The Complete Idiot''s Guide to Music Theory

parts, so that the first part now goes G-E-A-D, and the second part goes E-A-
F-G. You’re still representing all the notes in the chord, but you’re making each
individual line more melodically interesting.
A good tip when you’re creating either vocal or instrumental harmony is to
physically sing each part yourself. If the part is boring or hard to sing, consider
different inversions or swapping notes between parts. The best harmony parts
sound great on their own!
Voice Leading
Voice leading is what you get when you follow one harmony part from start to
finish; the different intervals between the notes follow a set of conventions and
act to create a pseudo-melody out of the harmony line. You have to make sure
that one note properly leads to the next to avoid having the harmony line sound
like a bunch of totally unconnected tones.
It’s helpful to think
of a chord progres-
sion as nothing
more than a group
of simultaneous melodies.
This will help you create
singable harmony parts,
as opposed to parts that
correspond only to notes
within the underlying
chord structure.
Tip
If you follow these voice-leading conventions, you’ll create chord progres-
sions that sound good in both popular and classical music. When you’re
working in the popular and jazz styles, however, you’ll discover that you
can be a lot freer with your voice leading; let your ear guide you to
what works best.
Tip

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Chapter 15:
Harmony and Counterpoint
193
When you’re writing harmony, there are three key voice-leading conventions to
keep in mind. When you follow these conventions, the creation of harmony
parts becomes somewhat easy:
◆
In general, voices should move smoothly. That means moving each voice
the shortest distance possible, and retaining common tones between suc-
cessive chords in the same voice. How big of a leap is too much? Try to
avoid leaps larger than a fourth, except in the lowest (bass) voice, which
can accept larger leaps that move along with the chord progression.
◆
When at all possible, you should avoid moving all the voices in the same
direction. If some of the voices move up over the course of a line, at least
one voice should move down.
◆
Avoid moving voices in parallel “perfect” intervals—fourths, fifths, or
octaves. Voices 
can 
move in parallel thirds and sixths.
Here’s an example of bad voice leading. Notice how the two parts move in par-
allel, and how each voice has huge leaps from note to note?
… corrected.
The second example shows how to fix the voice leading problems, merely by
swapping a few notes from voice to voice or by picking other notes within the
chord. It isn’t that hard when you realize that any note can be assigned to any
voice; all you have to do is pick the right notes to create the best-sounding
musical lines.
Bad voice leading …

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