# Notation for learning or teaching songs



## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

There are _lots_ of notations out there, from standard notation (dots and sticks) to Nashville Number System. Some are antique like figured bass and shape-note; some are pretty modern like Nashville. I'd like to learn about what you use (if any) and for what purposes.

When I'm playing organ, the music is provided as two-staff standard notation (usually SATB for the singers, which I just play) or organ notation (three staves -- right hand, left hand and additional bottom staff for the pedals). So that's what I mostly use for church gigs. I like it when they also write the chords above the staves because then I can create my own arrangement without too much brainwork.

I prefer fakebook notation (melody on the treble clef, lyrics below and chords above) for learning new songs on piano and on guitar. But if I already know the melody -- and I usually do if I'm learning a pop song -- I'm content with lyrics with the chords above. I don't read standard notation or TAB very well on guitar.

Some pros prefer Nashville Number notation because it transposes so easily and includes the harmonic rhythm. I'm working on that but my default for my own songbooks is just lyrics and chords above. It's simple to create and gives players what they need except the rhythm. Nashville provides the harmonic rhythm but not the lyrics.

Some musicians I know think that using notation at all is a crutch. I get that and can just use my ears for country and blues etc. but not for jazz or old pop that can have fairly complex harmonies that I have trouble identifying on the fly. And I tend to forget lyrics.


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## CathodeRay (Jan 12, 2018)

Interesting topic. I hope you get a lot of responses, as everybody's got their own thing going and the potential to gain some insights is great.

I use a hybrid of a few notation systems.
I think jazz folks refer to it as heads up or something like that, jazz people help me out here!

Basically all the chords appear at the top of the page V: CH: , along with the solo Key: . Then the lyrics follow. No chords over lyrics. No tab or chord grids diagrams.

If there's a weird guitar chord I simply notate it as, for example F#m7sus4 : 242422 (not so weird I know, a simple example)

For me this has a lot of advantages with rock tunes, although it used to drive my jam-mates a bit crazy. They're getting used to it.

If it's intriguing enough, I'll post about the advantages.

Super simple example:


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## bw66 (Dec 17, 2009)

Like you, if it's a familiar tune, I'm fine with chords over lyrics and if the tune is less familiar a fake sheet with melody and chords will suffice. If I'm singing harmony, I find it much easier if I have the melody line notated, as I am still fairly new to singing harmony.

I like a combo of standard notation and TAB when learning fingerstyle pieces, but can read standard notation well enough to use it on it's own. I wish I could read Nashville numbers on the fly, but I'm not there yet - especially in flat keys. 

If I'm taking notes for the band, I usually just document the changes for intro, verses, chorus, bridge, and outro and make a TAB notation for any "signature" lines. I find that making notes by hand helps immensely with memorization.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

bw66 said:


> I like a combo of standard notation and TAB when learning fingerstyle pieces


That would make two of us.
Folks kinda laugh at tab like it is some lesser form of notation I find but coupled with standard, it is phenomenal. Alone, it can be lacking as there is no musicality with it but it sure is a fast and easy way to see.

I can't read standard anymore because I stopped using it a long time ago but I would like to learn again. I still know all the theory but need to be able to visualize it on guitar which I cannot do.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

I'll scan some examples with commentary. First, standard fakebook. From "The Beatles Fakebook."
pros: gives the necessary information to learn a song
cons: takes up a lot of space and complex songs have to be printed small or use two pages.
gripes: the guitar fingering diagrams are a complete waste of space


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

sheet music format
pros: has pretty much all the information you need
cons: very spacious -- you'll likely need to be turning pages, which I dislike
gripes: stupid guitar chord diagrams again


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

tab with notarion
pros -- excellent for learning a specific guitar part in a specific tuning
cons -- pretty much useless for anything but guitar


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

chords and lyrics
pros - can be entered in pretty much any word processor, most songs fit on one page, the chords and the lyrics are together, which is good for singers with guitars (or pianos)
cons - no melody, no timing for chords except the lyrics, which is only useful once you know the song

note - this is how I do it for myself but my sidepersons may have trouble with the chord timings


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Sing Out! format provides chords and lyrics. "Sing Out!" was a folk music periodical from, I think, the 50s and 60s. Very influential in those circles.

pros: _very_ compact, no redundancy, gives some sense of the chord timings
cons: separation between the chords and lyrics make it challenging to sing and play until you've learned the chords


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

I use a mix of everything. I'll take whatever I can get, really.

Any jazz tune I've learned has come from a fake book plus listening to recordings. So I'm used to that. I'm not a great sight-reader on guitar, so the quicker I can get away from the sheet music, the better. But I'm not a hardcore jazzer, so I don't have to deal with new music that often.

When I'm working with my choir, I use octavos or choir edition hymnals (SATB). There's usually a full accompaniment that has the piano arrangement + chord symbols on top. But our accompanist can handle just about anything you throw at him. (And if it's something I write, it'll just be a lead sheet.)

