Leading the Music Ministry #13 – How to Write and Prepare Charts

In the 15 or so years that I’ve been involved in music ministry, I’ve almost never come accross a chart for a church song that’s been adequate. There is some hidden law that Christian chart-writers have to write charts in a way that will be confusing and frustrating for the people using them in church! Of course I might be overly cynical about charts – but the point is, it’s 99% certain that you will have 1 of 2 choices when you get the music team to play a new song:

1)  Find an existing chart and manipulate it to be suitable; or

2)  Write a new chart yourself

the important things on a chart

A good chart will:

-  Be short (no longer than 2 pages)

-  Be clear (easy to follow, not confusing, simple)

-  Be minimal (not too much information – just enough for everyone to play along)

-  Be in the right key (melody not higher than a high D, not lower than a low A)

-  Not include written piano parts (you don’t want the treble clef/bass clef divide – it makes charts too long and encourages piano players to play the bass in their left hand – you don’t want that to happen since there’s already a bass in the band, and the written bass lines are usually terrible anyway)

-  Not be missing anything (so you don’t have to tell the band things about the song that aren’t on the chart)

-  Show lyrical cues (not necessarily all the song words under the chords, but just enough so that if you get lost you can find your place again)

-  Include all the lyrics at the end (you want the band to be able to see/read the song words – both to reflect on at home, and to sing along on a Sunday if/when they’re able)

Song Select

When you need a new chart the best place to start is CCLI Song Select. If a church teaches new songs on even a semi-regular basis, subscribing to Song Select each year is a very good idea – it’s an online library of tens of thousands of Christian charts – it’s very useful. Almost every popular Christian song will be on there – it’ll be rare that Song Select doesn’t have the song you’re after. It’s also good because you can change the key before you hit print. The ANNOYING thing about Song Select is that they have tens of thousands of charts – and not one of them has an introduction written on the chart! I don’t know whose decision it was to include no song intros – but it means that, for every Song Select chart you print up you’ll need to either hand-write an intro at the top of the first page (that’s what i usually do) or indicate elsewhere on the chart which part will be the intro (which is confusing, since you want the intro to be at the start of the chart).

Song Select will be your first point of call when looking for a new chart. For each song it offers ‘Chord Sheets’ (just chords and lyrics), ‘Lead Sheets’ (basic chords/melody and lyrics) and ‘Hymn Sheets’ (extensive piano/organ/choir orchestration – we don’t subscribe to this bit). What you want is the ‘Lead Sheets’ (although sometimes ‘Chord Sheets’ can be handy for singers who want to practice playing and singing at the same time, or if the song’s really simple).

Once you’ve found the chart you need to put it in the right key. Try the default key first – try practicing it and singing it through yourself. The general rule is:

-  You don’t want the melody to go lower than a low A, and you don’t want too much of the melody to be just above a low A

-  You don’t want the melody to go higher than a high D, and you don’t want too much of the melody to be just below a high D.

-  You want the song to be in the best key for the congregation to sing it comfortably. Too high makes everyone unhappy – especially blokes. Too low makes everything bland. Go for the middle – this is a rare situation where ‘taking the middle ground’ is the right thing to do.

It can be a little tricky getting used to picking the right key – but if in doubt try singing it through with a couple of singers in a few different keys and make the decision together. If you prepare a chart and distribute it to the team and later realise the key isn’t working – that’s ok. Just prepare a new chart in the better key and re-distribute.

A lot of recent songs use a ‘building’ technique where the melody is in a low octave for the first verse or two, and then it’s the same melody but an octave higher for the later verses. This technique may sound good on CD, but does not work with congregational singing. Pick a key so that the melody will always be in the same octave for every verse, and that will be comfortable for the congregation to sing.

If the chart is not on Song Select, or if the arrangement on Song Select is different to what you want, you’ll need to hand-write the chart yourself. (SCPC has not invested in any chart-writing programs like Sibelius since we don’t have anyone who knows how to use it. It could be a good option for the future – but only if someone knows how to utilise it).

Writing/Preparing a Chart

What follows are the essential ingredients of a good chart, whether you’re adding bits onto a Song Select chart, or whether you’re writing your own. Remember, they key is: you want to be able to give the chart and the mp3 to the band and not have to communicate any extra information to them during rehearsal. Get it all onto the chart, but keep it clear and simple.

The first and vital step in chart writing is to decide on the arrangement first. Don’t start writing or preparing an existing chart until you’ve worked out how the song will work best congregationally – work out the order that everything will happen. Remember that the way songs occur on CDs and live-stadium-rock-albums will rarely work for regular church on a Sunday. This is especially the case when Bridge sections and Chorus sections can be repeated 4 or more times in a row – that will rarely work in our setting! So first of all: work out the arrangement. Often this is best worked out by playing the song through on your own, and if possible running it through with the band at a mid-week practice (with just a chord sheet). Here are some handy arrangement questions:

-  How many verses/choruses/bridges?

-  What instruments will play when?

-  Will the whole band start together, or just part of the band?

-  When will the drop-out/s be?

-  Is there a drums-only verse or acapella verse?

-  Will this song work best as piano and vocals only (no drums/band)?

Once you’ve got the arrangement sorted, it’s time to start writing the chart…

-  Always use a black felt-tip pen – anything else doesn’t photocopy well.

-  Make it as neat as possible (don’t hesitate to start again if it gets messy, and keep liquid paper nearby).

-  Number each page down the bottom, and include the song title on every page

-  Write the treble clef, the key signature (sharps/flats) and the time signature at the start of the first line, but don’t repeat them anywhere else (unless there’s a key signature or time signature change).

-  Make sure sections are clearly marked (Intro, V for Verse, CH for Chorus, Pre-CH for Pre-Chorus, Bridge, Outro, CHa and CHb for a slightly differing choruses, etc).

-  Use thick double-bar lines at the start/end of every new section, and even thicker double-bar lines at the end of the song.

-  You will almost always need to use repeat bars, often with 1st and 2nd time bars.

-  If necessary use Codas.

-  If possible make sure the Intro is the first thing on the chart – if it’s a Song Select chart try and squeeze it in up the top.

-  You do not need the melody on the chart – it’s ok if it’s there, but if it’s not there you don’t need to write it in. Chord slashes are fine. We don’t want any other instruments playing the melody, and the singers will learn the melody off the recording.

-  Use single capital letters for Major chords (‘E’ for ‘E Major’), use single capital letters with “mi” for Minor chords (‘Emi’ for ‘E Minor’).

-  At the bottom of the chart, write in how to play unusual chords on the guitar (eg. ‘Gsus2’) and also write what notes are in the chord for piano players (eg. ‘Gsus2’ = G, D, A).

-  Write rhythmic figures as chord slashes with tails, write semibreves/whole notes and minims/half notes as diamonds so they’re not confused with actual notes.

-  Write dynamics into the chart (eg. ‘Soft’, ‘Loud’, < for crescendos/builds, > for decrescendos/shhhh etc)

-  Write instructions for each instrument (Eg. ‘All in’, ‘Piano only’, ‘Acapella’, ‘Bass in’, ‘Drums out’, ‘Acoustic only’, etc)

-  If necessary write TAB parts for guitarists, or a separate ‘Capo chart’.

-  When photocopying make sure you use the darkest possible copy option

If in doubt have a look at some existing charts for ideas, or consult a relevant music theory book. A good option is Jon Fitzgerald’s ‘Popular Music Theory & Musicianship’, which is the text book for the Bachelor of Contemporary Music at SCU, and usually on sale in the bookshop at SCU.

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