Voice Leading Rules
The chords can be right and the music can still sound clumsy. Voice leading is about how each individual line moves from one chord to the next, and it is the difference between a progression that sounds played and one that sounds arranged. Hear the same chords jumpy and then smooth.
- same chords
- shortest distance wins
- the part nobody hears you doing
which styles use it
- Classical
- Gospel
- Film music
- Neo-soul
In short
Think of a chord progression as several melodies happening at once rather than a row of shapes. Each voice should travel the shortest distance to its next note, and any note shared between two chords should ideally stay where it is. Following those two ideas turns a progression into a set of lines that each make sense on their own.
This is the least glamorous subject in harmony and the one that most reliably makes an amateur arrangement sound professional.
Where it sits in the sentence
- Keep common tones
If two chords share a note, leave that note alone. It costs nothing and it holds the progression together.
- Move by step where you can
Every voice that jumps is a voice the listener has to follow. Steps are free.
- Watch the outer voices
The top and the bottom are what people actually hear. Get those two moving well and the middle usually sorts itself out.
Where you run into this
- In any piano part that does not leap around the keyboard between chords.
- In choral and string writing, where each part has to be singable or playable on its own.
- In synth pads, where bad voice leading produces exactly the lumpy sound people blame on the preset.
The versions side by side
One progression played in root position throughout, then the same progression with inversions chosen for the smoothest movement. Then the outer voices soloed, so you hear the two lines the ear was following all along.
Keep going
Everything in harmony
- Harmonic Function
- Diatonic Chords
- Cadences
- Voice Leading Rules
- The Six-Four Chord