Reading a chart

The key at the top of the page names the note that gets called 1, and nothing more. Number the major scale of that note one to seven, and every chord on the page is written as the number of the note it is built on.

In G the scale runs G A B C D E F♯, so 1 is G, 4 is C, 5 is D and 6 is E. The chart below reads 1 – 4 – 6m – 5, and played in G that is G, C, E minor, D.

The scale is always the major scale, whatever the song sounds like. A sad song, a modal song and a song that never lands on its 1 chord are all counted the same way.

There is a lesson on minor-key songs for why that is the right call, and one on the marks that follow a number.

Before the first bar, a chart states what a band needs before anybody counts in.

• Key — the note that gets called 1.
• Time — how many beats a bar holds: 4/4 on most charts, 3/4 on a waltz, 6/8 on a slow gospel tune.
• Tempo — a note and a number. Most charts count quarter notes; a 12/8 song is usually counted in dotted quarters, and the header says which. Or a word like slow, where a number would be false precision.
• Feel — straight or shuffle, when the chart says.

None of this changes how the numbers are read. It changes how long each one lasts and how fast they go by.

A chart is read left to right, one bar at a time. A bar with one number in it is that chord for the whole bar. Nothing is written for “keep playing this”, because the number is already there. In 4/4, count four on it and move to the next number on the downbeat of the next bar.

That dot marks the end of a phrase. The author put it there because the tune breathes there. A chart groups bars the way the song does, not by counting to four, so a phrase of two bars or six is drawn as two or six.

Two numbers in one bar share it. A line under the pair says the split is even, and hash marks say when it is not. That is the next lesson, split bars and beat marks. Marks above or around a number, such as a diamond, a marcato or a push, say how the chord is played rather than which chord it is, and they have pages of their own: diamonds and marcatos and pushes.

The parts of the song are labeled in the left gutter: Intro, V for verse, Ch for chorus, Br for bridge, Tag for the last phrase played again at the end. A number after the label says which one, so V2is the second verse. This is how a band skips around. “From the bridge” is a glance down the gutter, not a bar count.

Repeat signs, first and second endings and the brackets that repeat a whole section are covered in repeats, endings and section brackets.

The first chart on this page was in G because its header said so. Change the key at the top to B♭ and 1 is B♭, 4 is E♭, 6m is G minor and 5 is F. Every number on the page is where it was, so a song needs one chart, not one per key.