Smooth voice leading on guitar
Treat every note in a chord as an independent line and connect changes with common tones and small intervals.
Interactive listening
Hear the harmony in time
Compare the examples at one tempo.
Disconnected positions
The chord symbols resolve, but shifting every voice upward makes the change sound physically and musically separate.
Smooth G7–Cmaj7
B stays in place, F falls to E, and D can move to C while the bass makes the functional leap.
Watch it in context · Jens Larsen
Modern 3 Note Voicings and Voice Leading
Follow compact three-note voicings through cadences while individual voices move by small, singable intervals.
Open on YouTube (opens in a new tab)Chords are several melodies at once
Voice leading asks where the bass, inner notes, and top note go when the harmony changes. Common tones are the smoothest option; half steps and whole steps are next. The bass is allowed to leap because its job often includes stating harmonic roots.
In G7–Cmaj7, B can remain fixed as the third of G7 becomes the major seventh of C. F, the seventh of G7, falls to E, the third of C. Those two guide tones communicate the resolution even if the fifth is omitted.
Map destinations before choosing grips
Start with the melody note, then locate the nearest third and seventh of the next chord on the same strings. Add a bass note last. This reverses the habit of choosing two familiar root-position shapes and hoping they connect.
Good voice leading is not always the smallest possible motion. A deliberate leap can create contrast, register change, or a new section. The aim is to hear every movement and make it intentional.
- Keep shared notes under the same finger when practical.
- Resolve chordal sevenths by step when the function calls for it.
- Practise pairs of chords on one string set before full progressions.