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Concept
Voicing (music)
Summary
In music theory, voicing refers to two closely related concepts:
How a musician or group distributes, or spaces, notes and chords on one or more instruments
The simultaneous vertical placement of notes in relation to each other; this relates to the concepts of spacing and doubling
It includes the instrumentation and vertical spacing and ordering of the musical notes in a chord: which notes are on the top or in the middle, which ones are doubled, which octave each is in, and which instruments or voices perform each note.
The following three chords are all C-major triads in root position with different voicings. The first is in close position (the most compact voicing), while the second and third are in open position (that is, with wider spacing). Notice also that the G is doubled at the octave in the third chord; that is, it appears in two different octaves.
{
\override Score.TimeSignature
#'stencil = ##f
\override Score.SpacingSpanner.strict-note-spacing = ##t
\set Score.proportionalNotationDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1/4)
\time 4/4
\set Staff.midiInstrument = #"vibraphone"
\relative c' {
1^\markup { \column { "Close" "position" } }
^\markup { \column { "Open" "position" } }
^\markup { \column { "Open" "position" } }
}
}
Many composers, as they developed and gained experience, became more enterprising and imaginative in their handling of chord voicing. For example, the theme from the second movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's early Piano Sonata No. 10 (1798), presents chords mostly in close position:
On the other hand, in the theme of the Arietta movement that concludes his last piano sonata, Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111 (1822), Beethoven presents the chord voicing in a much more daring way, with wide gaps between notes, creating compelling sonorities that enhance the meditative character of the music:
Philip Barford describes the Arietta of Op. 111 as "simplicity itself... its widely-spaced harmonization creates a mood of almost mystical intensity.
Official source
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