Voicing (music)

In music composition

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

 and arranging, a voicing is the instrumentation

Instrumentation (music)

In music, instrumentation refers to the particular combination of musical instruments employed in a composition, and to the properties of those instruments individually...

 and vertical spacing and ordering of the pitches

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

 in a chord

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

 (which notes are on the top or in the middle, which ones are doubled, which octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

 each is in, and which instruments or voices perform each). Which note is on the bottom determines the inversion

Inversion (music)

In music theory, the word inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and inverted voices...

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Voicing is "the manner in which one distributes, or spaces, notes and chords among the various instruments" and spacing or "simultaneous

Simultaneity (music)

In music, a simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession. This first appeared in the music of Charles Ives, and is common in the music of Conlon Nancarrow and others....

 vertical placement of notes in relation to each other."

For example, the following three chords are root-position C major triads voiced differently:


All three voicings above are in root position

Root (chord)

In music theory, the root of a chord is the note or pitch upon which a triadic chord is built. For example, the root of the major triad C-E-G is C....

, while the first is in close position, the most compact voicing, and the second and third are in open position, which includes wider spacing. In triadic chords, close root position voicing is the most compact voicing in thirds which has the root in the bass

Bass note

In music theory, the bass note of a chord or sonority is the lowest note played or notated. If there are multiple voices it is the note played or notated in the lowest voice. While the bass note is often the root or fundamental of the chord, it does not have to be, and sometimes one of the other...

. Open and closed harmony

Close harmony

Close harmony is an arrangement of the notes of chords within a narrow range. It is different from open harmony or voicing in that it uses each part on the closest harmonizing note , while the open voicing uses a broader pitch array expanding the harmonic range past the octave...

 are harmony

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

 and harmonization constructed from open and close position chords, respectively.

The Psalms chord

Psalms chord

In music, the Psalms chord is "the famous opening chord" of Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, a "barking E minor triad - characteristically spaced", "like no E-minor triad that was ever known before"...

 is noted for its characteristic spacing of an E-minor triad.

Doubling

Melodic doubling in parallel is the addition of a rhythmically

Rhythm

Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...

 similar or exact melodic line or lines at a fixed interval

Interval (music)

In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...

 above or below the melody

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

 to create parallel

Parallel (geometry)

Parallelism is a term in geometry and in everyday life that refers to a property in Euclidean space of two or more lines or planes, or a combination of these. The assumed existence and properties of parallel lines are the basis of Euclid's parallel postulate. Two lines in a plane that do not...

 movement while octave doubling (and doubling at other intervals, also called parallelism) of a voice or pitch is the number of other voices duplicating the same part at the same pitch or at different octaves. The doubling of an octave is the number of individual voices on each pitch within the chord. For example, in the three images in the introduction above only one pitch is doubled, the G in the rightmost image (above).
Parallelism destroys, creates, or maintains independence of lines

Part (music)

1) A part is a strand or melody of music played by an individual instrument or voice within a larger work. Parts may be referred to as an outer part or an inner part . Part-writing is the composition of parts in consideration of harmony and counterpoint...

; for example, in preference for the practices of his day always requiring and desiring a degree of independence in all lines, in Bach's "Gigue" from his English Suite no. 1 in A Major, BWV 806, m. 38 note that neither thirds (at the beginning) nor sixths (at the end) are maintained throughout the entire measure, nor any interval for more than four consecutive notes, but rather that the bass line is given its own part.


Consideration of doubling is important when following voice leading

Voice leading

In musical composition, voice leading is the term used to refer to a decision-making consideration when arranging voices , namely, how each voice should move in advancing from each chord to the next.- Details :...

 rules and guidelines, for example when resolving

Resolution (music)

Resolution in western tonal music theory is the move of a note or chord from dissonance to a consonance .Dissonance, resolution, and suspense can be used to create musical interest...

 to an augmented sixth chord

Augmented sixth chord

In music theory, an augmented sixth chord contains the interval of an augmented sixth above its "root" or bass tone . This chord has its origins in the Renaissance, further developed in the Baroque, and became a distinctive part of the musical style of the Classical and Romantic periods.-Resolution...

 never double either notes of the augmented sixth, while in resolving an Italian sixth it is preferable to double the tonic

Tonic (music)

In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...

 (third

Third (chord)

In music, the third factor of a chord is the note or pitch two scale degrees above the root or tonal center. When the third is the bass note, or lowest note, of the expressed triad, the chord is in first inversion ....

 of the chord).

Some pitch material may be described as autonomous doubling in which the part being doubled is not followed for more than a few measures often resulting in disjunct motion in the part that is doubling, for example, the trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

 part in Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

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