R-J:

Many groups have enjoyed much success by using the same harmony for virtually every song. This includes The Everly Brothers, The Louvin Brothers and (pretty much) The Carter Family as well as most bluegrass groups.

We, on the other hand, agree with you. We think it's boring for us and for both of our listners if we use a "formula" arrangement. We always use a "structured" harmony in the sense that we work out the arrangement in detail and write it out note by note and never deviate from it (at least not on purpose). But, our arrangements are "unstructured" in the sense that they're different for every song. Sometimes one of us takes the melody, sometimes the other and, occasionally, we share it. Each song has a different harmony that we feel is appropriate to that particular song.

Many people are under the mistaken impression that every song has "the harmony" that goes with it. We did a harmony singing workshop in which we debunked that idea by doing a song called "The Seven Blessings of Mary". The song has seven verses (duh!) and we sang the first verse in unison. On the remaining verses, Bev sang the melody and Jerry sang a different harmony on each verse. This was a real eye opener for many people in the audience.

In fact, we think everyone could learn a little by taking a song they're very familiar with and singing as many harmonies to it as possible. It just might open your mind to new harmony concepts. Listen to the different kinds of sounds you create and ask youself how they make you feel.

Jerry has a background in classical music so he takes a very theoretical approach to writing harmonies. Bev's background is much more folkie. So, the conversation usually goes some thing like this:

Jerry: "Let's use an open fifth here"

Bev: "That doesn't sound quite right, fix it!"

Bev and Jerry