Question about musical/singing terms...

[Rhio2k]

What's it called when in a duet, one singer does their part at a normal pitch, and the other singer does lower-pitched notes that compliment them, like you often hear in songs by The Cranberries?

[Duralath]

Doing a harmony of sorts? That's about the only thing I can think of.

Like, you're talking about when someone's singing on the melody (the normal pitch) and someone else is about a 3rd or something below or above them. Yeah. Harmonizing.

[Slide]

Kind of vague in what youre saying, but yeah Duralath is right when he says being in Harmony.

If they're singing the same note, but one is high pitched and the other is low, then that would be an Octave; Same note on the scale, but ones higher/lower pitched than the other.

If they were both singing the same exact note, same pitch, that would be called singing or playing in Unison.

After that it gets more complicated like singing or playing in Major or Minor.

[goodm0urning]

If they do it at the same time, it's a harmony. If they alternate, it's counterpoint (or contrapuntal, if you're an artsy-fartsy type). In harmony, each pair of notes in the harmony is referred to as a parallel interval.

Hope that helps. I've never listened to the Cranberries, so I'm mostly guessing as to the types of singing you're talking about.

[Rhio2k]

Okay...thanks, guys.