Voice Leading

This is a preview of the educational program A Jazz Improvisation Almanac which is under development for the Outside Shore Music Online School. Feel free to browse this preview and learn what you can from it. For a more completed product, though, check out the original freely browsable jazz textbook, A Jazz Improvisation Primer.

While the use of scales helps a composer or improvisor select notes to use over a given chord, one rarely would want to simply play the scale itself. The notes of the scale, possibly combined with some non-scale tones, are arranged to form a more interesting melody. This is referred to in classical theory as voice leading.

If you think about the typical performance of a jazz composition, the same chord progression is played through many times. If the composition is performed again, the same progression is played many more times. Recall also that one chord progression can be the basis of several different compositions. In the case of a blues progression, it might be literally thousands of compositions on the same chord progression. Furthermore, harmonic analysis of tonal music has become such a science that different chord progressions tend to contain many of the same elements.

Creativity in the improvisation of melody is thus extremely important. If melodies were as predictable as chord progressions can become, jazz would not be very interesting. Therefore, while this section discusses some common guidelines for voice leading, do not get locked into treating them as rules that must be followed. Treat them instead as ways of meeting expectations, and remember that creativity comes from the breaking of expectations as well. Many improvisors, even many of those who take a very theoretical approach to harmonic analysis and the selection of scales to use in improvising, rely on their ears alone to guide them in voice leading. Still, the observations made in this section can be useful, and you are encouraged to study them.

When analyzing a melody with respect to the harmony, we look at the intervals between each melody note and the root of the chord. When analyzing a melody with respect to voice leading, however, we look mostly at the intervals between the melody notes themselves. We can also use voice leading principles to resolve tension created through the use of harmonic dissonance.

In general, stepwise motion is perceived as smooth and melodic, and it provides release from tension. However, one would not want to be so smooth and melodic all the time. One of the most consonant possible melodies is the major scale, but it is simultaneously one of the least interesting:

[EXAMPLE]

While uninteresting in itself, this scale does illustrate an important principle of how stepwise motion can be used to release tension. Note that the fourth of the major scale is dissonant against the underlying chord. The dissonance is hardly noticed in the above example, however, because it occurs on an offbeat, and because it is heard as connecting the more consonant third and fifth. The dissonant note was approached by step and resolved by step in the same direction. Dissonance used in this manner is called a passing tone. Here is another example, using a non-scale tone as the dissonant note:

[EXAMPLE]

Passing tones can also be used to connect a chord tone in one chord to a chord tone in another chord:

[EXAMPLE]

Thus, it is possible to create some tension and release even within a simple scale. In general though, in order to create a more interesting melody, one would include a change in direction:

[EXAMPLE]

Besides being a way to add melodic interest, frequent change in direction has practical value as well, since it helps keep the overall range of the melody (from lowest to highest note) within reasonable bounds. Most wind instruments have a practical range of between two and three octaves. The notes toward either end of the range often have a different tonal quality from those in the middle of the range. A melody that keeps moving in one direction eventually creates tension just because of the range in which it puts the instrument. This tension can be released by an eventual return to the midrange:

[EXAMPLE]

Change in direction can also be used to resolve dissonance. Whereas a passing tone is a dissonant note that connects two consonant ones in stepwise fashion, a neighboring tone is a dissonant note that separates a consonant note from a repetition of the consonant note, again using stepwise motion, but this time with a change in direction:

[EXAMPLE]

Both passing tones and neighboring tones are terms derived from classical theory, which goes to great pains to put a name on every possible scenario for the use of dissonance or ornamentation. Jazz musicians rarely care about such labels, as they are more concerned with creating melody than analyzing it. However, one term that is in common use by many jazz musicians, largely due to the teachings of David Baker, is the enclosure. In this device, a target note is preceded by the notes a step above and below:

[EXAMPLE]

This device is commonly used by bebop musicians.

