3 ms·

This is fascinating! How do you decide what note in a particular key/harmony to voice lead with (e.g. 3rds/7ths)?

• cjohnson318 5y ago
  It's very simple. First reduce the requirements: ignore the melody. Then iterate through the inversions of a chord in closed position, and pick the one with the smallest "distance" from the previous chord. Using that strategy, you can pick different chord voicing templates, like drop-2 or quartal. An even better method would be to move the "hands" up the keyboard after a tonic chord, that way you don't end up in the low registers too quickly, since jazz harmony tends to go down in 4ths a good bit.