Materials and Preparation

• You will need some recordings with easy-to-hear parallel harmonies and a tape or CD player to play them on.
• Have your chosen tapes ready to play at the correct spot, or know the CD track numbers.
• Choose a song with a parallel harmony for them to learn. Some Christmas songs, such as "Away in a Manger" and "Silent Night", have well-known parallel harmonies, as do many popular and folk tunes. Look for harmony parts that seem to follow closely the contour of the melody. If you would like, you can use "America, the Beautiful", below.
• If it would help your students, have copies of the words, or the words and music, of your chosen song available for them.
• You can plan for the students to sing the song without accompaniment, or accompany them yourself, or arrange for an accompanist.

Listening Suggestions: There's plenty of parallel harmony to be heard in:

• some ragtime tunes, such as Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer".
• many popular "Country" music songs and modern Hawaiian pop tunes, especially in the vocals and in the dobro guitar parts, and in some folk styles (listen to the group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, for example).
• many pieces for solo violin, such as Brahms' Hungarian dances (listen, for example, to the slow sections of "Hungarian Dance No. 4 in Bm").
• the saxes and brass in some Big Band jazz tunes such as "String of Pearls" and "In the Mood".
• here and there in symphonic music; for example listen to the flutes in the "Dance of the Mirlitons" in Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, or in the "Gypsy Song" from Bizet's Carmen.

Procedure

1. Explain to your students that one kind of harmony that you can add to music is called parallel harmony. This is more complex and interesting than drones but less complex and interesting than independent harmony.
2. If they have covered the term parallel in math, remind them of this. If they have not, tell them that in math, parallel lines are lines that are going in exactly the same direction, so that they seem to follow each other and yet never meet or cross each other. The two long sides of a ruler are a good example.
3. Explain that in music, parallel harmonies are harmony lines that go in the same direction as the melody. When the melody goes up, so does the harmony. When the melody goes down, so does the harmony. But the rules for musical parallels aren't as strict as the rules for mathematical parallels. Parallel harmonies don't have to always move in the same direction as the melody by exactly the same amount. In fact, because they need to fit in with the chords and also provide some interest, parallel harmonies are usually not exactly parallel all the time. They can even meet or cross the melody sometimes.
4. Play your chosen recordings, pointing out the places where parallel harmonies are most easily heard.
5. If you have copies of the song for the students, hand them out.
6. Depending on your class logistics, you may teach all the students both the melody and the harmony, or you may divide the class up and teach each group only one part. It may take several sessions for both groups to be able to sing their parts with enough confidence. It often works best to have more students on the melody, but some of the stronger singers on the harmony.