinated and perplexed by vocal harmonies. These guys are the best. Wish you could have been there with them for the third part.
Ha. This is the exact thing I do when listening to them-sing the third harmony. Although I've never written anything down. It's a fun challenge indeed for all the reasons you mentioned.
Well done. Nice technique. Thank you.
I love this video!!! This is so damn interesting ❤ Well done Aimee!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Great lesson!
WOW this is pure gold, thank you for the analysis. For people that kinda did a little bit of music and would like to understand more like me, this is the PERFECT video. You explain everything very simply and yet not too much so that it is too simple and unhelpful, and you use a score. It's like the difference between physics videos on TH-cam (which I love but you won't demonstrate anything with it), and taking a sheet of paper and starting to really do the maths (which are the real thing and which I love too). This was so enriching. Thank you!
I’m officially addicted to your channel. Thanks!
I Love this. . . . Especially the part at the end where I can just listen and not try to sing. ○,○
I really love and know this song ...
so ....
you really taught me so so much I've never, ever thought of before. Aimee, you opened my mind again.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing, Amiee
Great. you are smooth and clear. Whatever you do is an improvement to what we no longer have. Music as it should be.
I'm a technical person, not a musician at all, so seeing the music broken down this way was very enlightening. Nice work, Aimee.
Aimee, you made my day! Strangely, somehow, something made click, and this whole "how and why notes on staff" thing now makes so much more sense to me; more than i ever got from any other teaching material on that subject. And that wasn't even the point of the video :D Thank you so much!
I’m so glad 🙌🏼
Paul and Art are singing smart countermelodies and they always get on my note too when singing 3 parts :) smart use of 3rds, 4ths and 5ths between the two of em.
Wow.....a lot of work here......thank you for all of your time....ron castro
This discussion of vocal harmony is so fascinating and such a part of my life as a musician. Decades ago I was writing out harmonies for vocal bands, encountering exactly the same issues - the struggles - you present here. But I did not have the excellent formal training in music that you use so well in this analysis. Thanks for a great presentation. I'm totally impressed with your work.
Wow. Beautiful lesson/discussion/train of thought ❤
Nice video. The best I've found on harmony.
Love this Aimee! I’ve been a fan since the 70’s as a kid but I really got it into S&G 5 years ago when I saw the Eagles doc, The Graduate, and then I got my Martin, lol. This and The Beatles are the textbooks for 2-part harmonies I feel. Thanks!
I love how this struggle is both fascinating and pointless: fascinating in writing out all the chords and finding the missing note in each triad, and pointless in the beauty of the music as is and the fact that no notes are really missing. This was truly a worthwhile exercise, instructive in both its technical aspect as well as the analysis of what is going on artistically. I think we would all benefit from doing the same kind of analysis with a similar majestic piece of music, especially those of us who do not compose or arrange music on a regular basis. Aimee, fantastic job; thanks for sharing.
I always add a harmony to them. The key seems to be to harmonize with Art's harmony rather than think about Paul's melody. Also, I don't think occasionally duplicating notes is always a problem to be solved.
Love the analysis. I would suggest Paul wasn't necessarily trying to lay low, but was looking for the shape where each phrase spreads apart pitch-wise for the effect it gives. It creates a second rhythmic structure that rolls along on it's own. Instead of just another voice to sound pretty, the harmony contributes to the message and effect.
I had been listening to the song for decades and one day someone asked me to sing Paul’s part. I thought “no problem.” I thought it would just be normal 3rd harmony. Blew my mind. I had a very hard time with that rascally part. Finally realized how difficult it really was. Thanks for pointing this out. It’s just not normal!
Very good knowledge mam. Hats off to you.
Simon and Garfunkel were masters of two-part harmony, as were the Beatles. So many of their early songs have phenomenally beautiful and effective harmonies with only two parts. A lot of the time, those 4-3 resoltions you felt compelled to add were left out, implied by what the two voices were singing, and by the instruments. There's a great deal of country and bluegrass music which is marvelously effective with only two vocal parts, and wouldn't likely be improved by the addition of a third voice to "fill out the chords." In a way, it's an expression of trust in one's listening audience to appreciate what's there, and to hear the harmonies implied rather than to insist upon being spoon-fed, smacked in the face with the obvious.
you are absolutely dead on. S&G arrangements are perfect as they are in two parts and a 'third' vocal is just superfluous - even offensive. Why this video is interesting is it breaks down their actual two part vocal arrangement, which is so good and clever I find it hard sometimes to decipher who is singing what on their records. And I'm not exactly chopped liver.