When I played with a band, we learned everything without notation. It was mostly originals, so we knew the parts cold. It was a question of memorizing sequences and breaks during rehearsal.

For something really guitar-specific, standard notation + tab is ideal. Tab is guitar/bass specific, so I have no problems with it. Along with standard notation, it communicates how to play something without any ambiguity. Because with guitar there's always more than one way to play something.

But I do like using my ears whenever I can. Sometimes, if I have a song stuck in my head, I'll try to work it out on guitar from memory. And if I get it wrong, I'll just say I was re-harmonizing 😁.


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

Doug Gifford said:


> chords and lyrics
> pros - can be entered in pretty much any word processor, most songs fit on one page, the chords and the lyrics are together, which is good for singers with guitars (or pianos)
> cons - no melody, no timing for chords except the lyrics, which is only useful once you know the song
> 
> ...


If I were accompanying, I'd be happy with this if it had slash marks to denote bars along with a time signature. Otherwise, I'd have no idea when to change chords if I didn't know the song.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Nashville Number System: chords are indicated using numbers relative to the tonic. "The Nashville Number System Fake Book" uses a well-developed layout that fits almost any song onto one side of one page.

pros: right-sized for setting on a music stand, chord timings are clearly shown, structure is clearly shown, lots of white space for writing in instructions (like "solo" or "tacet" or "use teeth"), easy to transpose, clear indication of harmonic meaning of the chords

cons: requires more mental processing than just the chord name (less a problem on guitar than piano), no lyrics or melody -- not much use to singers, if you're giving out charts and someone can't read it, they _really_ can't read it.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Grab n Go said:


> If I were accompanying, I'd be happy with this if it had slash marks to denote bars along with a time signature. Otherwise, I'd have no idea when to change chords if I didn't know the song.


Yep. Exactly my problem. Which has led me to investigate Nashville for giving to other players… if they can read it.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Grab n Go said:


> If I were accompanying, I'd be happy with this if it had slash marks to denote bars along with a time signature. Otherwise, I'd have no idea when to change chords if I didn't know the song.


At one point I tried this. They said it helped but I just thought it cluttered up the page. I'd rather they use their ears and brains for timing -- that's what rehearsals and giving them youtube playlists are for. I also have a thing where optional/passing chords print in grey. It's useful to me.

The bottom part is the arrangement. This was a valiant failure -- too much work to read the structure chart, follow the chord chart and ogle chicks -- but I'm glad I tried.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Grab n Go said:


> I use a mix of everything. I'll take whatever I can get, really.
> 
> …
> 
> When I'm working with my choir, I use octavos or choir edition hymnals (SATB). There's usually a full accompaniment that has the piano arrangement + chord symbols on top. But our accompanist can handle just about anything you throw at him. (And if it's something I write, it'll just be a lead sheet.)


Churches _sort of_ have their musical notation best practices in order. But there are always new ways to get it wrong. Getting all the information you need at any moment close together is a challenge. And then, they're trying to serve choirs, congregations and accompanists. There's no perfect solution. My pet peeve is five or more lines of text between the treble and bass clefs, forcing me to continuously flick and refocus my eyes as I'm reading. And chords that are an afterthought and reflect details of the choir parts rather than the real harmonic meaning of the music.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

CathodeRay said:


> Interesting topic. I hope you get a lot of responses, as everybody's got their own thing going and the potential to gain some insights is great.
> 
> I use a hybrid of a few notation systems.
> I think jazz folks refer to it as heads up or something like that, jazz people help me out here!
> ...


I couldn't see your files. Can you repost them as jpg?

The system you describe would be dandy for a band with a vocalist who doesn't play an instrument. Like a jazz band…

And please do explain the advantages.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

I was raised on piano and choral notation, not unlike what @Doug Gifford posted above. Initially, guitar notation confused me because the Bach transcriptions I was using were strange. It took me a period to figure out that guitar notation is written an octave higher than it sounds, so no bass clef. Once I had that worked out I had to work out in which position to find a pitch…so unpiano. Anyway, over time I learned to read on the guitar. Nowadays, I use a combination of standard notation and tab, it seems to be the way of the world. Frankly, any guitarist should be able to read what I produce. Finale software has been my choice for maybe 20 years (yes, with every upgrade) but there are other similar options.

Example:


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

Doug Gifford said:


> My pet peeve is five or more lines of text between the treble and bass clefs, forcing me to continuously flick and refocus my eyes as I'm reading. And chords that are an afterthought and reflect details of the choir parts rather than the real harmonic meaning of the music.


Yeah, not a fan of that either. The more traditional stuff is like that. It works okay for the choir, but not the accompanist.

This kind of arrangement is more accompanist-friendly. It's usually spread out over 2 or 3 pages in the accompaniment edition.


