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Voice Leading Rules - Cheat Sheet

The document provides guidelines for proper voice leading when changing chords: 1) Move voices as little as possible, usually by step, and resolve tendency tones appropriately. 2) Make each melodic line unique by avoiding parallel octaves, fifths, and hidden fifths/octaves between outer voices. 3) Write complete chords whenever possible, doubling the root and occasionally the fifth, while being careful of parallel octaves and fifths.

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Eggs Fried
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502 views

Voice Leading Rules - Cheat Sheet

The document provides guidelines for proper voice leading when changing chords: 1) Move voices as little as possible, usually by step, and resolve tendency tones appropriately. 2) Make each melodic line unique by avoiding parallel octaves, fifths, and hidden fifths/octaves between outer voices. 3) Write complete chords whenever possible, doubling the root and occasionally the fifth, while being careful of parallel octaves and fifths.

Uploaded by

Eggs Fried
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Voice Leading Rules - Cheat Sheet

Voice Leading Rules:


 Move the voices a little as possible when changing chords
**Rule: Resolve 7->1 in a V chord in the outer voices.
**Guideline:  Keep the notes the same if you can (except in soprano).  Move mostly by step.
**Guideline: Avoid melodic leaps with dissonant intervals.

 Make each line unique


**Rule: no parallel fifths/octaves (or unisons)
**Rule: no hidden fifths/octaves between the outer voices
**Rule: Don’t double tendency tones!
**Rule: Keep upper voices within an octave of one another
(i.e. soprano is within an octave of the alto, alto is within an octave of the tenor)
**Guideline: No voice crossings (where one voice goes above another) or overlaps (see below)

 Doubling/complete chords
**Guideline: Write complete chords whenever possible.
**Rule: you may only leave out the fifth
**Guideline: Double the root of the chord (except for diminished…)
Double the fifth if it makes the voice leading smoother.  Be careful with the third.

 Misc:
**Rule: Write outer voices first – make sure they sound good together!
**Guideline: Contrary motion between upper voices and bass whenever possible
**Guideline: Start with a closed position chord and work out from there.
**Guideline: If a pair of upper voices leap together by more than a third, rethink it…

missing 3rd missing 3rd


Terrible Example: doubled
leading tone
Alto leaps too far Parallel 5ths Parallel 8ves Parallel 8ves Parallel 8ves

*
*
doubled
Piano Parallel 8ves leading tone spacing Parallel 8ves
* *

too many
missing 3rd unisons alto is lower
Parallel 8ves
weird (bad) leap between than tenor
(tenor) B and T

* Voice overlap - where a voice jumps higher (or lower) than a neighboring voice's preceding note.
In the first measure, the alto leaps above the soprano's previous A. This confuses our ears and
sounds bad.

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