voice leading

Broadly speaking, voice leading controls the interaction between chords and lines withinharmonic progressions. The principles of voice leading encompass several general topics,such as the role of outer-voice counterpoint, the types of melodic motion, the retentionof common tones, the treatment of dissonances, and others that will be discussedthroughout the book.At the surface level, jazz voice-leading conventions seem more relaxed than they are incommon-practice music. After all, jazz musicians use forbidden parallel perfect fifths andoctaves, move all the voices in the same direction, and tolerate voice crossings of differentsorts. The rules of jazz voice leading are different because the syntax of jazz is largelyincompatible with common-practice classical or other types of music. These differencesdo not mean, however, that the rules of jazz voice leading are any less strict. When jazzmusicians think about dissonance treatment or highlight a linear approach to harmony asopposed to a vertical one, they rely just as much on well-defined rules of voice leading asdo composers of common-practice music. The conventions of jazz voice leading dependgreatly on the soprano and bass, so-called outer-voice counterpoint.