Guitars playing in harmony

Question

I wonder if guitars playing in harmony is as simple as this: Let's say you want to play a solo part in Am with the minor scale. If you would play the 3 notes on each of the 3 highest strings (G, B and e):

e|-------------5-7-8|
B|-------5-6-8------|
G|-4-5-7------------|

That would be: B C D E F G A B C

Now, let's say I want to play a 5th above that in harmony, would that mean that every note is just 5 notes above in the scale being used, so being: F G A B C D E F G. Resulting in such tab:

e|-------------------12-13-15|
B|----------12-13-15---------|
G|-10-12-14------------------|

Or could I just take the same patern as the original and move it up a few frets?

Additionally, I have a Digitech Whammy 5. If I choose to have a 4th above and enable the pedal, would that mean that it plays this solo part perfectly a 4th above, or does the pedal do something else?

Answer 1

It's nearly as simple as that. Nearly. But - harmony such as you illustrate here is made up from the notes of the scale, yes - but, everything does not move exactly parallel as I think you say. Let's take a 1-3-5, say in Cmaj. C-E (1-3) is a major third, which is 4 frets, and the 3-5 is a minor third, which is 3 frets. So the spacing is 4 frets then 3 frets. Move up to the second note of D. The chord made from this is usually Dmin. in key C. This is D-F-A, which has a different spacing from the C maj. chord. It's 3 frets, then 4 frets - the opposite way from the C maj.You'll notice that the 1st and 5th notes are spaced the same, at 7 frets, so they can go parallel.Until the last but one chord, where there's only 6 frets between the top and bottom note of the triad.Having said that, this chord is the least used in pop music - the m7b5.

This is why, if you just programmed a harmony unit to, say, thirds, it would be out of tune on half of them.It needs to be told which key you're playing in.Then it will compensate automatically.The clever ones that you plug your guitar into analyse the current chord, and sort out for you. For instance, in C, occasionally you'll use Dmaj. instead of Dm. On the earlier machines, they would still play an F, rather than the much needed F#.