How to approach voice leading for non-classical music?

[jsaras]

The b9 is illegal unless there's a minor seventh (in a tertial harmony, by definition), et cetera; but this is not married to any musical style, that's supposed to be abstract. That is pure bullshit, and it's depressing that it isn't obvious to you.

BTW, your argument on this issue isn't with me or even the course, it's with the overtone series itself and physics. Helmholtz' "On the Sensations of Tone" explores the subject in detail.

Ted Pease and Ken Pullig's book "Modern Jazz Voicings" (Berklee Press) states it in this way, "Any note a half-step above a chord tone is generally not available, with these exceptions:
1. b9 is available on Dominant seventh (b9) chords.
2. b13 is available on Dominant seventh (b13) chords.
3. Modal contexts allow tensions such as b13 in Aeolian and b9 or b13 in Phrygian."

You could play the 4th above a major chord or a major 3rd above a minor chord, but you're not going to get any gigs doing that.

[erikgyle]

To answer the original question, when it comes to lead melody and bass, I treat them exactly the same as if doing (classical) counterpoint exercises. This is because the whole purpose of voice leading rules is to allow voices to work together while remaining distinct.

With everything else, the answer is - it depends. When using pads, synth chords, sequences, arps, etc. there are no distinct voices to be heard, so the odd parallel fifth won't bother anyone. Leaps and changes of register can actually be used for rhythmic effect.

However, when using symphonic or monophonic instruments, such as leads - I still believe in following practices of counterpoint. Occasionally this has led me to passing harmonies I wouldn't have stumbled on otherwise.

[Bojmir Raj Raj]

Heh, forbidding b9 is insane from my point of view, as my go-to scale is Ab, Ad, Bd, Db, Eb, Ed, Bb, Ab, where "b" is a semitone and "d" about a quartertone (in other words, conjunct soft chromatic or tense enharmonic tetrachords).

Old-schoole Fux-style approach of "singable lines" can applied to any tuning or style whatsoever. Then you can relax the singability for the sake of "angularity" or goofiness if you wish. Therefore still the best approach to learn, in my opinion.

[Gamma-UT]

The b9 is illegal unless there's a minor seventh (in a tertial harmony, by definition), et cetera; but this is not married to any musical style, that's supposed to be abstract. That is pure bullshit, and it's depressing that it isn't obvious to you.

BTW, your argument on this issue isn't with me or even the course, it's with the overtone series itself and physics. Helmholtz' "On the Sensations of Tone" explores the subject in detail.

Ted Pease and Ken Pullig's book "Modern Jazz Voicings" (Berklee Press) states it in this way, "Any note a half-step above a chord tone is generally not available, with these exceptions:
1. b9 is available on Dominant seventh (b9) chords.
2. b13 is available on Dominant seventh (b13) chords.
3. Modal contexts allow tensions such as b13 in Aeolian and b9 or b13 in Phrygian."

You could play the 4th above a major chord or a major 3rd above a minor chord, but you're not going to get any gigs doing that.

If you're going to invoke Helmholtz, maybe you can explain why the minor second interval from the tonic of a major seventh chord is OK, but the minor second of a b9 against the tonic is not.

The reasoning for only allowing a b9 in dominant or minor seventh chords in jazz is largely because the other seventh form gives you two minor seconds around the tonic and there isn't a conventional resolution for them without forming a parallel octave or unison, which I presume is banned under EIS as with other voice-leading rulebooks. However, other styles that are not jazz may well accept the heavy dissonance of a cluster of minor seconds. And non-jazz styles may simply use an add9.

[jsaras]

The answer is found within the overtone series itself. Assuming a "C" root you will not find "C#" until the 17th harmonic; it's a third-octave tone, which is why it sounds sonorous with a more distant spacing.

The interval of the major 7th sounds sonorous because the ear can "fill-in" the missing spaces with third intervals. That interval can resolve to a 6th (or vice-versa). However, There are dissonant major 7th chords. If you voice a "drop 2" major 7th chord with a "C" melody tone, there will be a b9 interval between the "B" down an octave plus a half-step. You can get away with it if you're doing a series of inversions of that chord, but if you camp out on it it just doesn't sound like a consonant structure. At that point one can either move that dropped tone to an "A" or you could move the melody tone up to a "D".

Clusters are a subject unto themselves.

[Gamma-UT]

The answer is found within the overtone series itself. Assuming a "C" root you will not find "C#" until the 17th harmonic; it's a third-octave tone, which is why it sounds sonorous with a more distant spacing.

Are you serious? The 15th harmonic is the one that's a minor second down from the root and, from an equal temperament PoV, is a bit more out of tune than the 17th harmonic – the minor second above. What's in between? Why it's another octave harmonic of the root. That's your explanation as to why one is used commonly in chords and one must be forbidden? Two harmonics in an overtone series that are reaching into bat territory for anything that isn't played on a bass clef?

