Playing a song last night at practice and I found that I could leave out chords that we're basically getting in the way. Especially when you can single it down to an Eb then Bb on the line. A lot of those other chords were made for the keyboard player to play. Or like you said let the bass guitar play those. Because we want to support the vocal. So playing rhythm in a more simple way helps me out a lot. Thanks for putting together this video.
Great stuff. I mainly play lead guitar these days. We don't use music/tablet stands etc and play most songs in multiple keys. I hand write landscape A5 chord charts for every song we use, not using Nashville number system but one for each key. The reason I do this is because I work out very specific arrangements for each song, interesting chord inversions plus diads, triads etc etc. These often vary for different keys of the same song. Problem is, a few weeks down the line I can't remember what I worked out for a given song! So I write charts similar to what you have done here with embellishments. I have never not been able to condense a song down to one sheet and also read it from a distance. I often put the fret number of the starting fret of the chord above the chord, so say a particular A/C# triad would be a '9'. So I can look at my charts see where I intended to play a particular chord and it all comes flooding back. Weird unusual chords I write a chord diagram on the back of the A5 which also remind me of what I worked out and for important riffs I tab them. I might annotate with diamonds or notes regarding arpeggios etc. I can read these charts off the floor as a memory jogger if I struggle during a set. I can also annotate using key words from songs like you suggested where necessary if it is a song I don't remember particularly well, lyric and timing wise or what word begins a particular part of a song if we are not using in ear music direction etc, and I can't easily see hand signals from the worship leader. Other embellishments can include tone changes as the song progresses, though as I have song presets for every song in my Quad Cortex I also often annotate the scenes with things like chorus 1, Bridge, etc on the modeller. I even annotate Pick Up selection as I move through the song on particularly complex songs. Why? for the same reason as I mentioned before. Give me a few weeks and I can't remember what I previously carefully worked out and my main guitar has 10 PUP options. Maybe it is my age! Been leading worship for 47 years ha ha! but this system really works for me. I could also display these charts on a tablet on the floor etc and use a page turner, but haven't bothered so far. Love your channel. Pointing new players to it at every opportunity. Kind regards from the UK.
when I get a new song I will mark the bars on the chord chart so I know when to make the chord change and I play bass or lead. I may put a quarter note beside the chord if it is just one beat.
How are you making charts like your preferred sketch with the vertical bar lines, small words above the chords, etc? By hand? Word? Some other program?
These days I'm handwriting my charts. They're less official and more like scratch notes. At some point, I'd like to do a better treatment of how to setup your own chart.
