Comments on: How did you learn to sing harmony?

By: mary davis

mary davis — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:32:06 +0000

I was seven years old, riding in the car with my mom. She had just sung the alto part while i sang the melody, and then we switched. And that was it. been singing harmony ever since !:)

By: Rick Bingham (alias Ringham Bingham

Rick Bingham (alias Ringham Bingham — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:16:21 +0000

I led my first song in worship on a Wednesday night in 1962. I was 9. Scared to death. Brother Wiley Davis had help me to learn “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand.” I blew a pitch-pipe. Hummed what I thought was a ‘G’, and started singing. To my utter surprise, the congregation followed. I learned to sing harmony by trial and error and by sitting next to the older brothers while they sang tenor. I tried to sing bass, because singnig tenor was not very manly for a Oklahoma country boy. But alas, it was tenor then and tenor now. I thank the Lord for all those wonderful men and women to have sang with me….and still do. I know God smiles.

By: Tabitha Peters

Tabitha Peters — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:01:27 +0000

I learned harmony before I could even read the words to songs. Now I can do both, but congregational and devo singing taught me.

By: Karyn McNeal

Karyn McNeal — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:04:37 +0000

I’ve known how to read music since learning the piano as a kid – but I had never heard or been part of a group singing a cappella until I was added to the church at 25 years old. With my background in piano, I only recognized chords – so I had a hard time figuring out how to sing a soprano “chord” … and then one summer our congregation had some singing lessons, and one of the song leaders (who is now my husband!) explained that sopranos only follow the top line, altos the second, etc. Was *very* helpful!

By: chuck

chuck — Wed, 25 May 2011 01:48:41 +0000

I learned to sing harmony by borrowing acappella (tapes at the time) music and playing them on my walkman or my radio when I was going to sleep. I used to sing myself to sleep in my adolescent and teenage years as I lived at a childrens home. Music was very calming and gave me memories of my own home

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:47:58 +0000

It’s amazing how many people who don’t read music, actually do, to a certain extent. Thanks for sharing, Amber.

By: Amber

Amber — Sun, 08 May 2011 01:08:50 +0000

I learned to sing harmony by ear while listening to my mother and another precious lady in our church. AIso, as a child, my parents would listen to various “tapes” from the Acapella Company while on long trips. I would sing right along!! I can’t read music, but I can sort of see the flow of things on the page.

By: Victoria

Victoria — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 23:36:30 +0000

I learned it both ways, first through church, and again through Band and Choir in high school.

By: Sharon Maisey

Sharon Maisey — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 04:22:50 +0000

Singing is like breathing, I don’t know how I hear the harmony but I know I do. One day someone will teach how to read all that stuff. The older songs are easy to harmonise with as they seem to follow some kind of set pattern, meaning even if I have never heard it before I can “guess” when the harmony is meant to go. The newer songs – I have to learn by listening othe CDs over and over as the new patterns are still a work in progress. I don’t know if it is my polynesian genetics but I can still hear a harmony…one day it may even be what everyone else is singing….

By: Dell Hoover

Dell Hoover — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 19:20:40 +0000

I learned while taking trips with my sister and brother-in-law, Aggie and Jack Bledsoe. We always had books in the car or sang from memory. When we sang fast songs, Jack drove fast! Slow songs…you guessed it. The one disadvantage is that we read shape notes; so now it is hard for me to sing a new song without the shapes. We were a singing family and blessed by it. My pet peeve in worship is to have words to a song on Power Point without music.