Subject: RE: Creating harmonies in sea shanties
From: Brian Peters - PM
Date: 08 Mar 12 - 07:25 AM

Bass lines are a good place to start, especially on simpler shanties where the bass line can have as few as two notes. Take 'South Australia', and let's say you're singing it in the key of D.

The first refrain 'Heave away, haul away' is on the notes BAA, BAA. If the bassist sings DDD, DDD, that sounds fine.

The second refrain, 'Bound for South Australia' is on the notes F#GAF#ED, and the bassist just needs to sing DDDDAD (the A being the lower alternative).

That kind of thing can become instinctive pretty easily. Obviously there are way more complicated things you could do, but that's at least a beginning."
at last a sensible post, what Brian appears to be saying[if i understand this post correctly]
is this, the root note of the chord, and the fifth note of chords often work well for a simple bass line, bearing in mind whenever possible contrary motion is better and less predictable sounding than similiar motion,although occasionally similiar motion can sound ok
a knowledge and understanding of chords and of different modes can help[but is not essential].
Finally some experts such as Chris Roche believe it is not authentic to sing harmony and preferable to sing in unison, personally I think both can sound good if the singers are good.Dick Miles