How I Escaped A Dangerous Three-Part Harmony

I came for the ascending melodic contour, but I stayed for the alternative rhetoric.

Photo by Joël Vogt on Unsplash

“How could you not know?” “Why were you so easily duped?” “What made you stay?”

I have been asked these questions so many times. And the answers are always the same. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the wrong turn was taken. It’s hard to ignore the charisma and persuasion; the constant love bombing about tertian chords stacked in thirds. You don’t go into it already knowing what’s ahead: Manipulation. Lies. Grooming. Avoiding parallel intervals. I can talk about it now. Finally, I am able to be honest about what happened to me.

I was involved in a three-part harmony.

Looking back, I realize I missed the red flags. But I’m here, on the other side, with my story. It’s a story of survival, and of leaving.

If you, too, have found yourself in a toxic three-part harmony full of deception and shame, read on for tips on how to finally break away for good.

Identify Your Situation

To escape a three-part harmony, you first need to know you’re in one.

In retrospect, it was so obvious how I was targeted for recruitment. I wish I had never nailed my part in ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’ If I hadn’t been so vulnerable, so eager for acceptance, so good at blending in with the melody, I might not have encountered everything that happened after.

“Rich, sonic vocal textures will lead to salvation,” we were told by our leader, whom we referred to as Magnus Dirigere, before he bedded all three of us at once and asked us to enjoy mutual ecstasy while hitting a 1–3–5 chord in the root position.

We were meant to obey Magnus as he carried out his mission to isolate us from others, and to nail our cover of ‘Carry On My Wayward Son.’ We were forbidden from seeing our friends, family, or any monophonic music practitioners.

Never questioning his authority, we were forced to do crazy things like second inversions to experience big, dramatic finishes. He loved to rearrange our vertical elements and wanted us to explore changing the order of our intervals. He was obsessed with influencing the texture and impact of music.

Our vocal range comfort was never ensured.

The expectations escalated and I began feeling trapped, even as I participated in group rituals and ceremonies like lip trill warmups and ear training.

Finally my sister — who I had been prohibited from talking to for years — got a hold of me and her words were direct. “I think you’re in a three-part harmony.”

I’ll never forget how it felt to finally be faced with the truth.

Decide When to Leave

I didn’t realize how enmeshed our trio was. We did everything together, all for our leader. The day I was forced to sing ‘The Sound of Silence,’ something in me snapped. I broke down. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. My solo days were so far behind me. I was at rock bottom and I knew I had to leave.

I thought about the three-part harmony continuing on without me. I’d be replaced before we finalized our cover of ‘Seven Bridges Road.’ I had worked so hard on it. I was so close to achieving a high C-sharp note. But I knew my time with them was over.

I just had to keep my plan a secret a little longer.

Visualize Life After

They say deception is a huge part in getting involved with an abusive, coercive environment. I’d been led to believe that the three-part harmony was my home, and that I would never be accepted outside of the group. I forced myself to imagine: Where would I be if I was no longer in a three-part harmony?

I didn’t always like what I saw in those images. But I couldn’t stay just because of fear: fear of loneliness, fear of rejection, fear of losing musical dissonance.

For weeks, I closed my eyes and pictured using my voice on its own. I let my mind take over and pretend I was performing the Gregorian Chant. ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.’ Janis Joplin’s ‘Mercedes Benz.’ The non-polyphonic intro to ‘I Will Always Love You.’

Anything but harmonizing.

That’s when I was finally ready.

Create Safety

I began to conjure my plan. I would announce one morning that I was going to the store to buy lemons for our slippery elm tea.

I made up all the details about how long I’d be gone. I promised I’d be careful not to sing with others while I was out, and that I wouldn’t let anyone see the treble clef triad branding on my inner thigh.

In reality, I’d turn left when I should turn right to get to the store, and I’d hitchhike my way out of that three-part harmony.

Escape

The day I escaped a three-part harmony was when I was picked up on the road by a man who introduced himself as Robert L. Conducere. He spoke to me at length about an opportunity to reach paradigm shifts and radical societal transformation under his guidance. I was promised an incredible life-changing experience, where I could be freed from the constraints of my old self in a three-part harmony, and instead gain a feeling of hope, and exclusivity.

Robert was governing a new movement to create four-part harmonies with independent musical lines supporting a melody which would be far superior and more effective than the evil and corrupt lesser-than choirs.

Immediately, I invested my life savings in Robert’s courses on voice leading, and seminars on tonal degree indoctrination. With enough of my personal time and sacrifice, I would rise in the rankings of this disciple paradise and be known extensively for my ability to avoid consecutive motion between perfect fifths and perfect octaves.

I would then recruit new members of the four-part harmony known to us privately as SATB.

Recover and Heal

Life with a four-part harmony is amazing.

Now that I’ve safely exited a three-part harmony and found true ascension with a four-part harmony, I’m much more savvy. I know to stay away from acapella followers, unaccompanied barbershop quartets, and close, non-doubling, low-register, incomplete chorded, implied-noted groups.

For me, it’s the promise. Come for the ascending melodic contour, stay for the alternative rhetoric.

In our sequestered collective, we are part of a powerful movement, whose independent musical tones blend into a cohesive whole to assist in the prevention of the onset of doomsday, unlike the traumatic and truthless three-part harmony I found myself entrapped in previously.

If you are in a three-part harmony, please know it’s not too late to get out. Have faith in believing that you can leave; you have it in you to escape. And when you do, there are many four-part harmonies ready to welcome you into their choral bunkers, invite you into their ceremonies to expand your tessitura, embrace you into their chambers of obedience and worship, and to rotate you into the four-chord progression of ‘Mamma Mia.’