If you’ve been looking to improve your vocal harmony skills, you’re in for a treat. 🎶 In this episode of Your Vocal Evolution: Tips in 10, I sit down with the incredible Allie Moss—singer, songwriter, long-time member of Ingrid Michaelson’s band, and a total vocal harmony powerhouse.
Allie shares expert insights on everything from blending seamlessly and arranging harmonies to developing your ear and becoming a more confident harmony singer. Whether you’re a lead vocalist or part of a group, these tools can completely change how you approach harmonizing.
This episode originally aired just ahead of Allie’s exclusive live workshop for Vocal Pro Members in February—where she dove even deeper into blending technique and ensemble skills. It was a fantastic session, and we were so lucky to have her!
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
00:00 – Introduction to Vocal Harmony
02:05 – Active Listening for Harmony
04:30 – Fundamentals of Harmony
07:22 – Blending and Arranging Skills
09:08 – Conclusion and Resources
▶️ Spotify | Apple Pocasts | YouTube
🎶 Join the Waitlist for Allie’s Unlocking Harmony Course
Be the first to know when the course launches—and grab a special early bird discount!
🎁 Free Training – Using Movement to Sing Easier + Sound Better!
🎤 Try 2 Weeks of Vocal Pro Membership – Free
Hello everybody and welcome to Vocal Tips in 10. I'm Amber Mogg-Cathey and I am so excited to have my friend and talent extraordinaire on with me today, Allie Moss. Allie is a fantastic singer, a fantastic songwriter. She's a long time member of Ingrid Michaelson's band. She's also toured with so many other fantastic artists. I could brag on Allie for the whole 10 minutes, but I have her on today.
because she is also a harmony, queen. And Allie is going to be teaching a vocal harmony workshop in the vocal pro membership this month. has a vocal harmony course that is coming out that is going to be really awesome. So I asked her if she would join us today and share a tip or two with you all on crafting great vocal harmonies. So I'm gonna stop and welcome Allie.
Allie (00:50)
Wow, thank you for that intro. It's so nice to be on your podcast. My tip for anyone looking to better their harmonies is to start by improving your ear through more active listening. And by that I mean not listening to music passively while you're working out or cooking or driving, but
specifically listening to a song for the harmony arrangements. Harmony is such an amalgamation of many skill sets and so singers that I work with, artists that I work with, they're gonna come to me with a different life experience, different exposure to harmony, different amount of time they've spent working on their instrumental skills, their vocal skills, their exposure is all gonna be different.
But no matter where you're at, so if you're a beginner or if you're very advanced, basically what you're listening to and what you're listening for is just gonna get more intricate and more intense. You may think you know, but I promise you, you can even go back to your favorite songs that you think, know what the harmonies are to this, and put headphones on or listen with left and right speakers.
Close your eyes, have a notepad, and pay attention to when do the harmonies come in? How many parts are there? Can you distinguish them? And from there, then I would go to learning all of the parts that you can, seeing if you can pick them out yourself. Mimicry is one of the best, is that a word? Okay, is one of the best ways to learn, both as a singer,
Amber Cathey (02:25)
Yeah, that's a total word, Allie. Go with it, yes.
Allie (02:32)
and as a harmony person, somebody, we need a word, as a background vocalist, as somebody who wants, that's a better way to put it. You can learn so much by listening to what is already working. And it will give you some insight into.
Amber Cathey (02:38)
Yeah, as a lead and a background vocalist. Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, yeah.
Allie (02:55)
where your ear is at. Like how much can you distinguish? How many parts can you actually hear? And then can you pick them out in order to sing them back? And learn the song. Always start with the melody actually, I say. Learn the song. Know the lead vocal and how it goes and then learn the alto part or the low part and then learn the high part. And if there's ad-libs, learn those and you can just study the music.
you love. That's my main tip is like I think it's fun. I think it's a really fun way to learn harmony. It's the beauty of why I never get bored because every new song is like a new puzzle. Whether I'm arranging an original song for scratch or whether I'm learning like the new Sabrina Carpenter song. You know what I mean? And you can go within your style that you love or you can try listening to
Amber Cathey (03:43)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Allie (03:49)
music that's very outside the genres you normally listen to. There's just endless songs, of course, to learn from.
Amber Cathey (03:57)
No, I think that's great and I think just like you said, more active listening is such a skill just for better musicianship. So therefore to be a better singer, to be a better vocalist, to be a better member of a band or any kind of group combination, to be able to have those listening skills I think is huge. And obviously for harmony,
to be able to just start to do it if you haven't taken the time to listen to a lot of harmonies and really kind of hear how they're structured, you're right, you're gonna have a lot harder time.
