Public Service Address: Posting Chord Charts

[Mysteryman]

We have been posting chords LH/RH for over 10 years. I have recently been posting chord charts.  The purpose is for beginners to start doing the research to really learn. Im trying to help move this site to the next transition. Beginners should know at least their basic triad chords. The chords posted do not contain any chords that can not easily be found. People always are uneasy at first about change but it must be done. After a while you can buy sheet music or look online for your favorite chord charts.

Another reason Im doing this is because multiple instruments can look at the same piece of music and follow it. Piano, organ, guitar, and bass(somewhat). You can take simple chord charts into a band rehearsal and set them before a group of musicians who should be able to play the song on the spot with the CD. You will be seeing me push more for musicians to learn the basics and move from the old to industry standards. Those who really want to learn will put forth the effort to do their part. 

[4hisglory]

Great Idea.  I'll support you 100%. 

"We gotta do better"

In other genres like jazz, blues, rock, etc.... the first thing beginners learn is chord symbols.  We can do it to. 

[csedwards2]

thats a lot of theory to learn

[T-Block]

I do both.

[Mysteryman]

thats a lot of theory to learn

Not really. For the most part you only have to learn all your triads and their inversions. You can pretty much follow the charts from there. Chords can always be strunk or expanded based on your skill level. What you don't know can be played as melody or taught. People came up with standards for reasons. The current LH/RH format is just not realistic for long term and live performance. Most songs here can be played by learning major, minor, and diminished triads. Then learn suspended and augmented triads. With just those 4 triads you can get by without learning many of the larger chords. I actually sat down last night and played along with the Fred Hammond song I chorded without having attempted it before hand.

[csedwards2]

Not really. For the most part you only have to learn all your triads and their inversions. You can pretty much follow the charts from there. Chords can always be strunk or expanded based on your skill level. What you don't know can be played as melody or taught. People came up with standards for reasons. The current LH/RH format is just not realistic for long term and live performance. Most songs here can be played by learning major, minor, and diminished triads. Then learn suspended and augmented triads. With just those 4 triads you can get by without learning many of the larger chords. I actually sat down last night and played along with the Fred Hammond song I chorded without having attempted it before hand.

but scales and the method for building chords is instrumental to that process

[phbrown]

Nice!!! I never posted a chord chart (never read one either) where can I go to learn how to do both?

[Mysteryman]

Nice!!! I never posted a chord chart (never read one either) where can I go to learn how to do both?

Look at my recent posts in the piano/organ chords room. I posted charts. Its basically guitar chord charts. You can read the simple bass and get the chord names. If you were playing bass and know your chords you would know which arpeggio to use or bass chord to use although you can always improvise. You could use the charts along with bass tabs. The chords are placed above the words in the format Chord/Bass if it is a slash chord. If it is only the chord name you use the root note of that chord. I put single notes in parentheses if I thought they were important.

[floaded27]

Personally I HATE those LH/RH chord (or rather note) postings. Honestly its like if someone asked you the words to the song and you gave it to them.........letter by letter, and then you had to remember it that way.

Often times I never learned songs on here because of that. Unless I printed it out at work and made actual chord translations while on the train home or something, they were way too time consuming while actually in front of the keyboard. Actually for many songs, it actually took me less time to play the song over and over again, then to remember a list of notes. i hate bass tabs for that same reason.

T-Block usually does both, so when i get really stuck on a part, or just want to verify what I learned by listening, its a god send.

unless its a particular riff or run to emphasize, i think chord charts should be just fine.

but scales and the method for building chords is instrumental to that process

this should be common knowledge to anyone playing an instrument. too many of us like taking shortcuts. i took 2 years of studying AND practicing before i started playing in my church, because i know that was needed. a lot of folks wanna say "i wanna play" today, then be playing all the hits tomorrow. I know so many who dont know how to do basic things because they didnt bother, so they stay away from them, but eventually it catches up to them and they get "stuck".

[T-Block]

this should be common knowledge to anyone playing an instrument. too many of us like taking shortcuts. i took 2 years of studying AND practicing before i started playing in my church, because i know that was needed. a lot of folks wanna say "i wanna play" today, then be playing all the hits tomorrow. I know so many who dont know how to do basic things because they didnt bother, so they stay away from them, but eventually it catches up to them and they get "stuck".

Man, you can say all that again. I took some time as well before I started playing in church. Glad to see I'm not alone on this.