I don't recall Helmholtz making a distinction between them - his research was on the 'roughness' of the minor second which is easily explained by looking at how the sound interacts with regions of cilia in the ear.

The interval of the major 7th sounds sonorous because the ear can "fill-in" the missing spaces with third intervals. That interval can resolve to a 6th (or vice-versa).

It resolves far more naturally a half step up. It's not called the leading tone for nothing. I've nothing against it moving down to the 6th (depending on context), but given the framework in which you seem to be operating, I wouldn't recommend it to you. So, it's a bit strange you recommending it to anyone.

However, There are dissonant major 7th chords. If you voice a "drop 2" major 7th chord with a "C" melody tone, there will be a b9 interval between the "B" down an octave plus a half-step. You can get away with it if you're doing a series of inversions of that chord, but if you camp out on it it just doesn't sound like a consonant structure. At that point one can either move that dropped tone to an "A" or you could move the melody tone up to a "D".

Dude, there are degrees of dissonance in everything. But not everyone is trying to take on a jazz idiom. Your voiceleading course is for jazz and clearly so. Stop trying to sell it as the solution to everything.

[jsaras]

The b9 is the 17th harmonic. Always has been, always will be. so

You've not seen a single page of the course. I've completed all 12 volumes (about 1200 pages) but YOU know what the course consists of and I do not? Okey dokey. Although there is plenty of jazzy material in the course and some interval combinations do lend themselves to jazzy idoms because of historical precedence, I can tell you that there is at least as much non-jazz/uncategorizable material in the course as there is jazz.

The major 7th as a melodic interval does resolve up as you noted, but in the context of a harmonic structure (which is what we are talking about) that would result in the doubling of the root. That is perfectly viable particularly when using first-ocatve triadic harmony. However, if you are writing 4-part chords a "vanilla" major 7th chord resolves to a major 6 chord as you cannot contract the intervals any further and still retain the chord quality. This "resolution" is reversible. If that sounds jazzy to you I have no qualms with that, but that harmonic structure could be used to write house music or something entirely new.

[jancivil]

The example was clearly <hit these flat 13 major seventh vertical objects but write some parts in connection>. That is not 'horizontal writing'. My primary modi operandi is linear, purely linear so the vertical aspect results from lines; the idea of linear writing is to write beautiful lines. One may have a very good idea of the quality and feeling of the sonorities within that, but for my part I find targeting chord names less than rewarding by comparison.

I don't have an overarching theory; I'll tell y'all why. I don't find the likes of that in any model in the real world. I don't find real composers talking like that in the first place. Spud Murphy, or whatever, who is that? I don't care.

I'm an irritable sort of person, so when I see this guy is supposed to have realized something "everyone has missed", that smells of bullshit and self-promotion and like I said, I'm unhappy with myself for being so mamby-pamby trying to be polite about that last pile of BS. I'm not susceptible even a tiny bit to marketing for an idea of how to proceed composing music. I don't need it.
And, this may seem harsh, but I don't think someone who does need that should be pushing their idea onto people like they are teaching them.

[Gamma-UT]

The b9 is the 17th harmonic. Always has been, always will be.

This is not at issue. You seem to have misunderstood the point. You use the harmonic series to explain why a B against C is more consonant than a C#/Db. I made the point they are next door neighbours in the harmonic series, which makes the attempted distinction practically moot. Plus the 12Et B is actually a bit more out of tune. It also has very little to do with Helmholtz's theory on dissonance.

You've not seen a single page of the course. I've completed all 12 volumes (about 1200 pages) but YOU know what the course consists of and I do not? Okey dokey.

Another strawman. We've been round this already. Only keepers of the sacred flame get to see the course. But frankly, for 1200 pages I would hope to see something more flexible and enlightening than the pretty standard jazz-oriented rules you've identified in this thread to convince me it's a great plan vs simply learning common-practice counterpoint and then discarding the dissonance rules when appropriate. Realistically it's going to boil down to no parallel octaves, no parallel fifths (without a good reason), don't cross voices and use oblique or contrary motion most of the time.

There's no real need to invoke special voice leading rules for house when the observation of "it uses lots of minor 7th chords played gospel style except when it's (planed) sampled chords" does the job just as well. That use of technology to break an old rule in early house was part of its charm.

[jancivil]

"I have the answer" is proselytizing. So, don't mind me if you want to discuss the idea, but that's my view of the whole kind of exercise.

[jancivil]

The b9 is the 17th harmonic. Always has been, always will be.

