This refers to an arranging or orchestration choice.

Very simple example: if you write a C Major triad as, low to high, C E G, that's closed voicing. The notes are as close together as you can get. If you instead write it, low to high, as C G E, then you have more open voicing. If you then jump the G up an octave, it's still the same chord, but even more openly voiced. This is like Bob's example above. A ninth and a second are the same pitch, but in different registers. Playing that note as a second is normally more closed voicing.

It depends a lot on what instruments are playing and what register they are in, which sounds better in each situation. An acoustic guitar is lovely with open voicing, even leaving out the root or fifth to emphasize and 'separate' some of the upper extension chord tones. A piano, however, often sounds more 'powerful' with closed voicing. Try GMaj7 as F#, G, B, D rather than the 'normal' spelling of G, B, D, F# and you'll see a good example of closed voicing.

Another way of defining closed voicing is that there is no room between notes for another tone of that chord. Open, there is room.

Even a different definition says that the notes of a closed voicing chord are all in the same octave. Open, they expand beyond.

Does that help?

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How does this work in BIAB?

In my experience, BIAB does not always deal with this in RealTracks, and you can get some awkward register jumps. We call it bad voice leading when, for example, one chord is tightly voiced and the following is open voicing, with large interval jumps in the notes between each part (alto to alto, bass to bass etc.), particularly the upper-most tones. For example, if you sang tenor in a chorus, this would be like having to sing three notes in a row where the intervals jumped up then down most of, or even more than, an octave. It may be musically correct notes, but for most of us, this pitch jumping would be very tough to sing (you would be cursing the composer), and jarring to hear. BIAB RealTrack phrases of 8 bars are better than those of 4 or 2, because the player himself or herself will have recorded those longer phrases with good voice leading. This is one reason why Natural Arrangement works, and why the voice leading in 'typical' chord progressions will have better voice leading.

MIDI, however, can make the voice leading more sensible because all the manipulation can be done mathematically and is not limited to what the artists played while recording the RealTracks.

About the BIAB part, I could be wrong.



BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.