Most pianists know Bach’s Prelude in C from Book I of Well-Tempered Clavier, that is a great example of five-part voice leading for keyboard instruments.
I rarely save to playlist but this one is getting saved to be watched again and again. I'm a self taught guitarist who has dabbled with theory somewhat like a resistant toddler over the years. Music was something I wanted to always be spontaneous, and never wanted to use the calculative side of my brain so to speak. Now I realize I'm missing out on so many useful tools. I've gradually learned just enough by experience, and the other by very basic theory to have a clue of what you are talking about here. The thing about not using the same shapes/root/inversion twice in a row was something I recently found out somewhat naturally. "Why does it alway sound good when I change them up in my chord progressions" was all I could muster up in question form. I also noticed it automatically gave me a melodic line just like you were saying here, and that I could choose between maybe 3 notes of each chord in the progression as to which road I wanted to turn on or keep driving straight melodically, and they all worked well without being predictable. Then you throw in more points that expanded my mind further...there's more for me to learn and assimilate in this video in other words. Anyways, long post but I wanted to let you know this kind of teaching is very compelling for me because it speeds up my evolution and gets to the heart of how to write better songs right now without getting side tracked with other stuff. There is store of wealth here. Thank you!
Well done video. Write/play as if each note in a chord is a “voice” that someone is singing. Make it so each voice has a melodic line that could be beautiful on its own. Bach was a master of this and there have been more since. Jacob Collier does this amazingly well in our time.
This is great stuff and really expanded my horizons in how I compose, but…. It muddies the water when it comes to understanding voice leading. Or at least I think it does. Voice leading is a melodic concept - specifically, how (usually) multiple melodic lines (voices) are constructed independently to “work” together. This has harmonic results when the voices fall in unison and guides how you might construct harmonies supporting well constructed voice-leading. It of course works the other way around - where a harmony implies melodic opportunities but I think it’s a bit confusing to call this harmony approach “good voice leading”. For example, to say that alternating chord shapes is good voice leading can easily be factually incorrect and create more that one large leap, or multiple climaxes within a given melody. Those are just a couple examples and there are many more where this solely harmonic consideration can literally and quite easily break all the “rules” of voice leading in one way or another. I say all this to expose my thought processes and potentially further my understanding of voice leading. Great stuff overall though! Very useful!
I guess someone should mention that the rules for vocal counterpoint is not the same for keyboard counterpoint and there are things which sound good on a piano that may necessarily not sound great for voice or other instruments. You are right in your take, but since he is talking about keyboard voice leading, he is not really trying to produce the same results of strict counterpoint.
masterpiece. rather than other viedeos which just explain vocing in chords, you come as a combination of chords and piano common playing（composing） technique
I was reading the book called " guide to practical study of harmony" by Tchaikovsky ..this video helped me understand why its important to avoid parallel fifths and octaves ..music has come a long way and using power chords on guitar and piano has formed genre like rock and metal, this video made me understand the beauty of the theories i read ..
6:58 at 2x speed reminds me of the dramatic intro to Trilogy by Emerson Lake and Palmer! This is such a concise but dense collection of priceless info that most teachers couldn't dream of achieving.
Hey I'm here to let the beginners or intermediate know you can feel your way to the right chords I skipped all but the simplest rules I dont even remember but I write music every day. Playing a lot of piano will teach you everything about voice leading and writing symphonies. The whole point of the piano is to write and learn.
damn, finding about this holy grail of music only now, I never thought it had a name :D this is what creates shivers when a new song has really good voice leading
this is exactly what I've been looking for thanks! I'm not very good with different inversions in both hands, playing hymns is helping but I think I'm going to try appeggios with both hands, C to C6 to C6/4 and try memorizing the fingering
I've played the church organ for decades. Never knew what I was internalizing all those years playing hymns and organ accompaniments was voice leading/counterpoint. Eventually I sought books which claimed to divulge the secrets of 4-part writing and the like, and found they were all full of ****. Nothing beats actual score study, play, and absorption.
Great video!. I was also taught "why" to avoid the same chord shape so as to not emphasise the bass note (that is supported by overtones, such as 5ths, 4ths, otaves) and to allow the top voice be the melody.
Erased my previous comment after watching till the end. Whats interesting is how you arrive at each voice having its own melody without actually ever making sure it does. You arrive at it by 'never repeating the same shape twice'. I'm still kind of puzzled how this rule assures that each voice ends up having its own melody.
Because it makes contrapuntal lines, voices move in contrary motion (as opposed to moving in parallel, which occurs when repeating voicings). Thus, multiple melodic lines. On a side note, its thought that parallel 5ths sound undesirable (in classical music theory at least) and, therefore, should be avoided - and this rule ensures this.
