Can someone explain harmonization to me?

[Mace63]

I didn't know where else to post this, so I'll try here.

Basically, I would love it if someone could explain how does harmonization work in songs. Why is it used and how is it used. By how, I mean to ask how do people decide that a certain line or whatever should have a harmonization, and if it does, how do people know whether the "lower" or "higher" (I really don't know how this is called, but I hope you guys understand what I mean) harmonization should be used?

I don't know much about music in general, which anyone could see, I guess. I googled this and read a lot of things that pertain to my questions, but I still don't really have a clue about harmonization. So if anyone can put this in a way it's easy to understand, I'd be happy. But I guess that just about anything will work.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Cerise]

Well, Wikipedia might be hard to understand at times and I don't think I'll be very good at explaining but I liked this person's explanation:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091001110231AA2Ezca

Harmony is a basic component of music and is heard when two or more different notes are played or sung at the same time, creating an entirely different effect than just one note. Vocal harmonies can be compared to guitar chords, with the singers representing each string. Harmonies are often done by two people, but some groups like to extend their harmonies by having three- or even four-part harmonies.

I would add that you can think of it as composing a second melody to be sung at the same time as the melody you've written. For example, if your melody goes C-D-E-D-C, a second voice could sing E-F-G-F-E as a harmony.

I also like to think of it sometimes, e.g. when you're playing the piano and you might have chords, imagine the voices as those different notes in the chords - they are all singing different notes but combined to give one overall sound. But your ears are still mostly following the main melody? It's hard to explain... >.>

But of course, I'm not a pro musician. So maybe someone else could give a better explanation LOL

As for when harmonisation is used (once again I have no idea if there is some professional 'procedure' or 'rule' as to using harmonies) but I guess, because harmonies create a more rich sound, it is added when the composer wants to add 'depth' and power to some part of the music? E.g. Kala's symphonia - it's an uplifting, powerful march song so you have all three girls harmonising to produce that power because one of them singing alone wouldn't be able to do that.
And then when you want delicacy and detail rather than power you would only use one voice. E.g. in quiet ballads like Mizu no Akashi, Michiyuki (lol these are all Kajiura examples) But then again like before with power ballads e.g. Seventh Heaven, Hikari furu, you find the harmonies coming in again.

This is just my own thoughts and speculation though. And not sure when/how you decide between using high or low harmony (low harmony is used more it seems). But I always think high harmony sounds very sassy for some reason haha probably because of the way Wakana does it in songs like magnolia, signal, obbligato and also Yuriko and elemental and storytelling

 

[Mace63]

I only now noticed your reply and am very thankful for your explanation! I can say that I understand some things about harmonization more now. I'm happy to finally learn that there isn't a strict rule when using harmonization in songs; I always thought there must be some kind of rules but it's good to know that this isn't the case.

Thanks again!