Voice Leading

Richard Barrett shares some useful gradual transitions between chords around the fretboard

If you’ve ever arranged a chord progression to avoid unwieldy jumps between chords (in either physical or intervallic terms), then you’ve already applied this principle to your playing. Voice leading has also been described as when the transition between chords encapsulates the melody, as opposed to a top line played over block chords. Have a listen to some Joe Pass and you’ll hear this in action.

The five examples transition between A minor and Fmaj7 by moving one note of the chord down a semitone at a time – or chromatically, to use the technical term. If you were to play an A minor, D7 then Fmaj7 using barre chord shapes, and then play the examples one after the other, you’ll get a sense of how the ‘voices’ in the chords have been arranged to transition gradually, rather than jumping from one place to another. Neither approach is ‘better’ than the other, but understanding how to move chord voicings around gives you greater options on the fretboard – and who doesn’t want that?

Example 1