With smooth voice leading, each of your fingers will move to a note that is nearby, eliminating the need to drastically reposition your entire hand. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a lot of unnecessary movement. If you were to play all your chords in root position, your hands would be jumping all over the place on the keyboard. So smooth voice leading ends up making your chords flow more seamlessly together, creating a more pleasing experience for the listener.Īdditionally, smooth voice leading makes it much easier for you to actually play the chords on your piano.
You want the next note they have to sing to be as near as possible to the note they're currently singing. There are all kinds of guidelines that help musicians to create the most ideal voice leadings, but as a beginner, just imagine trying to make each singer's job as easy as possible by avoiding big jumps. Singer 1 sings the bottom note of each triad, singer 2 sings the middle note of each triad, and singer 3 sings the top note of each triad. Imagine triads as 3 singers singing together in harmony.
