Voice Leading Overview

Introduction

Tonal music (and to some extent pre-tonal music and some 20th century music) is made up of an interaction between surface voice leading and underlying patterns of root progressions. This website is based on original research which explains how these underlying root progression patterns work and shows how they form musical phrase structures.

In order to understand the underlying root progressions, it is necessary to first strip away the surface voice leading. The purpose of this stripping away is not to ignore the surface voice leading, but in the process of analysing the surface, to understand how it contributes to the motivic and melodic elements of the music. These analyses also reveal aspects of the voice leading and root progression patterns which contribute to the period, style and mood of the music.

Tonal music is not just a series of block chords but involves individual voices or parts moving through the harmony. These form the melody, the bass and middle voices. These voices flow through the underlying harmonic structure and each is in counterpoint with the other voices. The movement of these voices is governed by the principles of voice leading. These interactions are important not just in classical music but also in popular and other 20th century music.

The rest of this information to be found at : http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/voice_leading/voice_leading_overview.htm