Maestro: Thank you much for sharing your knowledge with us "amateurs." I earnestly appreciate it. Do you have any study sheets that feature the "Embellishments Notes" or anything that references this lesson. I know you are a busy person but please do not stop very useful, helpful and to the point. Again Grazie, A
Hey so I wrote this piano piece yesterday and I posted it and someone told me to look up voice leading and once I head like the first minute I understood what he was talking about. What I was wondering would you be willing to hear it and help me fix it???
Why is the right hand most of the time excluded from this rule? Because it seems the only thing that changes is the lowest note of the chord inversion wise. Many times the shapes in the right hand don't change at all. Maybe somebody can explain.
Voice leading is making sure each voice moves the least distance possible (ensuring each voice has a smooth melody) not just "using a different inversion with each chord."
well that's true but you mostly just want good melodies in all the voices, even if it means leaps. I think that's good if you're composing on paper but when playing a chord progression from scratch, that kind of bookkeeping just slows you down, so this is more of a hack so you don't have to do that. Switching inversions is generally the case anyway, to avoid a lot of parallel fifths and octaves (with a few exceptions in actual voice leading I'm sure, but I can't think of any off the top of my head)
Yes, voice leading is moving the least distance possible and avoiding certain things like parallel fifths or octaves. You can even sometimes use the same inversions several times in a row with different chords and still be doing good voice leading. The voice leading technique called “Fauxbourdon” is an example of this.
Is it not that you can have multiple chords in root position one after another and the voice leading will be correct and vice versa? You can have a chord C, C, E, G move to F, C, F, A, move to G, B, F, B move to C, C, E, C, and that is good voice leading all in root position. Like wise you can have a series of parallel fifths in chords with positions in constant alteration and have bad voice leading. Some of your examples here had this be the case as well. Also voices at times seemed to appear and disappear as you played. Should not each voice come from a place and go to a place in proper voice leading? Should not parallel fifths be used consciously for specific duration, for a gluing or reinforcing effect on another line, and not in place of distinct moving voices?
Hi everyone - for a more detailed breakdown and further application of the concepts discussed in the video, check out my brand new video masterclass, "Voice Leading Concepts for Piano": www.mymusicmasterclass.com/premiumvideos/glenn-zaleski-voice-leading-concepts-for-jazz-piano-masterclass/ Thanks!
It's really hard on guitar, but the same principle applies, if you don't just slide bar chords around but play chords with different shapes that will help. Technically you would have to look at the single notes and make sure to not have fith- or octave-parallels, but all of that is very hard on guitar. I would not care about voice leading to much on guitar, it's hard to do and it's really not a problem in most jazz, pop or other new music.
Da BJ not necessarily very difficult on guitar, just requires thinking differently to the stock voicings used by most players. Just look at Ted Greene and you’ll see that the voice leading capacities of the guitar are in no way lesser than that of the piano. Look at inversions and drop voicings (eg putting the third, fifth, or seventh in the bass etc). Very much worth exploring
Hi Ellie - thanks for pointing this out. This example is not good voice leading, and is an oversight on my part. A better solution for the second chord could have been, from top to bottom, G-F/B-G.
In the modulation examples it looks like you're substituting chords from other keys...this is not very clear in terms of when you are modulating using a pivot chord.
Just 1:20 in but you're incorrect. The upper voices don't determine inversions, and you don't just have to stack them up together like that. Also, second inversions are dissonant and if you're not resolving them correctly, that'd be poor voice leading as well.
While you've stumbled upon a useful hack, it's clear you don't really understand what separates good voice leading from bad. I think you could benefit from reading the wikipedia page on the subject. "The cardinal rule of voice leading: Avoid using the same shape twice in a row." Well...kinda sorta...not really. I mean, it's a good rule of thumb because it will tend to keep you out of trouble with parallel 5ths and 8ths -- although there are plenty of parallel 5ths in your examples of 'good' voice leading -- but it's a very simplistic explanation. And what about parallel 6th progressions? They're not uncommon in classical music but they break your rule quite flagrantly. "The omnipresent ii - V - I is, technically speaking, bad voice leading." You're right that it's an awkward progression when all 3 chords are in root position, but it's not categorically bad. Voice it like this (bottom to top): DAF - GBD - CGE. Is this perfect voice leading? No -- the leading tone doesn't resolve to the tonic, but it happens in the inner voice so it's passable -- but it doesn't break the rules, and the upper voices all move fairly smoothly.
you can voice what ever you want to play. Play what you feel there are no rules. I hated these kind of lessons in Piano and theory class. Telling me I should not think on my own
