Creating Song Charts

[JeffBauman]

I want to invite some other musicians to come to my studio and play, and I'd like the session to include some of my songs. My songs don't exist as sheet music. I'm told, "make charts; other musicians can play off charts." So -- what, exactly, is a song chart? Just a list of chords? Is there instructional material on "making charts" from a song? Any help?

JB

[john]

Hi

I guess it depends how tightly you want to dictate what the musicians play. My guess is the recommendation is simply to lay out the structure of the song with guitar chord boxes and lyrics, although you could also use guitar tablature. If you do not know music theory and have never worked with tablature I would go with the chord boxes.

The idea is simply to marry up chord diagrams with the lyrics in a way that gives chords for all sections and the overall structure of the song (intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus outro etc)

Cheers

John

[Lazz]

Hi Jeff.

I am unaware of any instructional material to help you.

But it’s not difficult at all.

If there is someone nearby who told you to make charts, then I think it would be a good idea to ask them to show you how – it’s sure a lot easier than explaining it in long-distance text format.

But I can try and help if you want.

All I need is some guidance and help first from John or somebody like him so that I can upload JPGs of some illustrative examples to help me talk you through it.

Soon as I have that technological problem explained to me, then I will post something that will show you how to do it.

[john]

Hi

Lazz, when you make a post, below the main post field (where you do all the typing) on the right you will see "Manage Current Attachments (0)", below that "browse" and "UPLOAD".

Click browse.

Find the file on your system, and select it

click upload

when uploaded

Manage Current Attachments (0) -> Manage Current Attachments (1)

Now click on this box so a drop down list appears with your upload on it. Click on the symbol on the left with the "+" to insert the image into the post.

any problems, give me a shout

Cheers

John

[Lazz]

OK then.

How to write a song-chart for other musicians to play from…

What we are aiming for is a simple clear and efficient route-map that enables a player to get from the beginning of the tune to the end without messing up – a chord chart that tells ‘em what chords get played where. There is no need to confuse them with any lyrics to read – that will just interfere with their focus on playing the right chords. And no need to feed ‘em any irrelevant chord boxes which interfere with their own informed choices of how to best voice a particular chord that you’ve spelled out. Just give ‘em the chords and where to play ‘em and let ‘em rip.

There are easy internationally recognised shared conventions for sketching out these song charts. They include widely recognised road-signs used to help them find their way around the route-map without getting lost. So, as well as being able to spell out your chords (simple), you need to learn a few common musical symbols and what they mean to other players, as well as having a confident grasp of the shape and structure of your song in terms of sections and bar count..

1.

Best to use manuscript paper – even though you aren’t necessarily going to write out any notes on the ledger lines, manuscript paper is what they are expecting to see, so give ‘em manuscript paper – it just makes the right impression.

2.

You need to know with absolute certainty the shape and structure of your song.

a) How many sections there are to it.

How many bars there are in each section.

3.

You then sketch out this shape and structure in the simplest way possible using a recommended four bars to each line as the most straight ahead to read.

4.

You write in and spell out the chord changes as they occur in the appropriate places in each bar.

To avoid any copyright issues, let’s use my song “it’s A Jungle Out There” as an illustrative example:

The song shape is AAB – with an intro and a coda.

It starts with the intro and then repeats the AAB structure until you decide to take the coda that gets you to the end.

Each A section is 16 bars long

The B section is 16 bars also.

Starting at the top, here’s the intro and A section…

The first line shows the key signature and time signature and indicates a Vamp Intro.

Players will read from this that it is a regular 4/4 in the key of D minor.

I was a naughty boy here in not specifying the chords for the vamp and the number of bars for the Intro. I am perhaps lazily but perfectly reasonably taking it for granted that players will automatically choose a standard I–VI-II-V vamp (as in the first 2 bars of the tune) and play it for a standard length of 4 bars. And I have never once been disappointed in this assumption. Only if there was to be anything remarkably out of the ordinary would it have required spelling out for them. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

The second line of the chart is where the first sixteen bar section starts.

I have written ‘A’ in a little box to mark this chunk clearly as the A Section.

There is also a funny little squiggle of an ‘S’ with a line through it and a couple of dots, all inside a circle.

This is an important road-sign on the map and indicates the spot that players will go back to whenever they arrive at the spot that tells them to “go to the sign”.

Four bars to the line.

Four rows of four bars each is sixteen bars in total.

Because we are thinking in 16 bar chunks, each of these unit of 16 bars is identified according to convention by drawing a double bar line at the beginning of it and at the end of it.

The two little dots inside these beginning and end double bar line markers are the sign which tells players that the 16 bar chunk gets repeated.

I choose to give these indicators a more graphically stylised form than usual – in order to help them be more easily visible and recognisable under unpredictable reading circumstances (lighting etc.).

The fifth row/line of A indicates to the player that when playing the repeat of the A section we are going to be playing the last two bars differently.

I think it is pretty self-explanatory – I hope so – they are called (unsurprisingly) the first ending, and the second ending.