@@sibionic Rather than "offensive" if offer a milder, less accusatory adjective, simplistic. Perhaps people will for it a little counter-intuitive to say that adding a third part is simplistic, but it's the mindset that vocal harmonies need to be in three parts that I'm describing. We hear SO much music that uses three parts - background vocals on pop songs especially, but also music like a lot of Crosby, Stills & Nash, where they sing in the parts throughout, and it's difficult sometimes to say which, if any, of the three parts is "the tune."
Listen to the Beatles' "If I Fell" and it's clear as a bell which line is the melody, as with "Sounds of Silence." Add a third part to "fill out" the harmonies, and it might be beautiful, but it wouldn't be better.
A lot of folks (my ex-wife, for instance) can't resist the urge to do that kind of filling in on songs that use three or more parts on different verses of the same song. I always cringe a little at that because I treasure the variety of textures that indicates a more thoughtful approach to arranging.
@@tenpiualto I just think a duet is more powerful than a trio actually - especially with S&G. 'If I Fell' works just as beautifully as a two parter (whatever the Beatles did)
@@tenpiualto but yes, very interesting - and I agree about finding the 'tune' in CS&N
Nicely done.
Very interesting! Thanks!
They are absolutely amazing
what a superb video! I too love harmonising but don't always get it right. You've unlocked some of it for me.. Thanks
Thank you for this. It helped me to stop overthinking when creating harmony lines.
Wonderful video. I used to harmonize with my friend and Ive learned to find the chord tones instinctively. My friend who was a more talented singer would use his guitar to find the note which is ok but I find it settles in the brain better if you simply sing and instinctively find the chord tones. But our harmonies chops are no where near your level. Being primarily a bass player I find your videos very eye opening. Thanks for the wonderful lesson.
Aimee, your videos are really interesting!
It’s called genius. Perfection in music is rare, but “The Sound of Silence” is perfect. It needs no improvement.
It’s like “Piece of My Heart” by Janice Joplin. That needs nothing that isn’t there.
Simon, Garfunkel and Nolte! Sounds great!
Thank you Aimee.
This is exactly the aspect of music theory that I am interested in. I very much appreciate your analysis.
I can really relate as I always try to do the third harmony on S & G, and even a forth on Crosby, Stills, & Nash. Good practice.
🙌🏼🙌🏼
Karl and I are on a road trip and I just played this for him - we both found it fascinating - it led to a great discussion. :-) I also have a thought: the 4ths and 5ths intervals (drone) remind me of Gregorian chant and create a hollowness which definitely highlights the lyric. Karl loved it and said he definitely needs to subscribe to your channel.:-) ❤️
.
Aimee, Thank you so much for another wonderful video! You do so much for online music education! I’ve been working on my ear for a long time and it’s great seeing someone using their ear the way you do. It’s so inspiring (-:
When I closed my eyes and just listened, it made sense. Thanks...
I only recently discovered your channel and I love your videos. I also think that Paul Simon is THE genius songwriter of the last 60 years and I really enjoyed your insight into how these incredible songs work. Thank you!
Thanks Jan
Several songs where they actually cross harmonies. I believe "Benedictus" is one example. "The Sun is Burning in the Sky" might be another. Their early stuff was recorded on 4 track, so Garfunkel is in one ear while Simon is in the other. Makes it easy to hear them cross, which is technically a no-no, but effective because of the stereo recording technique.
They say it's a no-no, but Alice in Chains did it with great success many times throughout their career. There are no real rules if you are practiced enough...
Who says it's a no no? Crossing harmonies is pretty common in jazz, folk, really any popular or modern style of music. I think Bach even did it, so really unless you're a beginning music theory student doing a homework assignment (which probably has restrictions purely for pedagogical reasons), you can cross harmonies
Being jazz snobs at 13 (how laughable in retrospect), we thought they were good pop songwriters. This explanation so well illustrates the S & G's genius that we came to realize as we matured musically. Thanks for doing this one, Aimee. Cool stuff.
You are adorable. Thanks for this presentation….very entertaining and educational…!
Gives me chills thanks!
Very insightful and beautifully expressed and executed. Long time fan of them here . They are a huge reason as to why I picked up a guitar and tried to sing. Along with the likes of the Beatles Simon and Garfunkel gave me the schooling for singing harmony...All by ear..I have no musical training.