Harmonizing

Here’s something I’ve noticed: Artists, all kinds of artists, often use little tricks -- maybe call them tricks of the trade -- to make their art better. For example, a painter might elongate a shadow more than necessary in one of his paintings to fool the eye and make the object look truly three dimensional, or a poet might reuse a certain preposition only because it’s versatile.

Musicians have tricks, too. One, in my opinion, is harmonizing. Harmonizing, the type that I’m talking about anyway, is when one musician sings one melody line while his band mate, or whoever, simultaneously sings one that is nearly identical but different by a note or two. When the technique is done correctly, it produces a rich and intriguing sound.

I call harmonizing a trick, though, because it can be very hard to do if you’re just one person. You obviously can’t sing two melody lines at once, which can be frustrating and may often lead you to wonder, "Why does the song sound so much better when they sing it?"

I mention all this because recently I had been trying to sing the chorus to the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down” and had noticed that something was a little off. Was it “Don’t let me dow-n” that was sung or was it “Don’t let me dow-ooh-ow-n”?

Well, the answer is . . . both. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were -- you got it! -- harmonizing. One was singing “Don’t let me dow-n,” while the other was singing “Don’t let me “dow-ooh-ow-n.”

Because I would never be able sing the chorus as I had wanted, I thought I’d get creative. On my phone, I have two voice recording apps. How about, I thought, making a super rudimentary two-track recording?

So that’s what I did. On one app, I recorded “Don’t let me dow-n” on a loop and then, while it was playing, I opened the other recording app and started singing the other melody line over it, so the final track has both melody lines, just like on the record.

Here is the result. Enjoy.