Voicing (music) in the context of "Chord chart"

A lead sheet or fake sheet is a form of musical notation that specifies the essential elements of a popular song: the melody, lyrics and harmony. The melody is written in modern Western music notation, the lyric is written as text below the staff and the harmony is specified with chord symbols above the staff.

The lead sheet does not describe the chord voicings, voice leading, bass line or other aspects of the accompaniment. These are specified later by an arranger or improvised by the performers, and are considered aspects of the arrangement or performance of a song, rather than a part of the song itself. "Lead" refers to a song's lead part, the most important melody line or voice.

Voice leading (or part writing) is the linear progression of individual melodic lines (voices or parts) and their interaction with one another to create harmonies, typically in accordance with the principles of common-practice harmony and counterpoint. These principles include voices sounding smooth and independent, generally minimising movement to common tones as well as steps to the closest chord tone possible, therefore minimising leaps where possible. As a result, different voicings and inversions of chords may provide smoother voice leading.

Rigorous concern for voice leading is of greatest importance in common-practice music, although jazz and pop music also demonstrate attention to voice leading to varying degrees.

A chord is in close harmony (also called close position or close structure) if its notes are arranged within a narrow range, usually with no more than an octave between the top and bottom notes. In contrast, a chord is in open harmony (also called open position or open structure) if there is more than an octave between the top and bottom notes. The more general term spacing describes how far apart the notes in a chord are voiced. A triad in close harmony has compact spacing, while one in open harmony has wider spacing.

Close harmony or voicing can refer to both instrumental and vocal arrangements. It can follow the standard voice-leading rules of classical harmony, as in string quartets or Bach chorales, or proceed in parallel motion with the melody in thirds or sixths.

A suspended chord (or sus chord) is a musical chord in which the (major or minor) third is omitted and replaced with a perfect fourth or a major second. The lack of a minor or a major third in the chord creates an open sound, while the dissonance between the fourth and fifth or second and root creates tension. When using popular-music symbols, they are indicated by the symbols "sus4" and "sus2". For example, the suspended fourth and second chords built on C (C–E–G), written as C and C, have pitches C–F-G and C–D-G, respectively.

Suspended fourth and second chords can be represented by the integer notation {0, 5, 7} and {0, 2, 7}, respectively.

In music, a factor or chord factor is a member or component of a chord. These are named root, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth (compound 2nd), eleventh (compound 4th), thirteenth (compound 6th), and so on, for their generic interval above the root.In harmony, the consonance and dissonance of a chord factor and a nonchord tone are distinguished, respectively.

Chord factors are taken into consideration in voicing and voice leading. A chord contains exactly as many factors as it contains unique pitch names (octaves don't matter), while a voicing can have any number of voices that draw from and represent some or all the factors of a chord in various octaves. Thus, a chord with three unique pitch names always has three factors, even if some of those pitches are doubled or omitted in a particular voicing. For example, the figure to the right shows a four-note voicing of a C Major triad, which has three chord factors. The "root" chord factor (pitch name "C"), is represented twice in the voicing by voices 1 and 4 in different octaves. The chord factor called the "fifth" (pitch name "G") is represented in voice 2 (shown in red).