6 min read•june 18, 2024
Mickey Hansen
Mickey Hansen
Now that we have all the building blocks of notes, rhythms, and chords out of the way, we can start to analyze music and the rules of putting pitch combinations together.
The way individual voices of a composition move from chord to chord is called . Back in the 17th and 18th-century, when writing music was becoming normalized, rules of voice leading came about to guide composers on how to create auditorily-pleasing compositions. This era is considered the Common Practice Period (CPP), and describes the years roughly between 1650 (Baroque Period) to 1900 (Romantic Period).
When heeding voice leading rules, any composer (or AP Music Theory student!) must take into consideration the correct , , and in the chords. This way, voice leading can achieve (there aren’t big unexpected jumps) and bring about the (there shouldn’t be one voice that is basically copying the other voice).
In this subunit, we are focusing on the relationship between the soprano and the bass lines of a typical four-part harmony. This is a chorale in four-part harmonies, composed by Johann Sebastian Bach.
If you look in the first measure, you see that all the stems of the notes on the top in treble clef are facing upwards. This is called the soprano line. The notes also on the treble clef, but below with the stems facing down, are all the alto line. Moving to the bass clef, the notes facing up are in the tenor line, and the notes with stems going down are the bass line.
Have you ever sung in a choir? Or at least heard something with a choir? The notes above correlate with the voices in a choir.
for short!
Furthermore, in the chorale above, you can see the start of musical structure, with notes all leading to a .
When you see these fermati in four-part writing, you know you have reached a , or the end of a musical phrase. Not all cadences have a fermata, but especially in J.S. Bach's writing, or other chorales, phrases are ended by fermati. We will go into depth about cadences in Unit 4.3, so don't forget this definition!
In four-part writing, the lineal movement between two voices can happen in four different ways:
1) : voices move in the same direction (both up or both down) by the same melodic interval.
2) : voice move in the same direction but not by the same melodic interval.
3) : one voice remains still while the second moves up or down.
4) : voices move in opposite directions.
Using the above categories, the composers of 18th-century voice leading developed guidelines for writing music in four-part harmonies.
Good question. In the list below, remember that voice leading is how voices in one chord arrive at the next chord. Here is the beginning of the guidelines! Pay attention, these will get the money points on the AP free response questions 🤑.
Another thing that you should generally avoid are , where one voice plays a note and a voice directly preceding or succeeding it plays a chromaticized version of that note. Usually, this happens in minor, when you raise the 7th. Before submitting, make sure that you don’t have a non-raised seventh near the raised seventh.
In the AP Music Theory test, you will need to create a bass line to an established soprano line. How do I create a rocking bass line in the CCP? There are rules for this also!
Along with writing SATB with proper voice leading, you will also have to notate chord progressions by ear, and include the corresponding .
The big idea here is that the outer voices will provide important clues as to which chords you are hearing, so when you are trying to figure out the chords, listening to the outer voices is key.
This seems like a difficult task. You might be wondering: “How can I figure out which voice is which?” This is why voice leading is so important. Remember that most voices, especially the top voice, move in stepwise motion. So, if you’re hearing big leaps, you’re probably hearing the wrong voice.
Once you have the top and bottom voice, you will pretty much know the chords and the inversions. If, by chance, you can’t figure it out, you should make an educated guess based on what you know about chord progressions.
Now let's get back to looking at those four-part chorales.
There are different ways to categorize the spacing between voices on the staff. We consider them either open or closed positions.
In a , all upper voices (soprano, alto, and tenor) are placed as close together as chord tones will allow. Any other spacing is considered an .
Closed position is on the left, and open position is on the right.
🦜 Polly wants a progress tracker: What are 3 guidelines to consider when writing a bass line from an established soprano line?