Thank you, George (up thataway somewhere) for reassuring me that I'm not alone. As someone else suggested further back, for me each note has a set of related notes just hanging there in the air around it and just asking to be sung. I do have to know the tune first, though, and will always sing or hum the tune through first if it's not totally familiar to me. And when harmonies start I don't ignore the tune - I can hear both or several parts going on at once, just like seeing two or three colours at once.

For us it's not a case of how or why to do it, the hard thing is how to not do it when it isn't appropriate. Harmonisers Anonymous, that's us. Well, not so anonymous really because we give ourselves away all the time.

Marje