Most of us learn chords the way a toddler learns to walk: grab a shape, hurl the whole hand across the neck, and hope it lands somewhere legal. Voice leading is the grown-up alternative — you move the fewest notes possible and let the rest sit still, smug and completely unbothered.
This one-minute clip is Exercise #23 in my voice-leading series: minor triads marched through the circle of fourths on just the G, D and A strings. Three notes, three strings, and a whole lot of tiny, polite little movements.
How this minor triad voice leading works
A minor triad is just root, minor third and fifth. When you move to the next chord a fourth away, you don't reset the shape — you keep whichever note is shared and nudge the rest to the nearest available tone. On the G, D and A strings that means each voicing melts into the next with half- or whole-step moves instead of dramatic leaps. Run it through the whole circle of fourths and you've quietly memorised every minor triad inversion on those three strings.
The concrete takeaway: pick any two adjacent minor chords, freeze the common tone, and move only what has to move. Do that consciously ten times and your comping suddenly sounds like you hired an arranger instead of a panicking octopus.
Then try it at the tempo I conveniently refuse to play at on camera, and enjoy your fingers filing a formal complaint. PDF and Guitar Pro live on Patreon.