Voice Leading
The term voice leading comes up often in discussion of music theory, especially when you talk about chords and chord progressions. Voice leading has two definitions:
The art of connecting chord to chord in the smoothest manner possible
A particular practice in music theory that teaches a set of rules for exactly how voices should move from chord to chord, which is almost always taught in four-part writing
Now, you can concern yourself with the first definition. Voice leading in the traditional sense is an academic practice that is taught when you study music theory deeply in high school or college. It's valuable for some things, especially when you consider that all the rules are taken almost exclusively from Bach's writing style. Because Bach was a genius, it's not a bad thing to study. But too many students get bogged down with the rules and believe that music has to adhere to them.
Go back to the last example in Chapter 8 (Bach's Prelude in C) and look at the voice leading from chord to chord, especially the inversions. Better yet, go through the Roman numeral analysis and play them as block chords and listen to how they sound. Good voice leading can take a simple chord sequence and transform it into a masterpiece.
The challenge is teaching voice leading in a way that makes sense to everyone. The academics can teach voice leading in their own way; here, you will experience a different approach.
Practical Voice Leading
How can you get practical about this? Well, for starters, chords rarely appear in tightly voiced triads as shown in FIGURE 10.13.
FIGURE 10.13 A Compact Chord
FIGURE 10.14 Typical Guitar Voicing
Take the standard guitar chord shown in FIGURE 10.14.
All the voices are fairly spread out. The object of voice leading is to try to smooth the transitions from chord to chord as much as possible.
Here is a simple way of looking at voice leading. In FIGURE 10.15, voice leading is intentionally omitted through a ii–V–I progression.
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FIGURE 10.15 Bad Voice Leading: Block Chords
See how all the block chords in the treble staff bounce from one to another? It looks bad and sounds even worse. Take the following as a mantra and you'll be amazed at the difference in the sound: Wherever you are, get to the closest note in the next chord. FIGURE 10.16 illustrates the same progression with better voice leading.
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FIGURE 10.16 Better Voice Leading
Not only does it look better, it sounds better. The chords have more of a flow than in the previous example. Always try to connect the chords when you write them. Remember that chords are not blocks of information but voices that come together. Keep the individual voices moving as smoothly as possible. As you keep studying how to use chord progressions with inverted chords, your voice leading will improve.
ETUDE 10.1 Etude One
In the following examples, indicate the leading tone and its resolution to the tonic with an arrow
ETUDE 10.2 Etude Two
Using arrows, indicate the proper resolution of the tritone in the following V7 chord
ETUDE 10.3 Etude Three
The following minor chord progression has a mistake in it. Can you find it and correct it?
ETUDE 10.4 Etude Four
Transpose the example progression from major to the parallel minor, altering the notes as needed
ETUDE 10.5 Etude Five
Using the Roman numerals and the provided bass notes, realize the chord progression below