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## CathodeRay (Jan 12, 2018)

Doug Gifford said:


> At one point I tried this. They said it helped but I just thought it cluttered up the page. I'd rather they use their ears and brains for timing -- that's what rehearsals and giving them youtube playlists are for. I also have a thing where optional/passing chords print in grey. It's useful to me.
> 
> The bottom part is the arrangement. This was a valiant failure -- too much work to read the structure chart, follow the chord chart and ogle chicks -- but I'm glad I tried.


Whoa, points for the arrangement attempt.


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## CathodeRay (Jan 12, 2018)

Doug Gifford said:


> I couldn't see your files. Can you repost them as jpg?
> 
> The system you describe would be dandy for a band with a vocalist who doesn't play an instrument. Like a jazz band…
> 
> And please do explain the advantages.


It's a jpg, maybe it just needs a moment to load.

Pros: 

- 95% of songs stay on one page

- musicians don't get caught up in mechanical timing reading music, it's more like a memorized song with reminders at the top

- prioritizes feel

- very easy to see the lyrical structure and flow of the tune 

- lends itself to improvisation 

- no sight reading required 

- you generally never get lost in the notation 

This is all great for rock, our jams are generally awesome. 


Cons:

- basic knowledge of the song required OR a short explanation / demo is required for context

- band mates at first prone to strangling you when they see this notation


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

CathodeRay said:


> It's a jpg, maybe it just needs a moment to load.


Nope. I'm running an old machine and the website denies me access. Maybe copy and paste would work.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Grab n Go said:


> Yeah, not a fan of that either. The more traditional stuff is like that. It works okay for the choir, but not the accompanist.
> 
> This kind of arrangement is more accompanist-friendly. It's usually spread out over 2 or 3 pages in the accompaniment edition.
> View attachment 404321
> ...


Except putting the chords above the accompaniment rather than above the melody. Maybe I'm just not used to it and maybe I'd learn to like having the chords below the lyrics rather than above the melody. Hmmmmm.


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## Merlin (Feb 23, 2009)

Standard notation all the way for me. It gives me the greatest degree of control in what information I’m communicating in arrangements. If you play with horn players, keys players, etc, it’s a must. TAB is meaningless to them.


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## dgreen (Sep 3, 2016)

lot of great info and approaches from @Doug Gifford
I generally use just notation and chords above , although when playing a chord in a different / or specific position on the guitar then I always add the box diagram above. I use notation software ( sibellius) to have a neat and uniform approach.
I also really hate more then one page for an entire song even though some songs are multiple pages in length. I always re write and often re arrange a song and then set it up complete onto one page.
For example the song "cold shot" (SRV) is often 6-10 pages in any commercial book. Here is my complete version on one page. Our trio would do an instrumental version and sometimes with a singer, but always use the same format. We will let each other know how many repeats required, etc if adding a vocalist or another soloist.
I include the intro, verse / chorus section with an overview or melody in notation and then the outro, JPEG of my PDF chart is attached


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Merlin said:


> Standard notation all the way for me. It gives me the greatest degree of control in what information I’m communicating in arrangements. If you play with horn players, keys players, etc, it’s a must. TAB is meaningless to them.


This is why I teach as much standard notation as I can. Musicians need to communicate with ALL other musicians, producers, arrangers, engineers, with as much language as possible. It‘s a little disheartening that I HAVE to include tab in my stuff to accommodate a lot of students, but like I mentioned earlier, it’s the way of the world…at least in guitarland…and I HAVE to make a living.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Mooh said:


> This is why I teach as much standard notation as I can. Musicians need to communicate with ALL other musicians, producers, arrangers, engineers, with as much language as possible. It‘s a little disheartening that I HAVE to include tab in my stuff to accommodate a lot of students, but like I mentioned earlier, it’s the way of the world…at least in guitarland…and I HAVE to make a living.


Being able to read standard notation is absolutely necessary in some places like churches. In other cases you'll get the old "reading is for squares" attitude as though having that additional skill was actually bad for you in some way. I'm glad to read standard and I'm glad to follow chord charts and I'm glad to use my ears. Whatever works or is necessary.

Now, if people would only settle on a standard chord notation…

I worked with Bob Witmer at York U on a chord dictionary for pedal steel. He used *Standardized Chord Symbol Notation" by Roehmer and Brandt as his model and I've seen no reason to not use it myself. I keep a photocopy of it in the piano bench in case of need. Here's a scan -- great bedtime reading: http://jazzagejazz.ca/resources/roehmer & brandt scan.pdf


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

@Doug Gifford Pretty sure I’ve seen that before, but thanks for the scan, I didn’t have a copy. Much appreciated.

Agreed, I wish chord notation was standardized but I long ago surrendered to the typical non-jazz world habit…most of my students aren‘t into jazz, get confused by the nomenclature, and only play it if I assign it…and yeah, I have to earn a living. I might add that nowadays the handwriting of the school-aged is so atrocious (yes there are happy exceptions) that they can barely write anything at all legible.


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## CathodeRay (Jan 12, 2018)

(wait for the would-be soloist to be taken out and shot, worth it)

This thread was great, I've taken some notes Doug.


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