What is the musical interval/harmony in this song?

January 2, 2023 11:36 AM

I'm blown away by this recent Miley Cyrus performance of "Wrecking Ball" in which Dolly Parton is accompanying her. I'm specifically interested in the musical interval or harmony that Dolly's voice creates/adds during the chorus (around 0:40 and 1:30), because it causes me to cry, in spite of my having no real emotional attachment to the lyrics or anything else related to the song. Does this interval/harmony have a name? Are there other songs that employ it?
posted by unknowncommand to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

When Miley sings "wrecking ball," she is singing two notes: a perfect fourth above the tonic (i.e., the key they are singing in) and then a descent to the major third above the tonic. In solfege this would be "fa-mi." At the same time, Dolly is harmonizing a third above each of these notes: a major sixth over the tonic and then a perfect fifth over the tonic, or "la-sol." In this way, their first note is separated by a major third, and their second by a minir third. These intervals of thirds are the most common chord-forming intervals in popular music, so in this harmony Dolly and Miley are singing parts of a chord progression.

The notes they sing in this particular harmony are consistent with a IV-I resolution, sometimes called the "amen" chord progression or the "plagal cadence" because of its frequent use in the closing phrases of church hymns. (Though this is not necessarily the only chord progression that these notes could be a part of.)

So in short, yes, this harmony is all over the place in music.
posted by cubeb at 12:02 PM on January 2, 2023 [41 favorites]

Best answer: Right, the harmonies are ubiquitous. What makes this hit so hard is not the specific intervals, it's the excellent showwomanship and vocal talent imo.

I'm not that familiar with the original arrangement or recording, but that rest at 0:39 is big enough to drive a bus through and you can practically hear the whole crowd draw breath in anticipation of the big line. This is exactly the kind of thing that can be played up in a live performance for extra tingles, where the studio version would just have a normal eighth rest.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:09 PM on January 2, 2023 [14 favorites]

Yep, Dolly's singing in parallel thirds above Miley. That means following the same melodic contour, but two notes above the melody in the key of the song. Super common in folk and pop music.
posted by dr. boludo at 12:51 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

It tends to hit me, too, when there's a really soaring vocal line - and MC singing "...like a WRECKING BALL" is definitely soaring - and then you stack on somebody super-soaring the thirds on top of that.
posted by entropone at 2:20 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I agree with Salty that the performance and the arrangement of the song that is what's grabbing ya, as major thirds are almost certainly the most common vocal harmony that you tend to hear in pop music. Dolly in particular has a certain clarity and tenor in her voice and an ability to really bring out the vocal overtones that I think is maybe unmatched in all of popular music. here is a video that explains vocal overtones if you're curious.

Some of the absolute best vocal harmonies that will bring you to tears are on the album Trio, which is our pal Dolly, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.
posted by pazazygeek at 5:57 PM on January 2, 2023 [9 favorites]

I find that harmony pretty striking as well. I think you're hearing how perfectly in tune they are, both technically and also just, like, as people who've known each other their whole lives (or Miley's life, anyway). There's a lot of genuine warmth here that's really touching even though I'm sorta neutral on this song and Miley Cyrus in general (I love Dolly Parton, like all people of sense). Plus they both have kind of a rough/raspy vocal tone and I often find that kind of ASMR-triggering. This style of harmony is also in a lot of Gillian Welch and David Rawling's work, you might like that, or maybe First Aid Kit.
posted by Nibbly Fang at 6:45 PM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Third-above is a common harmony but in this case it’s unusual that the higher line is louder because Dolly’s voice has that high clear power that cuts more than Miley’s growly contralto timbre. Usually in any arrangement the melody (Miley) would be louder but here it’s Dolly on the harmony.

Plus, as stated above-

Thr musical arrangement builds the anticipation with a long pause and then a big drumbeat and cymbal crash to support the high note.

Also they’re both just great singers who are confident and singing with abandon and emotion.

The set design is great - beautiful lighting, lights in your eyes at every camera angle, and the immense verticality of the set design make it feel arresting and add importance.

And the camera’s sudden jump out to a swooping wide shot really helps add impact too.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 8:38 PM on January 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Another part of why that harmony lands so hard I think is what the movement of the melody and harmony line are vs. the actual chord structure. Coming into the chorus, the chords of the background accompaniment move from a IV (starting at basically the last word of the bit before the chorus) to a nice stable root I chord, but what the melody does is stay with that IV chord at first. She sings "I came in like a / wreee-cking ball" the chords change at the start of "wre..." but the melody only finally steps down from the major fourth (which isn't in the root chord, but is in that IV from before) to the major third (which is in the root chord) at "...cking ball".

That harmonic tension in the melody is like 90% what makes this such an effective pop chorus. The effect would be much lesser if she moved the melody with the chord change, singing the fourth on the IV chord but immediately moving down to the third when the root I chord hits. And she repeats that movement in the chorus right after as well, against different chords: where its a IV -> I move with "wrecking ball" hanging on across the change and creating harmonic tension, just after that it's a vi -> IV move where again that fourth in the melody for "i never hit so / HAAARD in love" hangs out through "hard" in the out-of-chord note after the vi kicks in.

Take all that and toss a parallel third harmony above that emphasizes that delayed-change harmonic tension (and even adds some new tasty harmonic tension *after* "hard" in the second line of the chorus) and just, yeah, that's a big wonderful pile of sweet dissonance. It's bucking the harmonic expectation but not in a way that sounds bad or jarring, just jumps out.

Ladle on some great voices and an expectant audience and good execution and you got a real humdinger. But that melodic gimmick of the delayed movement really is key here, and the harmony is doubling-down. Parallel thirds are common enough but this is using them in a specific way to get more harmonic drama out of it.
posted by cortex at 3:01 PM on January 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm so glad this question is still open! I just came across this video, a beautiful rendition of an Everley Brothers song by Paul Simon and Edie Brickell. In terms of production, it couldn't be farther away from the Miley & Dolly number, but it's still tingle worthy!
posted by kate4914 at 10:44 AM on January 19, 2023 [1 favorite]