Close Harmony

When I was in school, we'd sometimes use this phrase to make fun of the chorus.  "They're singing in close harmony," we'd say.  "Close, but not quite."  Then we'd snigger derisively.  Look, it was high school, and they weren't Glee.  Also, we were all jerks.  Anyway.

I knew roughly what the term meant, of course-- voices singing harmony that's, um, close.  You know.  Close together.  Or something.

As it happens, that's not a very good definition.  So here, for the record, is exactly what close harmony is.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, close harmony is "harmony in which the parts composing each chord lie closely together, usu. within an octave or twelfth."  Which is actually a bit less precise than I'd expect from them (how often is usually? What's the outside range?), so let's turn to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, which defines it as "the arrangement or distribution of the notes or tones of a chord so that the three upper parts lie within an octave."  There, that's nicely precise.  So next time I hear an OED editor describing a vocal chord distributed within a twelfth as close harmony, I can justifiably respond, "close, but not quite."  And snigger derisively.