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Harmony
- Guide to Proper Voice Leading
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Published
August 8th, 2003. © Chris Juergensen/chrisjuergensen.com.
All Rights Reserved.
This
lesson has been revised and published in THE
INFINITE GUITAR. Info
>>>
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The
Poor Man's Guide to Voice Leading - I'm
going to walk you through some of the basics
of voice leading in this lesson. When playing
through the examples, try to use your fingers
rather than a pick. Using your fingers will
help separate the notes and help you to hear
the individual notes in the chords. Classical
genius Segovia once said in an interview that
to play with a pick robs the guitar of it's
polyphony. So give it a shot!
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| The
lessons I learned about voice leading while studying
classical music in college haven't change since
Bach. We have learned to stretch harmony, melody
and rhythm but voice leading still generally works
the same way. The four types of contrapuntal motions:
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| Parallel
motion - Both voices move in the same direction
the exact same distance. |
| Similar
motion - Both voices move in the same direction
any distance. |
| Contrary
motion - Both voices move in opposite directions. |
| Oblique
motion - One voice stays the same while the
voice moves in one direction or the other. |
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Parallel motion
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Similar
motion
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Contrary
motion
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Oblique
motion
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Ex.
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Ex.
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Ex.
3
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Ex.
4
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| Ex.
1 - This example of parallel maj 3rds. |
| Ex.
2 - An interval of a major 3rd. moves
up to an interval of a minor 3rd. |
| Ex.
3 - Both voicings are moving in opposite
directions to form a perfect 5th. |
| Ex.
4 - This example of oblique motion demonstrates
how one voice stays the same while the upper
voicing moves up to form a perfect 4th. |
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| So
far we have only dealt with two notes at a time.
The same principles hold true for chords also. |
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Chords
- The first thing you start working on in your
music theory class in college is four part harmony.
You start by analyzing and writing Bach Chorales.
Although it is four part harmony (chords with
four voices), it is mostly triads with one of
the notes doubled somewhere in each of the chords.
Bach was adventurous compared to his predecessors,
he used a dominant 7th chord as a V chord from
time to time. A dominant 7th chord has a tritone
(diminished 5th) inside of it that kinda scared
musicians back in those days so Bach may have
been considered a rebel amongst his peers, Ex:
G7 = G B D F, the tritone is B-F. Play the interval
and see if it scares you. Bach was also a master
of counterpoint, the art of writing two melodies
on top of each other.
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| Dominant
chords usually got resolved to the tonic chord
this way back in Bach's days. At least I had to
resolve them this way or my Theory II teacher
would get angry at me and threaten to call the
Baroque police: |
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Some
rules or at least some standard practices for
the *Baroque period (Key:C):
| 1.
The b7 in the V chord (F) moves down to
the 3rd of the I chord (E) |
| 2.
The root of the V chord (G) stays as the
common tone (if possible) in the I chord
(G) |
| 3.
The 3rd of the V chord (B) moves up to the
root in the I chord (C) |
| 4.
The 5th of the V chord (D) goes either up
or down to the 3rd (E) or down to the root
(C) of the I chord |
| *A
lot of music historians tend to believe
that the Baroque period ended with the death
of Bach. Another famous Baroque period composer
was Vivaldi (an Italian). Before the Baroque
period we had the Renaissance. The Classic
period begins with Bach's death and pretty
much gets going with Mozart. While both
Bach and Vivaldi wrote sacred music (for
the church), Mozart started writing music
for the common people (operas) in German
(so people could understand what the hell
was going on). The classic period ends with
the death of another great German composer,
Beethoven. After that we get into the Romantic
period. Tchaikovsky and Wagner are some
names associated with this period. After
the Romantic period we move into the 20th
century, which we left behind recently.
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What this means to us in
the 21st. century
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chords have become way more harmonically advanced
since the Baroque period, for this reason the
way we resolve our chords has also changed. Many
of the chord voicings we use these days don't
even contain 5ths or even roots for that matter.
Regardless, the four types of contrapuntal motion
remains the same. The concept of "keeping
the common tone" still plays an important
part in voice leading. |
| Parallel
5ths - Parallel motion wasn't really considered
cool back in the Baroque days. Especially parallel
5ths and Octaves. Other intervalic parallel motion
such as 3rds or 2nds, etc. was considered okay.
The reason that parallel motion wasn't cool is
simple, the separate notes in the moving chords
should move around in different directions or
at least not the exact same distances to create
a sense of melody inside the harmony or at least
to create some musical interest. Everything moving
in identical intervals is boring to the ear. As
we will find out later, sometimes parallel motion
can be used very effectively to lead chords together,
but for now let's concentrate on the more traditional
form of voice leading. |
| What
is proper voice leading? - Hmm....probably,
when a chord changes to the next one, one voice
should stay the same (if it is present in both
chords), you might say "keep the common tone."
Another voice moves up and another down. This
is an example of what I think is pure perfection
when it comes to voice leading: a standard blues
turnaround. Check out how the top voice stays
the same, the note on the second string moves
up in half steps and the note on the fourth string
moves down in half steps. |
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| A
blues turnaround like the one in the last example
probably came into fashion in the 1930's or so.
Funny how some blues cats made a musical statement
that would have made Bach proud. Muddy Waters
or Robert Johnson definitely didn't study music
theory in college, did they? I guess it's safe
to assume that all these music theory rules are
really universal musical laws already known by
the ear. |
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Let's
take a look at the different kinds of motion
in action. What kind of motion is taking place
in the following examples?
| Ex.
1) Only one kind of motion going on here,
what is it? |
| Ex.
2) Only one kind here also, what kind of
motion do you think it is? Compare the sound
of this one to the last example. |
| Ex.
3) Two types of motion going on here, what
are they? Hint: look at the top note in
both chords and then the ones below. |
| Ex.
4) Two types here too, what are they? |
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| Answers: |
| 1.
Parallel motion |
| 2.
Similar motion |
| 3.
Oblique and parallel motion |
| 4.
Oblique and contrary motion |
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A
few examples of good voice leading
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| Ex.
1) This is a standard ii -b5sub- I chord progression.
Notice how the top voice remains constant through
all the chords. What's going on with the other
voices? |
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| By
keeping the common tone as your top voice, you
make almost any chord lead to the next, even if
theoretically it doesn't make any musical sense.
Proper voice leading can free up your chords and
keep you from being stuck with the same old standard
chord progressions. Listen and analyze some of
Wayne Shorter's or Herbie Hancock's tunes. Ever
wonder why so many of their songs are written
without key signatures? Why is it that the songs
they have written aren't bound by set keys? |
| Ex.
2) This example shows how by keeping the common
tone as the upper voice while resolving the inner
voices downward chromatically you can make a maj13th
chord resolve to a major chord a half step below. |
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| Ex.
3) Now I'm going to turn into a hypocrite. This
next example shows how to use parallel motion
as an effective tool to connect your chords. This
is basically a VI - II - V - I that you use as
a turnaround in a Bb blues. The thing that makes
this thing work is the bassline. If the bass notes
were also moving down chromatically the whole
thing would sound stupid. Oh yeah, I included
the roots as a reference but you can just let
the bassist handle them. |
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| Check
my lesson on ii
- V - I chord progressions for more info on
voice leading. |
