Kim Gentes

Hear Harmony I, II, and Warm Up

Hear Harmony was the winner of the 2004 Resource of the Year from WorshipMusic.com.

Hear Harmony are Vocal Training CDs focusing on harmony through independent singing in rounds, parallel 3rds, finding a starting pitch and harmonizing above or below the harmony. There are 3 CDs available in the series and each focuses on training through actual particpatory exercises. Demonstration followed by an opportunity to sing along.

REVIEW :

Hear Harmony is a wonderful 2 CD set that introduces the concept of learning to sing harmony. The Lessons begin with the very basics of teaching the listener come concepts for ear-training. In order to sing harmony one must start with ear training. Hear Harmony does a wonderful job of teaching the listener to pick out the differences between melody and harmony lines in a song using 2 familiar songs most of us learned as children. 

Succeeding the first five sessions, the lessons break in to the real strength of the Hear Harmony method: the exercises. The exercises start at a very basic level and as they progress the build on each previous exercise. The exercises begin by singing numbers in the steps of the major scale and learning to sing in parallel thirds, which is the most common that we hear on a daily basis. The lessons then segue into singing notes using solfeg (i.e. doe, ray, me) and the first CD finishes with the building upon previous lessons and singing over different chord progressions and harmonizing to melodies that have skips in the intervals of the notes. When you break in to the second CD, the fun really begins. You are shown what it sounds like to sing in and out of tune on a harmony line and how to train your ear to hear the difference. The harmony exercises become more complex with continuing to learn to sing harmony at a third and forth interval above the melody line and when each is appropriate. 

The reward start to come in the second half of the CD as you move from exercises to working out harmony parts on familiar songs such as Are You Sleeping, Jesus Loves Me, Amazing Grace and others. This is where the exercises really begin to make sense as they are applied in these songs. As you continue to practice the exercises and sing along with the songs, you will grow stronger in learning to sing harmony. The only difficulty that I noticed in working through the lessons is that it can get tedious and at times, monotonous. But if you think back to learning to play an instrument in school the practice although time consuming and sometimes difficult to follow through on, did pay dividends if you stuck with it. The same is true of these lessons. 

If you have never been able to sing harmony in the past, this double CD set will help you, but it is not going to come overnight. If you are able to sing harmony to some degree, this CD will help you understand some of the wherefores behind singing harmony and you will improve. Even if you have been singing harmony for years, you will be able to glean something from the Hear Harmony CD, even if it is just using the scales as warm-up exercises. All in all I think that the Hear Harmony CD set would be a great tool in any worship leaders library. 

Review by Brian Bloom

Editor's Note: Not only as an editor, but as a worship leader, I must completely agree with Brian's review of the Hear Harmony Vocal Training CDs (see the review below). We need more solid resources like this in the church. So many vocal resources strive to fix & perfect technique but don't actually teach people (from scratch) the simple how-to's of attaining proper pitch (whether in a harmony or melody context). I was so happy to see this being done, and done with excellence, we decided to select Hear Harmony Vocal Training with our Editor's Choice Award. Great work, Hear Harmony! Great review Brian! I strongly encourage ALL you worship leaders and vocalists (current and hopefuls!) out there to seriously investigate this great new resource. Be sure you check out both Part 1 and Part 2 of this resource (available on separate CDs).  Kim Gentes

Executive Producer: Joe Randeen 
Producer/Instructor: Rachelle Randeen 
Vocalists: Andreana Arganda, Raquel Cooke, Murray Hiebert, Tony Sanchez 
Engineer: Jeff Dykhouse

Available online at Amazon at:

Hear Harmony Part 1
Hear Harmony Part 2

In the harmony with you,
Kim Gentes