Part I

Voice Leading Principles

Meines Herzen Grunde

In part writing, we are trying to create meaningful melodic lines in each voice, that are supported by strong harmonic progressions, as in the above excerpt from J.S. Bach.

When connecting any two chords, the following voice-leading principles apply:

  1. Resolve any active tones first
  2. Keep common tones between chords in the same voice
  3. Move any remaining voice by step or skip of a third (ocassionally larger intervals are appropriate)

In the beginning, the bass will tend to move by skips and leaps. This is fine, but limit the leaps to an octave or less, and invert sixths and sevenths to thirds and seconds. As one develops facility with chord inversions, introduced later, the bass line will become more melodic.