As a mostly-self-taught musician, I spent years not understanding basic concepts. For example, I didn’t like how I played chords on the piano. I memorized all the major and minor chords, but that wasn’t enough. Here’s how I’d play a typical progression. It sounds fine, but I still felt like I was missing something, so I took a music theory class.
This was in 10th grade. I brought a deep love for all sorts of genres, and I was hoping to pour some theory sauce over my music to make it more interesting. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: I was told the only acceptable work in the class would be four-part harmony in European 18th century style. “Boring and correct,” my teacher would say. Never mind that you can learn the same basic tools from today’s popular music; we have dead white men to worship.
We had to memorize all kinds of voice leading rules for a style of music I just wasn’t trying to emulate. It took a few years to understand why we did that. Harmony is just a bunch of interwoven melodies, and the rules ensure each melody is distinct and independent. Notice I didn’t say all the melodies had to be good or interesting; if you play the viola, you know what I mean.
But nowadays, we don’t need every voice to be independent. If you’re accompanying a singer with a guitar, you’re free to play the parallel fifths and octaves that would be redundant in four-part harmony. And if you want to learn how to write intricate vocal harmonies, there are plenty of modern examples. Ever heard of the Beatles? Louis Cole? Brian David Gilbert?
I guess if I was smarter, I could have made the connection between the myriad voice leading rules in class and my sorry little chords at home. But I didn’t do that until I took a second music theory class, this time in college. The year was 2017, and I was obsessed with Bill Wurtz. I tried to absorb some of his musical genius by watching all of his videos and reading his questions page. Here’s a question about Josie by Steely Dan. “Do you get Bonus Points if you keep the voicings as close as possible when changing chords?” Bill answers “those aren't bonus points, that is a passing grade.” Later, he says “inverting your chords so they fit in the same range is normal, and healthy. it's like putting your meat and potatoes on the same plate.”
Remember those four chords from earlier? They're from this question. Here’s the voicing of those chords in the song Josie. With every chord change, two notes move down, and the other two stay still. This may not sound overwhelmingly better than the chords in root position, but it’s an important strategy for linking chords without feeling like a beginner.
I applied this knowledge bomb to my harmony class. My professor made a website where we could drill voice leading exercises at speeds previously unknown. By moving the voices as little as possible, I got it “right” way more often, as long as I remembered to avoid the dreaded parallel fifths and octaves. So yippee, I got a good grade in class.
Speaking of arbitrary judgments, here’s one I made in my video on Changes by King Gizzard: “You don’t really see giant stacks of thirds like this in practice: they’re tough to play and they’re often a sign of bad voice leading.” A stack of six thirds can sound fine in a vacuum. But ask yourself: where were all these notes in the last chord, and where are they going? Who knows? What I do know is that there are a hundred ways to voice a B major 7 sharp 11 chord, and only one of them is the classroom example.
Even in four-part harmony, you can get by with the root, the third, the seventh, and the eleventh. That’s the fewest amount of notes you can use and still have the chord maintain its identity. You need the root, of course, and the eleventh. The third tells you it’s a major chord and not a diminished chord. If the 11 was natural, the third would also establish that it’s not a suspended chord. The seventh lets you know this is an upper extension chord and not a triad with an added fourth. Keep this in mind if you ever see a crazy chord out in the wild.
But you don’t just have to use voice leading techniques to read chords off The Real Book, or, let’s be honest, Ultimate Guitar. You can use them to invent your own chords. I did this by accident shortly after I took that theory class in high school. I sat down at my pirated copy of FL Studio, pulled up the Rhodes preset in Sytrus, and poked around on the keyboard until this came along. Just by following my ear and moving notes as little as possible I got A minor, C# minor, C major, and… E7sus2? This chord progression isn’t functional—the key is a weird mix of A minor and A major—but it sounds pretty good. I wouldn’t have thought to use that last chord without the context to guide me there.
Having been disillusioned from my high school class, I was anxious about learning “too much” music theory and losing the sense of free exploration that led to this. I like to think I’ve learned a thing or two in the ten years since I made that track, and I’m happy to report that I’m still fumbling around until something sounds good. The main difference is that I could use my extra knowledge to throw a few Wurtzian details into the jingle from earlier.
I’m not gonna pretend I’ve transcribed his songs—they’re very intimidating—but I have seen his old lead sheets and I’ve watched the old Charles Cornell videos. Lead sheets, if you don’t know, are musical scores that have the main melody with chords written above, and that’s it. They’re mostly used in jazz.
Anyway, the jingle: I thought of the melody and bass for these two chords when I was out and about. That bass going down a minor third is something he’s done a couple times, like in the outro vamp of “money,” but I was probably thinking of this inner voice movement in my favorite song of his, “i’m scared.”
Bill’s harmonies can be dense and frenetic, so when I got to the keyboard I filled the space with tight clusters of notes. The first chord is an Ab6/C. I mean, sure, it’s between an E chord and an A chord, so you should technically call it a G#6 over B#, but don’t you hear how silly that sounds? G# has eight sharps in its key signature. That’s an F double sharp. No thank you.
The second chord is simpler. Suspended seventh chords are unusually common in Bill’s music, where they tend to replace the typical V to I. Here’s V7 to I; and here’s V7 suspended to I. Here’s how that sounds in a couple of his songs: we have Mt. St. Helens, New Canaan, and La de da. I put one of these sus chords at the end of the jingle.
It turns out you can get pretty far just on vibes. One of my favorite hidden gems is a song called “Hot Mess” by Genevieve Artadi, the singer of KNOWER. She made my job much easier with this video where she performs the song with the chords on screen. And look at them! These chords have names, sure, but they’re just not that important. What’s this chord called? Who knows.
The point is, voice leading matters at every level. No matter where you’re at, you can get viable results by moving each note in a chord just a little bit at a time. But remember: we shape the theory of music together, with the observations we make and the music we write. So try it yourself and see what sounds best to you.