Allie (04:30)
Yeah, for sure. you know, you're going to be paying attention to both the arrangement of the song. So when the harmonies come in and out, how it builds, and that's more arranging. And then you're going to be also listening to the chords. And when it comes to harmony, it's not just the vocals, unless you're listening to acapella music, right? You're going to be hearing like all the instruments playing together and that all makes
the harmony, you know?
Amber Cathey (04:58)
Yeah,
absolutely, you're right. My nerdy brain loves it too. I feel the same. How can you ever get bored? Because there's always gonna be a new song, something new to listen to or a new way somebody has put it together, whether that's a voices, instrumentation, all of the above. I love it. I know you did a workshop. What was that a few months ago now in the Vocal Pro membership? That's kind of like, sort of like the first step of your new course.
Allie (05:25)
Yes, which is going to be called Unlocking Harmony. It's going to be called Unlocking Harmony. And that first part was more the fundamentals, the basics, which are not boring. They're the stepping stones.
Amber Cathey (05:26)
and it was re- yes please.
Yeah, and really the fundamentals, the basics, and tell me if I'm wrong, but it was really kind of helping people get that better active listening and then finding and learning their part or parts, whatever that is.
Allie (05:53)
Correct, yeah. And in addition in my course I'm going to be having like exercises and a few songs that you can learn part by part. So I'll break it down for you and then you can sing along with me basically.
Amber Cathey (06:03)
exciting.
Well, and then I
know that your second part of the course is more that kind of next step in harmony, which is the blending skills, kind of like you talked about with the instruments too, but just you can sing the right part, but you've got to have the right blend. That's really what this month's Vocal Pro Workshop is about. Can you talk a little bit about what that's going to look like in your course and then any other pieces in the course that you want to share?
Allie (06:11)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Sure, Well, your members are going to get a preview to the blending section.
It's really about, it's more active listening. Blending is, I'll say, at the root of it about the way you pronounce words. And so we're gonna go into like, what are you paying attention to dynamically, vowel-wise, rhythm-wise, consonant-wise? And then making artistic choices about how to
Amber Cathey (06:37)
Woohoo!
course.
Allie (06:58)
connect your voice with another's. Like if someone's very breathy, does that mean you should also sing very breathy or should you sing with more tone to balance that breathiness? and then the third part of my course is gonna be about arranging. So that to me is like my favorite part is putting all the things together and making a song come alive. You know, there's songs that...
Amber Cathey (07:03)
Mm-hmm.
Allie (07:19)
really would be kind of boring without the background vocals. There's songs that the background vocals just elevate and there's songs where it just adds a little bit of texture and there's songs that don't even need harmony believe it not.
Amber Cathey (07:22)
yeah.
Allie (07:33)
It really is song by song. You have to think about what story you're telling and if it needs more. But...
I always say 9.5 times out of 10, I add harmonies to my songs.
Amber Cathey (07:43)
When in doubt, stick it on there. Yeah.
Well, and I love that you said to, in your course that's coming out, and I'll put all of this info in the show notes, but people can join a wait list now, can't they? Exciting.
Allie (07:56)
Yes they can and they'll get a little discount
to it if they join the waitlist.
Amber Cathey (08:00)
Oh yeah, I mean, say that louder sister, discount if you join the wait list. And I love how you said, I mean, I know I'm so excited for the workshop that you're doing in the membership this month and that we all get kind of like a sneak, another sneak peek at the course.
Allie (08:03)
Yes.
Amber Cathey (08:15)
I love that you said people also get the opportunity to sing with you because you have sung harmonies with so many amazing people.
just the harmonies that you do at the Holiday Hop concert every year as part of Ingrid's band, they're so ridiculously good. I mean, you guys do some crazy, intricate stuff.
Allie (08:38)
Yeah and that's the beauty,
that's the beauty. So like I love everything from like really complex crunchy like Andrew's Sisters harmonies to very straightforward three-part triad stacks and oohs in the background of it. Like they all have a place and it's about your taste and what you like and figuring out how to add that to your songs. It's very bespoke like my chorus and
My approach is to give everyone who's interested the tools they need to get started. But of course, if someone's interested in going deeper or feels like they're stuck and not sure why, message me. Hopefully that's what I do one-on-one with people.
Amber Cathey (09:25)
Yeah, I'll pull all that info down in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on and chat and share some vocal harmony tips because like I said, when I think up-leveling vocal harmonies, I think Allie Moss. So, you're the best person to be sharing tips with folks and if you guys are interested in joining her workshop.
Allie (09:39)
Thank you.
Amber Cathey (09:46)
You can try the Vocal Pro membership out for two weeks free. That'll be down in the notes too. And then get on the wait list for Ally's upcoming course so you can up level your harmonies and you get a discount. Thank you guys for listening and hope to see you in the next episode. Happy harmonizing.
Allie (10:00)
be harmonizing.
