Harmony for Raglan Road

[joeryan]

All,

A friend who sings at my local pub occasionally asks me to play the whistle as she sings Raglan Road. I'm fairly new to the whistle (and new to playing music period) but I can play the melody alright. Or at least no has thrown tomatoes at me.

Nonetheless, instead simply playing the melody as she sings, I'd like to work up a harmony. But instead of fumbling in the dark, I'd figure I check here to see if someone can point me to a harmony already written.

Thanks and best,

Joe

[DickB]

Joe,
The easiest way to play harmony is to play chord tones; that is, play another note in the same chord that the melody is in at the time. You will also need to have a sense of what the melody note is, either by reading sheet music/tab or by ear. Usually the harmony for a duet is pitched below the melody, but it's also nice to play above it sometimes for variety. This is also necessary when the melody is in the lowest notes of the whistle, which looks to be the case at a lot of points in Raglan Road (assuming you are playing it in D on a D whistle).

Of course this method will be easier initially if you read music, and then you can write out the harmony part. After some practice you should be able to improvise the harmony by ear.

Dick

[joeryan]

Dick,

Thanks for the response. The music is below. The chord for the first phrase is D, and notes for D chord are D,F and A.

So I might start in F, for "On" and then move up to A and hold the note for "Raglan Road, on an autumn." As the chord changes to G, I'd play a high D, staying above the melody.

Or something like that?

Best,

Joe

[pancelticpiper]

Yes you're exactly right.

I've got fairly good at following "lead sheets" as they're often called, what you have there, the melody line and the chords.

The chord name tells you the three notes you have to select from; the note of the melody tells you which note you should avoid. (Especially with the uilleann pipes you don't want to "step on" the vocal line.)

So you're only choosing between two notes, not Rocket Science as they say.

It's quite easy to choose the notes and fill in here and there and make up a part that does the job.

The simplest thing is what's called "parallel motion" in music theory, that is, just shadowing the melody a 3rd above and/or a 3rd below, or a 6th above or below (a 3rd and a 6th are inversions).

The next level, it seems to me, is to create a harmony line that has melodic interest of its own, one that if played alone is an attractive tune.

It's an old arranging trick to start a song with a whistle (or what have you) playing just such a line as the intro, then the song starts and the whistle drops out, the whistle coming back in for the instrumental break playing that same line which served as the intro, and then after the instrumental break and the vocals come back in the whistle continuing to play that line, which now functions as a harmony part. It's very effective because the listener then realizes "hey, that's the same tune, but now it's working with the song!"

BTW our pipe band plays that very tune, The Dawning Of The Day, with a harmony part I wrote. With pipe bands the harmony part is simply that, filling in the chords (the drone note being the 3rd note of the chord in many cases) and usually doesn't have much melodic interest of its own.

[DickB]

Joe,
You're welcome, and Richard Cook's additions are very interesting; there's no end to the fun you can have!
Good luck,
Dick

[joeryan]

Wonderful. Thanks to both of you. Best, Joe

[pancelticpiper]

As I was saying a common straightforward approach is "parallel motion" where the harmony line is shadowing the melody line a 3rd (or 6th) above or below.

In parallel motion if the melody goes D E F# the harmony part might be F# G A.

Something to think about is what's called "contrary motion" where if the melody is going up the harmony line goes down and visa versa.

So our little melody above D E F# might have a contrary harmony part that goes d c# A (or filled in a bit with d c# B A). Both parts end up on the same F#/A chord but get there from opposite directions.

Here's a little page on contrary motion I did a while back for a Highland pipes forum; it starts with a couple familiar melodies in which the contrary motion stands out to the listener, being a highlighted point, a bit, in the arrangement. Then there's a few harmony lines I wrote for Pipe Band use that feature contrary motion. (Pipe Band harmonies are limited due to the pipes only having one octave.)

[joeryan]

Thanks, Richard. I will work on that. Best, Joe

[pancelticpiper]

BTW for Raglan Road there in D, I might choose to play it on an A whistle, fingering the tune as if it was in G, so that it comes out in D. This allows me to go below the lowest melody note, in my harmony part.

[DickB]

BTW for Raglan Road there in D, I might choose to play it on an A whistle, fingering the tune as if it was in G, so that it comes out in D.

Who says playing whistle is simple?