Voice leading - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

, voice leading is the term used to refer to a decision-making consideration when arranging

Arrangement

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

voices

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

(or "parts

Part (music)

1) A part is a strand or melody of music played by an individual instrument or voice within a larger work. Parts may be referred to as an outer part or an inner part . Part-writing is the composition of parts in consideration of harmony and counterpoint...

"), namely, how each voice should move in advancing from each chord

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

to the next.

Details

Voice leading is the relationship between the successive pitches

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

of simultaneously

Simultaneity (music)

In music, a simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession. This first appeared in the music of Charles Ives, and is common in the music of Conlon Nancarrow and others....

moving parts or voices. For example, when moving from a C triad

Triad (music)

In music and music theory, a triad is a three-note chord that can be stacked in thirds. Its members, when actually stacked in thirds, from lowest pitched tone to highest, are called:* the Root...

in the root position (a chord

Chord (music)

played, from the lowest pitch up: C–E–G) to an inverted F chord based on the same lowest pitch (C–F–A), one might say that the middle voice rises from E to F while the highest voice rises from G to A, this being a way to "lead" those voices. Instead of considering the two successive chords separately, one focuses on the "horizontal" ("temporal" or "linear") continuity between notes in each voice. (Similar considerations apply to homophonic as well as polyphonic

Polyphony

In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....

music.) When arranging in the Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

, Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

-like style of harmony, the parallel movement of voices in octaves, in fifths, or in unison is to be avoided. However, popular and jazz music often contains voices moving in parallel octaves. A concern for easy voice-leading (easy, that is, for singers to read and follow) often leads to a predominance of stepwise motion and may assist or replace diatonic functionality.

In traditional contrapuntal Western music, voice leading is generally derived from the rules and patterns typical of counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

.

Voice leading may be described as parsimonious if it follows "the law of the shortest way" moving as few voices as few steps as possible and thus often retaining "common tone

Common tone

In music a common tone is a pitch class that is a member of, or common to, a musical scale and a transposition of that scale, as in modulation...

s." Anti-parsimonious or circuitous voice leading is "voice leading between trichords that avoids double common-tone retention, thus requiring at least two instrumental voices to move to different pitches."

An auditory stream is a perceived melodic line, and streaming laws attempt to indicate the psychoacoustic

Psychoacoustics

Psychoacoustics is the scientific study of sound perception. More specifically, it is the branch of science studying the psychological and physiological responses associated with sound...

basis of contrapuntal

Counterpoint

music. It is assumed that "several musical dimensions, such as timbre

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

, attack and decay transients, and tempo

Tempo

In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...

are often not specified exactly by the composer and are controlled by the performer." An example of one law is that the faster a melodic

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

sequence is played, the smaller the pitch interval needed to split the sequence into two streams. Two alternating tones may produce various streaming effects including coherence (perception as one unit), a roll (one dominates the other), or masking (one tone escapes perception).

Details

See also

Further reading