How to Play a Lead Sheet (Basic)

If you want to learn to play popular songs fairly quickly and easily, you should learn how to play a lead sheet.

WHAT IS A LEAD SHEET?

A lead sheet is the bare bones of a piece of music. It contains the melody line, lyrics and the chord symbols. Some versions of lead sheets, such as those available on www.ultimate-guitar.com and other similar websites, contain only the lyrics with the chord symbols written approximately where the harmony changes.

Collections of these lead sheets are sometimes called “fake books”. These giant books are useful because they often contain hundreds of songs–all in one place. Most jazz, rock and pop songs can be rendered to a single sheet or two of this musical shorthand.

WHY LEARN TO PLAY LEAD SHEETS?

1) Playing lead sheets introduces you to chord notation.

You learn the “math behind the music”. In other words, you learn to translate letters and numbers into three and four note chords, building vertical harmonic structures that add colour to your melodies.

2) Playing lead sheets teaches you creativity.

You learn to find the chords and arrange them so they fit in your hands. You learn to find sequences of chords that move and transition smoothly without too many leaps (also called voice leading).

3) Playing lead sheets teaches you about music theory and harmony.

You start to learn standard harmonic progressions or chord sentences. You learn which notes are in what chords. You will learn to look for patterns and learn to analyze pieces of music. You will start to get a sense of how a song is constructed from the foundation up. You’ll learn that analysis is one of the keys to memorizing songs easily.

4) Lead sheets grow along with you on your musical journey.

The cool thing about lead sheets is that you can make your “version” as simple or as complex as you want. If you are first starting out, you can play simple blocked chords until you are comfortable with the sound of the song. Then you can add extra notes to your chords to make them more complex. You can change the positions of the chords so they fit more smoothly together. You can alter how you choose to accompany the melody. You can add counter-melodies. The possibilities are endless.

5) Playing lead sheets gives a great sense of accomplishment.

Many students tell me how great it feels to be playing recognizable music and popular tunes very quickly. Once you get the hang of chord notation, you’ll get faster and faster at playing complete songs.

SIMPLE CHORD SYMBOLS AND NOTATION (major and minor chords):

In order to decode lead sheets, it helps to understand chord symbols and notation. Starting with three note chords, here’s what you need to know:

Chords are built up in stacks of thirds (skips).  In other words, it’s made up of the first, third, and fifth notes of a major scale. If your bottom note is a C, for example, the top two notes will be E and G. (Always skipping a letter name).

Another way of finding chords is through intervals. Major chords and minor chords have a Perfect 5th between the top and bottom notes.  A distance of 7 semi-tones.  It is the middle note that determines whether it is a major chord or a minor chord. A major chord has a major 3rd in it (a distance of 4 semi-tones). A minor chord has a minor 3rd in it (a distance of 3 semi-tones).

Major and minor chords can be used to play a surprisingly large number of simple lead sheets. The difference in sound colour is this: many people think that a major chord sounds “sunny” or “happy”. A minor chord usually sounds “sad” to others.

Usually, major chords are designated simply by their letter name. e.g. Eb, C, G, F#, etc. The letter name will be the root of the chord (the note at the bottom). Minor chords have an “m” after them to show they are minor. For example, Em, Cm, Gm, F#m, etc. Again, the letter name will be the root of the chord.

CHORD NOTATION FOR BEGINNERS

1) Ignore numbers. At this point, ignore any numbers that come with the chord names. For example, G7 can be played as a simple G chord.

2) Slashes. Slashes are used when a bass note is particularly important. This can have two meanings:

a) when the note after the slash is in the chord, then they want you to play an inversion (the notes are played in a different order).  For example, C/G would mean a C chord with the G as the bottom note. (Played G – C – E)

b) when the note after the slash is not in the chord, then they want you to use that note as the bass note.  For example, C/F would have F as the bottom note. (Played F – C – E – G).

Remember how I said lead sheets can grow with your abilities? You can start to put in more complex chords (adding four-note chords, sevenths, and more) as you get more used to reading the chord symbols.

HOW TO START PLAYING AND PRACTICING A LEAD SHEET
(Beginner version)

Now, let’s get into how you can start playing from lead sheets.

1) Play the melody with your right hand a few times to familiarize yourself with the notes and to work out fingering for each phrase. If you are playing a lead sheet without the melody line written out, here’s where you need to figure out the melody by ear.

2) Now continue playing the melody with your right hand and add the left hand playing only the letter name of each chord (one single note). You’re playing a melody accompanied by a bass line!

3) Next, you will play block chords with your left hand only. Your pinky finger (finger #5) will be playing the letter name of each chord, and you will simply stack thirds above it like taught above, paying attention to whether the chord colour is a major chord or a minor chord. For simple fingering, stick to using fingers 1, 3, and 5 of the left hand to play the block chords. Then you simply have to shift your entire hand to play different chords.

4) Now it’s time to put it all together!  Try playing the melody (RH) and the block chords (LH) at the same time.

5) Then the fun begins! At this point, it’s already starting to sound like a song! You can experiment with the block chords, shuffling the notes around (using inversions) so that your hand doesn’t have to jump around as much.

6) When you are ready, you can experiment with different left hand accompaniments to make the song less “block-y”–try broken chords (playing the chord notes one after another instead of all at the same time).

Learning to read this musical shorthand is a great way to get used to playing by ear and getting your fingers used to playing chord patterns.  Enjoy!

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