Voice Leading and Guitar

Hi,

I would greatly appreciate if someone could put me out of my misery and explain how voice leading is achieved on guitar. I have bought several, expensive, books that have failed to do what they claim and nobody I have ever encountered online has been able to answer any of my questions. I have a very good Harmony text in Walter Piston's Harmony 3rd and 5th Edition, with the 5th Edition's workbook, but I have no idea how to apply anything on the guitar! Very frustrating. I have been trying to figure this out though, and will divulge what I think I know from my own investigations.

1.You maintain the common tone, and move uncommon tones to the next available position in the same chord on the very same string.

2.String families, maintain the placement of the first chords strings for the second chord, i.e., if the first chord is located on the d-g-b-e strings, then the second chord must do likewise. I read about this in two books.

That's all I know. Anything regarding octaves and chords with differing number of notes, and all other issues remain a mystery to me. Please excuse the simpleness of my request, but this has been a big problem for me for many years. Any help will be very gratefully received.

Kind regards

yea voice leading entire chords doesn't work too well, even if you finger pick to allow string skipping. I just try and go by the rule that you should make all notes move as little as possible. This means inversions. However, if you were to actually play an inversion when you're supposed to be playing root position, let's say you were playing rhythm in a jazz band, that'd throw the song off since the composer asked for the root position voicing for a particular reason. so voice leading guitar has very little real world use, only when composing your own stuff would it 'work'.

I admire the idea of staying on the same strings, that certainly allows for better timbral continuity...however, other than that, it's a moot point. the open G is the same pitch as fret 5 on the D string, yet I magically moved to a different string. You might find that trying to stick to the same strings limits what progressions are possible. Here's a I-V6/4 and an N6-V6/4 using the single voice leading principle of 'voices move as little as possible.' you might also try to follow the general rule of thumb that, in these chromatic harmonies, you generally want the voice to go in it's intended direction, a flat wants to go down, a sharp wants to go up, and by as little as possible (hopefully by a minor 2nd, though that's not always possible even in real voice leading).

yea voice leading entire chords doesn't work too well, even if you finger pick to allow string skipping. I just try and go by the rule that you should make all notes move as little as possible. This means inversions. However, if you were to actually play an inversion when you're supposed to be playing root position, let's say you were playing rhythm in a jazz band, that'd throw the song off since the composer asked for the root position voicing for a particular reason. so voice leading guitar has very little real world use, only when composing your own stuff would it 'work'.

I admire the idea of staying on the same strings, that certainly allows for better timbral continuity...however, other than that, it's a moot point. the open G is the same pitch as fret 5 on the D string, yet I magically moved to a different string. You might find that trying to stick to the same strings limits what progressions are possible. Here's a I-V6/4 and an N6-V6/4 using the single voice leading principle of 'voices move as little as possible.' you might also try to follow the general rule of thumb that, in these chromatic harmonies, you generally want the voice to go in it's intended direction, a flat wants to go down, a sharp wants to go up, and by as little as possible (hopefully by a minor 2nd, though that's not always possible even in real voice leading).

I see, so, how would you recommend that I as a guitarist study harmony and counterpoint? Is there a proven text dedicated to the guitar that you could recommend?

I see, so, how would you recommend that I as a guitarist study harmony and counterpoint? Is there a proven text dedicated to the guitar that you could recommend?

nope there is none, well none that are any good at least. I know berklee has some things, but meh. just study harmony texts and counterpoint texts and try to apply what you can to the guitar. you'll need knowledge of the fretboard, know where any given note is and be able to play in all keys. I personally use Walter Piston for harmony, seems to be pretty common, and a couple of counterpoint texts; Kitson and Cherubini namely. Again, the basic principle is to have the notes move as little as possible, don't worry about what string or where you're at on the fretboard, as long as it's playable at tempo.

you might find it better to visualize the chords you're playing with your hands into sheet music in your mind's eye, a drastic shift on the fretboard is sometimes necessary for even the simplest of voice leading progressions at times, the guitar is asymmetrically tuned, and takes a while for the brain to memorize all those wacky patterns.

so yea, for full chord voice leading, the guitar is a bit wacky. you could always do what people in rock/metal do and just play certain notes of the chords, might find the voice leading to be better that way. and hey, if you write something yourself that's not meant to be solo, you can have a bass guitarist accompaniment, and that'll free you up from at least one tone.

I appreciate that post, it will save me from further wasting my time and money, lol. Though I am a bit disappointed in the lack of instruction for important theoretical components of music as it's applied to guitar. I will continue to try and apply these things, very much agreed on Walter Piston. I have his counterpoint and orchestration texts, very good reading in both cases. Just for clarification, I produced three progressions last night, and I would just like to hear what you think of them, and maybe some improvements in what I am doing could be put forward?

The first two progressions are in Amin, and the third Cmaj. Each four measures in length.

See that seems perfectly fine to me, heck you can even play the full chords with a pick in each case. the progression is legitimate,you put inversions in properly and everything. I'm still not a harmony expert when it comes to actually using harmony in my composing itself, but it all seems fine to me. it's even pretty idiomatic of the instrument, didn't have to do any insane stretches or string skips.

now see if you can't do a chord prog with more extensions, like 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13th etc, making it sound musically pleasant but idiomatic for the guitar. for instance, try an altered dominant, with an altered tone in the bass (an inversion) and see what kind of arpeggios you can come up with using that principle. I like to take dominants and raise their fifth, then stick that altered tone in the bass. Ab7(#5)/E for instance, normally that E is flat. It's essentially a dominant seventh in 4/3 position but the fifth is raised, in this case it happens to be the arp used by shawn lane in his 'aga of the ladies'