Nice work. I'd like a touch more reverb in spots, but that's personal preference. That's for both instruments and the vocals in spots.

There are a few spots (like at 2:08 on "Young At Heart" where Norma sings "extremes") that show up now and then where Norma gets a bit sloppy. You might want to have a close listen and clean them up. Or not.

The vocals on "Misty" sound a bit quieter than the instruments around it. I didn't notice that on any other song.

"If I Could Fly Away" could definitely use harmony! There are a couple approaches you could take. Perhaps simplest would be to add a backing of "oooh" and "aaaah" in back based on the current chord. For example, if the current chord is a "C" (C,E,G), multi-track her singing those notes. That wouldn't clever writing, but would fill things out and be pretty darned effective.

If you want to get a bit more clever, you could write a harmony part in thirds and sixths below the melody.

=== START OF REALLY BORING STUFF ===
I'm including this here because you sort of allude to coming up with a harmony part as being some special skill. It is, but with some effort just about anyone can come up with something good and usable.

The general rule to follow is to give good harmonic support. So if the melody note is a "basic tone" of the chord (root or 5th), use a "guide tone" (3rd or 7th of the chord) on the harmony, and vice versa, sticking with a note that's a 3rd or 6th below the melody. If the melody note doesn't belong to the chord, use the 3rd or 6th which creates the smoothest (i.e. shortest distance) motion. For the start and end of the phrase, you can use other intervals, like a unison, octave or fifth.

For example, if you've in the key of C and have a Cmaj7 chord (C,E,G,B), the "basic" tones are "C" (root of the chord) and "G" (5th of the chord), and the "guide" tones are "E" (3rd of the chord) and B (7th of the chord).

Continuing the example, if the melody note were an "E" (which is a "guide" tone, because it's the 3rd of the chord), you would use a "basic" tone on the harmony - either a "C" or a "G". You want to pick the note which forms an interval of a 3rd or 6th. The "C" is a 3rd under the "E", and the "G" is a 6th under the "E", so they both are good to use. So you'd pick the one which moves the smoothest (shortest distance) to the next note.

If you've got a note like "D" in the melody against a Cmaj7 chord, the note obviously isn't a chordal. So you'd pick either a "B" (a 3rd under the "D") or an "F" (a 6th under the "D") - whichever gives the smoothest voice leading.

These are jazz harmony rules, so it assumes there's a 7th in pretty much every chord, be it a Major 7th or a flattened 7th. As with all things musical, use your ear as the final judge, and you'll be able to work something out.

If you'd rather not go those routes, you could enter the melody into BiaB and have it generate a harmony for you.

=== BACK ON TRACK AGAIN ===

Recording a harmony part is pretty straight forward, once you work out what you're going to sing. Record the part onto a guide track. Set your multitrack on "loop" mode, and sing along with the guide track. Repeat a bazillion takes. Eventually you'll end up with something usable, and you can stack several takes to get a nice, fat chorus behind you.

Another option is to take the melody and slice it into parts (at each note). You can then manually pitch-shift the melody the a harmony part. But it's always better to have someone sing the part!

Anyway, nice work.

Last edited by dcuny; 10/11/10 09:43 PM.