Voice Leading: Making Progressions Sound Expensive

The idea

Voice leading means treating a chord progression as several melodies moving in parallel: the bass line, the inner notes and the top note. Four principles cover most of it.

1. Move each voice as little as possible. Notes shared by two chords stay where they are. The others move by step.
2. The top note of your chords is a melody. The listener hears it as one. Control it.
3. The bass is the second melody. Inversions and slash chords exist to make it walk instead of leap.
4. Resolve tendency tones. The leading tone goes up to the tonic. The 7th of a chord goes down by step.

This is the difference between strumming C, G, Am and F as cowboy chords, with the bass and the top note jumping at random, and a part that sounds arranged.

On your instrument

Piano is the voice-leading gym. Play I – vi – ii – V – I in C with the roots in the left hand and these shapes in the right:

Chord	Right hand	What moved
C	E G C
Am	E A C	G up to A
Dm	F A D	E up to F, C up to D
G	G B D	F up to G, A up to B
C	G C E	B up to C, D up to E

No voice ever moves more than a whole step.

Guitar. Use the three-string triads from lesson 3.1. Play I – V – vi – IV in C on strings 3-2-1 high on the neck:

       C       G       Am      F
e|-----12------10------8-------8-----|
B|-----13------12------10------10----|
G|-----12------12------9-------10----|
top:   E       D       C       C

The top note walks down E, D, C and then holds. You have written a hook without writing a melody.

Worked example

Harmonize a melody line from the top down. The top voice is C – B – A – G in C major, one chord per note. For each note, list the diatonic chords that contain it, then choose.

Top note	Chords containing it	Solution 1	Solution 2
C	C, F, Am	C	Am
B	G, Em, Bdim	G	Em
A	F, Am, Dm	F	F
G	C, G, Em	C	C

Solution 1 is bright and direct: I – V – IV – I. Solution 2 is the same melody with a darker start: vi – iii – IV – I. Same top line, two different moods. This is how arrangers re-harmonize a melody.

Exercises

1. Harmonize the descending line C – B – A – G with one chord per note. Find a third solution that is not in the table.
2. Take your best loop from lesson 4.3 and make two versions: (a) a slash-chord version with a stepwise bass line, (b) a small-triad version with a controlled top line. Record both over a drum loop.
3. Play I – IV – V – I in G with three-string triads, three different ways: with the top note staying as still as possible, with the top note rising, and with the top note falling.
4. Listen to a song with a piano or keyboard part. Follow only the top note of the chords for one verse.

Common mistakes

• Moving every chord in root position. Parallel root-position shapes are a sound, and sometimes the right one, but they are the opposite of voice leading.
• Forgetting the bass player. If the bass plays the root while you play C/E, the listener hears plain C. Agree on who holds the bass note.