Voice leading

The style of voice leading will depend on the performing medium; for example, singing a large leap may be harder than playing it on piano.

He wrote: All musical technique is derived from two basic ingredients: voice leading and the progression of scale degrees [i.e. of harmonic roots].

[5][6][a] Western musicians have tended to teach voice leading by focusing on connecting adjacent harmonies because that skill is foundational to meeting larger, structural objectives.

Whether dealing with counterpoint or harmony, these conventions emerge not only from a desire to create easy-to-sing parts[9] but also from the constraints of tonal materials[10][vague] and from the objectives behind writing certain textures.

Such procedures yield a kind of wave-like melodic line which as a whole represents an animated entity, and which, with its ascending and descending curves, appears balanced in all its individual component parts.

[15]As the Renaissance gave way to the Baroque era in the 1600s, part writing reflected the increasing stratification of harmonic roles.

In this new Baroque style, the outer voices took a commanding role in determining the flow of the music and tended to move more often by leaps.

Contemporary styles like jazz and pop treat voice-leading with more mixed importance than common-practice composition.