voice-leading

Generally in harmony, the method by which the composer creates continuity within each strand of a harmonic texture; so that in instrumental music, each note of a chord is regarded as part of a separate ‘voice’, which must lead logically to the next note in that voice within the next chord. The term is now used more specifically to describe analytical techniques which reduce the harmonic structure of music to its contrapuntal outlines, identifying the principles of voice-leading underlying even the most outwardly complex passages.

Voice-leading analysis was originally developed to describe tonal works, especially those of the Austro-German tradition from Bach to Brahms; however, its principles have in recent years also been widely applied to pre-tonal, post-tonal, and non-Germanic repertoires. See Heinrich Schenker.