The seventh degree of a major, harmonic minor, or melodic minor scale is also called the leading tone, because it tends very strongly to lead to the tonic. This is particularly true if the underlying chord is a dominant chord, where the leading tone forms the third of the chord, and the tonic is the root of the I chord:

[EXAMPLE]

In fact, this can be turned around - any chord tone can be approached by half step from below, and this creates a "leading tone" effect:

[EXAMPLE]

While steps provide release from tension, a melody should not be all release. One way to create melodic interest is through the use of larger intervals, often called leaps. This creates tension that may be released by stepping after the leap:

[EXAMPLE]

Usually, a melody will step in the opposite direction from the leap, as in the above example. A melody may step in the same direction, however:

[EXAMPLE]

When a leap occurs, it most often follows a simple chord tone such as the root, third, fifth:

[EXAMPLE]

A leap from a more dissonant tone creates even more tension:

[EXAMPLE]

More normally, dissonant tones, such as notes that are extensions or alterations to the chord, tend to resolve by step rather than by leap:

[EXAMPLE]

Even the seventh, as observed in the section on chord tones, tends to resolve by step as well - usually downward, to the third of the next chord, assuming root movement upwards by fourth, as is most common:

[EXAMPLE]

Regardless of where a leap starts, it usually lands on a chord tone:

[EXAMPLE]

Leaping to a note that is more dissonant against the underlying chord creates further tension, which would almost invariably be resolved by step:

[EXAMPLE]

The distance of the leap itself also contributes to the tension level. Augmented fourths (diminished fifths) and sevenths - major or minor - are perceived as dissonant:

[EXAMPLE]

Any other interval within an octave is more consonant:

[EXAMPLE]

Also, the larger the leap, the more tension it creates. While a major third is not much of a leap, the interval of a tenth, which is the same harmonically, creates a great deal more tension:

[EXAMPLE]

Similarly, a minor or major second is a very smooth motion, but a minor or major ninth is more dissonant:

[EXAMPLE]

Normally, a melody contains many more steps than leaps. Melodies that use leaps more heavily are referred to as angular, particularly if several leaps are used in a row. Such melodies sound jagged and can create tension:

[EXAMPLE]

This type of line is often associated with musicians like Eric Dolphy, Thelonious Monk, and Anthony Braxton.

An important aspect of voice leading has do with how chords are connected. Normally, the first note played over a given chord would be a chord tone:

[EXAMPLE]

If the first note played over a chord is not a chord tone, this creates additional tension:

[EXAMPLE]

It is common to use passing tones to set up a change of chord:

[EXAMPLE]

Whenever a series of chords is played, such as in piano or guitar accompaniment to a solo, the chords themselves can be thought of as a set of independent voices. For example, consider the following passage:

[EXAMPLE]

This can be thought of as four separate melodies:

[EXAMPLE]

Each melody should obey good voice leading principles. Furthermore, the interaction between the voices comes into play as well. When there is a dissonance between any two voices, it will tend to resolve with at least one voice moving by step:

[EXAMPLE]

A good harmonization will usually involve a balance between parallel motion:

[EXAMPLE]

Contrary motion:

[EXAMPLE]

And oblique motion:

[EXAMPLE]

Note that while many of these principles deal with the relationship between a melody note and the underlying harmony, many of them are independent of that. The latter rules continue to hold when playing music without an underlying harmony. For example, a melody that is mostly steps sounds reasonably consonant, even when it is atonal:

[EXAMPLE]

While a melody that contains a large number of leaps contains more tension:

[EXAMPLE]

As with tonal music, leaps by consonant intervals will sound more consonant than leaps by dissonant intervals:

[EXAMPLE]

In either case, stepping after a leap remains a way to release the tension of the leap:

[EXAMPLE]

Dissonance amongst voices in a chord will still tend to resolve by step:

[EXAMPLE]

The discussion thus far has concentrated on pitch selection. Music theory rarely pays much attention to the durations or rhythmic placement of the notes. Yet rhythm can be an important part of the perception of melody. For example, compare the following two melodies, which are identical except for their rhythms:

[EXAMPLE]

Discussions about the rhythm of the melodic line fall outside the normal scope of music theory, and therefore, we do not go any further into rhythm in this chapter. Rest assured that the subject will come up again later.

Ultimately, you must use your own ears and creativity in guiding your construction of melodies. Whereas one can analyze a chord progression in advance, a jazz musician must be able to improvise melodies on the spot. There is normally little time for conscious thinking about voice leading. Therefore, it is important to get your ears accustomed to hearing how tension and release is created through voice leading, so that it will come automatically to you on the bandstand.

Here is an example of how voice leading techniques are used in a complete improvisation on a chord progression. Study it carefully so that your ears learn the sounds as well as your mind can acknowledge the theory:

[EXAMPLE]

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Voice Leading