The second ending leads right on into the B section.

[Before we get to that B section, though – I would like to mention in passing that the last four bars of each A section (and the B section also, for that matter) in this song is where the hook and the title happen. This is the bit that everyone recognises and hums along to and even get to join in if they want to. It’s the bit that gets repeated and it’s the bit that everyone remembers. And consequently it’s the bit that everybody here, as far as I understand, would automatically want to call ‘the chorus’. However, as you can see, it merely constitutes the last four bars of each A section and B section. Giving it a separate identity as ‘the chorus’ serves no positive or productive purpose at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. Players reading this chart will have immediately already glommed that the shape and structure of the tune is AAB – and it is that complete 48 bar shape and structure which players will define and be thinking of as ‘a chorus’. Those last four bars of repeated and easily remembered lyrics in each section, the joining-in bit, function as ‘the refrain”. ]

Alright then.

On to section B:

There is a little ‘B’ in a box which clearly marks it as the B section

It is 16 bars – and no funny little reapeat signs needed anywhere – just straight through.

There are a couple of other little route markers here, though.

That weird little cross symbol with a circle drawn around its intersecting middle – this is the sign for the Coda.

When players get to that sign, it tells them that, when they’re ready, that’s where they take the Coda.

But not yet…

There is first another scribble written at the end of the B section.

The D.S. means ‘dal signo’ or “go to the sign” – this tells the player that when they get to the end of the B section they then have to return to where the funny sign of S with a line through it inside a circle was parked right near the beginning of the tune.

So that’s the structure laid out for ‘em…

First the intro.

Then the tune starts – 16 bars of A Section through to first ending, then repeated through to second ending, then the B section, then back to the Sign as indicated for the second chorus of AAB.

The last little chunk is the coda.

The complete scribble at the end of the B section actually says D.S. al Coda in symbol format.

It means not only “go to the sign” and play on… but also means play on until you get to that little Coda sign - and that’s when you take the Coda.

Now, in performance, this particular song has three full AAB choruses of lyrics. After the first two, there is space for a solo or two – also using the complete chorus structure AAB – so it’s a kind of arbitrary matter of choice how any players take a solo, and how many choruses they play – but when I come back in with the last chorus of lyrics it’s generally understood that we are going to be heading for the coda. If there is ever any ambiguity about it, then it’s real easy to give some physical or verbal direction of what’s going on next (“take the coda!!”).

The Coda, in this case, is four bars repeated – it’s the refrain again “beware, beware, beware – it’s a jungle out there” – and we tend to play it three times because it adds up and feels the most natural and right – before continuing on for the final refrain in those last four bars at the end.

The playing on this final refrain comes to a dead stop on the first beat of the second bar.

The other scribbles in this second bar are indications for one beat of rest plus two beats of rest plus the following bar containing absolutely nothing but rest as we sing the closing line into a cued bunch of noise on the last chord. ‘Fine” means ‘end’. And the little curved hat with a dot under it indicates that everybody is to wait and get ready for that big ending and make a big deal about it.

f*ck me – I hope that helps.

Sketching it out this way means that I can get the entire route-map in easy to read fashion sketched out across two facing pages and no-one should have any problems even if they’ve never seen it before.

Works for me.

It takes a little bit of work and trial and error maybe to prepare these little things - but they are worth their weight and mean you can have anyone playing your stuff in any situation at any time even if they are complete strangers who speak a foreign language.

[JeffBauman]

Thanks Lazz !!!!! (And thanks, John, for responding!) That is just the kind of info I need. I have enough of a background in music theory (years of school band, choir, etc.) to easily understand what you demonstrate, and your examples are clear and useful. My impression is: one doesn't worry about at what beat within a measure a change might occur, but that by supplying this much info (the info you include in your samples) you provide enough for another musician to quickly pick up on the rest as together you work on the song. That's great; now all I have to do is come up with the time to create these charts for my songs.

Thanks again!

JB

[john]

Hey

Good example Lazz. Funnily enough I never use chord boxes or lyrics for such sheets Dunno why I suggested it other than ease of explanation. It was late and i was feeling lazy! i guess I have used lyrics on song layouts, but not often.

Cheers

John

[Lazz]

Thanks Lazz !!!!! ....... My impression is: one doesn't worry about at what beat within a measure a change might occur,

You're welcome, Jeff.

I am happy if it helps.

But I wouldn't agree with that impression of yours.

You can't have people making the changes at different times in different places.

Where there are two chords written in a measure in the style that I have offered, it is accepted that they have two beats each.

If there is any rhythmic variation other than this straight-ahead normality, you can sketch out rhythmic notation along the bottom of the bar and write the chords above in their appropriate places.

[typo]

nice one lazz.

bad john!

[Carnival]

This helps me too, even though I don't write music, only lyrics. I do know how to read music, and laying it out on manuscript paper makes puts it into a sort of universal format that is easy to understand.

[john]

Hey

Does this help?

Cheers

John