How to Get Better at Voice Leading in Jazz Improvisation

It’s pretty normal as a developing player to get all the pieces—like some scales, a few licks, and plenty of practice—but to still wonder why their solos sound less impressive than the pros. 

Is it just that you need another scale to learn? Or maybe a few impressive sounding licks? Or is it something else entirely?

It's one thing to have all the right notes, but that isn't everything. Your solos may still sound haphazard, like you're plucking whatever chord tones come to mind, while the pros sound more melodic and easily singable. 

So what is voice leading, and how do we practice it in our jazz improvisation? That’s what we’ll tackle today, but be sure to check out our Voice Leading Workbook. In it, you’ll find voice leading workouts through 20 different jazz standards, and it comes with the backing tracks for all the tunes. Don’t forget to check out our YouTube video How to Get Better at Voice Leading in Jazz Improvisation if you want to hear Nathan’s examples as well.

What is voice leading?

You’ve probably heard of voice leading before, but maybe as a concept it sounded tricky or super formal. The truth is, it’s actually pretty simple. 

Voice leading is when you go from one chord tone of a harmony to a chord tone in the next harmony, moving by a small interval, landing on a strong beat in the new harmony. Most of the time, this small interval is going to be a whole step or less.

Moving by a small interval makes this resolution more satisfying.

The smaller the interval that connects our chord tones the better. The term voice leading is no coincidence—the technique will make your melodies more singable, which is a huge step in making them memorable.

Staying on the same note is sometimes the smallest distance, and it sounds great, too!

Let’s get leading

As you can hear, having good voice leading as a framework to your lines gives your phrases a stronger sense of direction, and it allows you to play linear, horizontal lines while convincingly nailing the chord changes.

Now let’s take it a step further. No matter what note you’re on at a given moment, even if it’s a non-chord tone, you are always a small interval away from a chord tone. As long as you are targeting a chord tone on a strong beat and it’s a small interval that got you there, it’s probably good voice leading. 

You're never far from a chord tone!

Let’s see how we can take advantage of this to write great melodies. If we check out page three of the Voice Leading Workbook, we’ll see a voice leading framework over the tune “All the Things You Are.”

Looking at every note on beat one, we are purposely landing on a chord tone every single time. Then between each of the eighth notes, before each of these strong beats, you can see the intervals are nothing more than a minor third.

These are all instances of great voice leading.

Plus, looking at the eighth notes on beat four, you can see that all of them are either two-note enclosures or two approach notes.

Solving the puzzle

Now for the fun part. Once we have this framework, we need to fill up the rest of the measures. So starting from this Fm7 to Bb7, we need to fill up the rest of the measure in an interesting way.

But a key thing to note, this is a process where experimentation is key—you’re not going to like everything you come up with, and that’s just a sign to keep going.

This first one’s not quite what we’re looking for. 

Neither is this one. You’ll just have to keep going to find something great. But the best part is that a great melody is always waiting to be discovered.

Like this one!

And here’s another great one.

So to make the most of what the workbook was intended for, once you find a melody that you’re satisfied with, go ahead and write it in, then work on the next measure.

Here’s our next framework we’ll need to fill in.

But before we move on, let’s make sure that what we have sounds good in context. And look at that—the interval leap we have actually sounds pretty bad in context. Let’s keep shedding until we find something more satisfying.

This one sounds pretty good! And in context, it works, too. Let’s move on.

Here’s what we’ve got, and it sounds pretty good in context.

So that’s how you can get going—then all you need to do is fill in the rest of the tune. While Nathan did this on our YouTube video, he made his own unique etude. 

It’s important to remember that practicing is the same as problem solving. If you’re sounding great on something all the time, it may be fun to play, but you’re not getting better. 

But with a workbook like this, it’s going to force you to figure out solutions to make nice sounding lines with these parameters. It’s not going to be easy—especially at first. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes, and after a while, you won’t even need to write things out, you’ll know how to voice lead your own phrases.

Imagine if you solved one of these etudes a day—what will it be like on day 20? How much improvement would you see in your improvisation? There’s a good chance that your improvisation will start to feel more free.

If you want to hear the etude that Nathan came up with, check out our YouTube video, How to Get Better at Voice Leading in Jazz Improvisation, and don’t forget to check out our Voice Leading Workbook over on Jazzlessonvideos.com. 

We’ll see you next time!