This is not at issue. You seem to have misunderstood the point. You use the harmonic series to explain why a B against C is more consonant than a C#/Db. I made the point they are next door neighbours in the harmonic series, which makes the attempted distinction practically moot. Plus the 12Et B is actually a bit more out of tune. It also has very little to do with Helmholtz's theory on dissonance.

That little factoid is not relevant to much of anything in practice of musical composition.
Even if I'm working with a scale which is entirely derived from the overtone series (something I've done a number of times, btw), this 'it's number 17!' has no *particular* use value. So, the higher partial is known to be less consonant, yes, 17:8 is complicated compared to say 3:2. No shit, Sherlock. It's dissonant.
I like dissonance; I like cayenne pepper, I like that more than some people, clearly enough.

In actual music, and now for a long, long time, it's eg., the 6th degree of [two types of] minor and is the flat 9 over V out of that. Just for a really basic example. In serial writing, the interval may have a character as constructed per a row (or a half, or a quarter of a row). In free writing, who knows until there is a field of sonority or what-have-you in which we operate. It may be a part of a main melodic point or motif and the vertical follows the linear, and in context it may not be such a harshness. See the use of harmonic series I mentioned. I didn't choose that to sound wild and crazy, but it gives me tones I won't have thought of and dealing with it in coming up with parts can prove to be really expressive. You know there are whole other intonations that take from ratios in order to be more expressive, in music that isn't even vertical. With dramatically closer intervals than a minor second. It's a great wide world out there.

This factoid as a supposed justification for 'the flat 9' being really a naughty aug. 8ve and this theoretical outlaw of the dissonant kind or whatever that's supposed to mean in your statement, that's really kind of laughable, it just shows us more of the failure of your critical apparatus and bears out my problem with that whole thrust. It's bullshit, for one thing it's circular argument.

[jancivil]

isn't the flat 13th really a dodgy sharp 12th? which is then an augmented octave over the fifth. who cares

[jancivil]

The major 7th as a melodic interval does resolve up as you noted, but in the context of a harmonic structure (which is what we are talking about) that would result in the doubling of the root. That is perfectly viable particularly when using first-ocatve triadic harmony. However, if you are writing 4-part chords a "vanilla" major 7th chord resolves to a major 6 chord as you cannot contract the intervals any further and still retain the chord quality. This "resolution" is reversible. If that sounds jazzy to you I have no qualms with that, but that harmonic structure could be used to write house music or something entirely new.

What the hell is this. You said earlier that Spud's Way is useful for any kind of music. But everything you say indicates such conservative and as far as I can see naïve ideas on how to move.

In my first music theory course, Diatonic Harmony, I was using 'seventh chords' in the first examples he gave us to write parts to, that did_not resolve, where the idea was a suspension or another device. That is linear writing, the part-writing is the thing, not blocks. I've no idea what you even mean by 'vanilla major 7th resolves to a major 6 chord as you cannot ___' It has literally no meaning with no context or idea present. You bloody well can do. I was interested in lush sonority while trying to write a beautiful part because that [the latter] was what we were tasked to do (with a 'weak progression'). And this is where I found out I could really write, everyone loved the result.

What was noted above about Debussy's response to someone saying "But that's nonsense theoretically"? It sounds good, it got me off, is the whole of the law. Now, if one has to meet criteria for a given style, yes there are things you absolutely cannot do. But you told us Spud's Way is good for any and all musics.

That's quite a hole you're digging as far as being persuasive. I would recommend a step back and some perspective and reflection as to the wider world you may be addressing, really.

[jsaras]

Realistically it's going to boil down to no parallel octaves, no parallel fifths (without a good reason), don't cross voices and use oblique or contrary motion most of the time.

Believe it it not, your voiceleading rules are more complicated than the EIS method and it's not as flexible. Your dated rules are covered on pages 20-21 of the course in detail. They are immediately discarded and replaced with a singular theory based on the overtone series that produces the same result and it works with every possible root movement/root cycle without regard to tonal centers, though you can easily do that as well.

Parallel voiceleading is allowed and covered as is diatonic parallelism, but the point is that people who are married to those techniques really don't know how to actually voicelead those sets of intervals. It quickly becomes one-dimensional.

You keep saying that my initial progression is "standard jazz practice" and I asked you to demonstrate better voiceleading of the same progression. I'm waiting.

You can hear more clips on my website: https://jonasaras.wordpress.com/music-e ... -examples/

There are a lot of samples on the EIS website as well. Though the production values vary a lot, you'll hear the material used in a variety of ways and no two sound alike. http://theequalintervalsystem.com/samples/

If your material is better I want to hear it, but so far it's been nothing.

[jsaras]

They should also add Leandro Gardini's material to that EIS samples list He's a terrific composer.: https://soundcloud.com/leandro-gardini/tracks