Tips for singing/playing

[rrobinso84]

This is maybe getting a little off-topic, but there are different styles for making the cheat sheets/chord sheets. The one I prefer puts the chord right above the spot where you intend to play it, and makes the font bold so it stands out more. If the chord has to happen before the lyric, you can offset the chord position, or add some spaces to the lyric sentence to get the alignment you want.
........... A.................E7
Happy Birth-day to you....

But that can take up a lot of room for a long song, and there's a lot of pressure to keep a cheat sheet to a single page, to reduce copying costs.

So some people make their cheat sheets like this instead, putting the chord right in the lyric line:

Happy (A) Birth-day to (E7) you....

That is not my favorite style because while it's more compact, it makes reading the lyric harder for me personally, and it also disturbs my rhythm a bit. I also like to put the chord dot pattern with the chord letter, especially if it's a less-common or tricky one. That's more work to lay out but I find less-experienced folks appreciate it.

A third way I've seen, | takes up a lot of room, | and it has each bar | delineated with actual vertical lines | so it makes four little boxes per bar | in 4/4 time. This I think is for the most rhythmically-impaired folks who can't count beats, but helps for instrumental passages. I dislike this style personally.

Use the style that works best for you.

I do my own chord/lyric sheets anytime I find an error on a web site, or want the music on a single page. I use both methods 1 and 2. 1 for when multiple verses use the same chord patterns, just align the words under (also a great way to discover the poetry in the lyrics). 2 usually in the chorus to save space. Some songs don't have logical chord repeat structure, so method 2 all the way.

I put the chords in square brackets and in a different color (usually bold red) to help my brain find then. And I use spacing within the text and after the chord if needed to remind me of pauses or not in the lyrics. Lots of different styles out there. Be consistent is my advice.

 

[UkingViking]

This is maybe getting a little off-topic, but there are different styles for making the cheat sheets/chord sheets. The one I prefer puts the chord right above the spot where you intend to play it, and makes the font bold so it stands out more. If the chord has to happen before the lyric, you can offset the chord position, or add some spaces to the lyric sentence to get the alignment you want.
........... A.................E7
Happy Birth-day to you....

But that can take up a lot of room for a long song, and there's a lot of pressure to keep a cheat sheet to a single page, to reduce copying costs.

So some people make their cheat sheets like this instead, putting the chord right in the lyric line:

Happy (A) Birth-day to (E7) you....

That is not my favorite style because while it's more compact, it makes reading the lyric harder for me personally, and it also disturbs my rhythm a bit. I also like to put the chord dot pattern with the chord letter, especially if it's a less-common or tricky one. That's more work to lay out but I find less-experienced folks appreciate it.

A third way I've seen, | takes up a lot of room, | and it has each bar | delineated with actual vertical lines | so it makes four little boxes per bar | in 4/4 time. This I think is for the most rhythmically-impaired folks who can't count beats, but helps for instrumental passages. I dislike this style personally.

Use the style that works best for you.

Personally I cant stand option 2, I am all for the first one.
I have never seen the |A| |B| | notation, though I have seen |A / B / | or |A / / B| depending on whether chord change is on 3 or 4.
I must be semi - rythmically impaired.
I put the start and end line |A B | on each bar. Yes, I can listen to the original song and count. If my tonal impaired ears are sure when the chords change. But I easily forget, and dont want to listen all the time. So I do it once and then put it in my cheat sheet. Especially useful when perhaps there is an empty bar after a line or before a chorus.

Sticking to option 1, I usually only put chords on the first verse and chorus, and the bridge if there is one.

 

[Timm_S]

I’m all for the first option too. In my job as worship music director, part of the job is to find and introduce new songs for the group. Not everyone reads full music notation so I need to show everyone how to play a new song in the most efficient way possible, given our limited rehearsal time available. That first option with chord symbols landing right above the syllable seems to work best—which is not always that easy to do (but it helps having a background in typography from commercial pre-press work). I no longer have the high-end tools like Adobe InDesign, so I’ve gotten better as using Word for my formatting. It’s easier with a monospaced font like Courier, but that looks ugly in print so I try to avoid that. Can’t always keep it to a single page either, sometimes they run to 2-3 pages because I find it’s easier for reading to keep everything linear and not skipping around back to find the Chorus again for example. If we have to repeat a line 3x, I’ll usually write it out all three times. In the heat of performance, shortcuts can backfire so I’d rather use the extra paper and keep it simple. That’s just how I do it.

 

[rrobinso84]

I’m all for the first option too. In my job as worship music director, part of the job is to find and introduce new songs for the group. Not everyone reads full music notation so I need to show everyone how to play a new song in the most efficient way possible, given our limited rehearsal time available. That first option with chord symbols landing right above the syllable seems to work best—which is not always that easy to do (but it helps having a background in typography from commercial pre-press work). I no longer have the high-end tools like Adobe InDesign, so I’ve gotten better as using Word for my formatting. It’s easier with a monospaced font like Courier, but that looks ugly in print so I try to avoid that. Can’t always keep it to a single page either, sometimes they run to 2-3 pages because I find it’s easier for reading to keep everything linear and not skipping around back to find the Chorus again for example. If we have to repeat a line 3x, I’ll usually write it out all three times. In the heat of performance, shortcuts can backfire so I’d rather use the extra paper and keep it simple. That’s just how I do it.

I'm using Google docs editor. I found a really great thick font, push out the page margins, and to line up words precisely under a chord symbol using method one: I'll put in a few spaces, then change the font size of the spaces only to precisely align the word. My group prefers a single page whenever possible.

 

[bbkobabe]

I started out as a bass player... it took my YEARS to disconnect my vocal chords from my fingers completely. Be patient...

 

[17Blacillek]

I wish I had come across such advice earlier. I managed to cope when the rhythm remained consistent, but whenever the chord changed at the end of a line with a different rhythm, it always threw me off. In the end, I decided that I would play, and someone else would do the singing.