Guitar Harmonizing

Harmonizing is one of the guitar techniques very frequently employed by guitar players during lead guitar playing. Some very famous bands such as Iron Maiden and Dragon Force almost have harmonized riffs or guitar solos in every song that they write. Basically, harmonizing is playing 2 different melodies that share similar tones. Learning this guitar technique will give not only give you more ideas and creativity in lead guitar playing, you can also apply harmonizing theory to the vocals if you are doing backup vocals in a band.

Before we get into lesson proper, guitar harmonizing requires you to have a basic idea of music intervals and scales. Please make sure that you have some basic music theory knowledge before continuing in this lesson.

To get you started with guitar techniques in harmonizing, let’s use the most common harmonization intervals used in music: the 3rds and 5ths.

Guitar Harmonizing in 3rds 

We will be using the C major scale to illustrate some theory in this lesson. Imagine playing a melody in the C major scale with the notes: C-D-E-F. If we are to harmonize this melody in 3rds, we would have to consider notes that are a 3rd higher in the C major scale. We would end up harmonizing the melody with the following notes: E-F-G-A. Basically, just count up three notes in the scale to find the third.

Guitar Harmonizing in 5ths

Using the same example of playing a melody in the C major scale with the notes: C-D-E-F. If we are to harmonize this melody in 5ths, we would end up harmonizing the melody with the following notes: G-A-B-C. Basically, just count up 5 notes in the scale to find the fifth.

Guitar harmonizing can be done much easier if you have another guitarist playing together with you. However, it is still possible to play harmonized melodies with the help of guitar effects or even proper fingering. Here is a simple fingering on if you are doing the harmonization alone. Again, I am using the C major scale in this example for 3rds.

|----0---1----3---5---7----8-----10----12----|
|----1---3----5---6---8----10----12----13----|
|----------------------------------------------|
|----------------------------------------------|
|----------------------------------------------|
|----------------------------------------------|

Guitar Techniques: Harmonizing Exercise 

This exercise is based in C major. I want you to do the harmonization in 3rds and 5ths. Once you have done that, you can check your answers by downloading the guitar pro 5 file.

Download  .gtp5 ( Right-click Save Target as... )

This lesson has just taught you the most basic and common kind of harmonization guitar techniques used and employed by musicians. You should be adventurous and experiment in harmonizing with different intervals. Harmonization is a really useful tool for lead guitar playing and I hope you have enjoyed this lesson.

NOTE: Some riffs and solos sound fine without harmonization and you should not try to harmonize EVERYTHING at every opportunity. Some times less is more. So, use harmonization at your own judgment.