A chord progression is also several melodies at once: the top note, the bass and the inner voices each move from chord to chord. Voice leading is how they move. Good voice leading makes even a simple progression sound smooth.
Smooth and independent
The common-practice rules come down to two wishes: each line should be smooth, and each should stay independent of the others.
| Goal | What to do |
|---|---|
| Smooth | Move by step where you can; keep notes the two chords share; avoid leaps that are hard to sing; after a leap, turn back the other way |
| Independent | Avoid parallel fifths and parallel octaves between two voices |
| Tendency tones | Resolve them, above all the leading tone, which wants to rise to the tonic |
In practice that means moving each voice to the nearest note of the next chord. Inner voices in particular tend to move by step or hold a common tone.
An example
From C major (C E G) to F major (F A C): C is in both chords, so keep it. E moves up one semitone to F; G moves up a whole tone to A. Three voices, almost no movement, and the change still sounds complete. This is why inversions matter: choosing a different voicing or inversion of the next chord often gives smoother voice leading than jumping to its root position.
Why parallel fifths?
Two voices moving a fifth or an octave apart in the same direction are what the common-practice rules forbid, in the name of keeping each voice independent. Rock does the opposite: a power chord, root and fifth moved together up and down the neck, is nothing but parallel fifths.
Sources
Every date, name, tempo and origin on this page comes from these pages, read on 2026-10-24.