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Voice leading can be applied to arpeggios, chords, and triads. This article concentrates on applying voice leading to lead guitar playing, so we’ll focus on arpeggios.
Note: This article assumes that the reader has a basic understanding of chord theory, the use of arpeggios, and sweep picking. If not, take a look at basic chord theory and introduction to sweep picking.
Voice leading can be applied to arpeggios, chords, and triads. This article concentrates on applying voice leading to lead guitar playing, so we’ll focus on arpeggios.
what is voice leading?
Voice leading happens when you use arpeggios and their inversions to reduce large intervallic leaps when moving from one arpeggio to another.
For an extreme example, play a C major 3-string arpeggio in the root position at the 5th fret, and then play an A minor 3-string arpeggio in the root position at the 14th fret.
Notice that the shortest distance you had to move your fingers was 8 frets, from the 5th fret to the 13th fret.
Now let’s look at where the A minor arpeggio inversions fall.
As you can see, the first inversion of the Am arpeggio falls right on top of the C major arpeggio root position. This is because both the first inversion of A minor and the root position of C major have C as the lowest note. Now, to go from C to A minor, you don't have to jump up seven frets.
This is voice leading, because you’re using different arpeggio voicing (in this case the 1st inversion of A minor) to stay in one position, rather than jumping up and down the fretboard.
I like to take a major key, find all the arpeggios that are in that key, and then use the inversions to play them as close to each other as possible.
Below is an example in the key of C major to get you started. I've kept the arpeggios in their simplest form so that everything can be played in the first five frets.
