Reading Chord Charts
January, 2005
When many people think of music reading, they conjure up images of ink-covered pages with turbulent maelstroms of syncopated 16th-notes swirling in all directions. When asked if they can read, they assume the questioner really means, "Can you sight-read Frank Zappa''s ‘Black Page’?" But written music is rarely that di
When many people think of music reading, they conjure up images of ink-covered pages with turbulent maelstroms of syncopated 16th-notes swirling in all directions. When asked if they can read, they assume the questioner really means, "Can you sight-read Frank Zappa's ‘Black Page’?" But written music is rarely that difficult to read. Learning to read the dots is important if you want to be a literate musician—it opens up worlds of musical information and opportunities available only to readers.
That said, however, the vast majority of reading situations you’re likely to encounter involve creating your own bass line from a set of written chord changes. Chord charts can vary from a bunch of letters scribbled on a cocktail napkin to fairly detailed arrangements with complex road maps and specific rhythmic notation. Whatever variety of chord chart you encounter, you are the one who chooses exactly what gets played.
The first step in chart reading is recognizing what the chord symbols mean. When you look at a chord symbol, the capital letter at the beginning is your root, and the other markings tell you what type of chord is built off that root. It’s important to know the construction of each chord type, especially if you choose to venture away from playing just the root.
Chord symbols are easily deciphered once you recognize how they are put together. A chord symbol’s prefix includes the root (the capital letter) and tells you what type of triad the chord has, a triad being a three-note structure using the chord’s root, 3rd, and 5th. A capital letter alone indicates a major triad—built 1–3–5 ("1" is the same as "root"). A capital letter with a small letter m, or a minus sign, indicates a minor triad (1–
3–5) built from the root. An augmented triad has a #5—raise the 5th of the chord one half-step. The diminished triad has a b3 like a minor triad, and it also has a b5. Diminished and augmented triads are not as common, but it’s critical for you to recognize their altered 5ths. Playing a natural 5 on one of these chords sounds dead wrong.
Here are four examples of chord prefixes with C as the root:
(a) C: major triad built from C (1–3–5)
(b) Cm or C–: minor triad built from C (1–3–5)
(c) Caug or C+: augmented triad built from C (1–3–#5)
(d) Cdim or Cº: diminished triad built from C (1–3–5)
To indicate other notes in a chord besides the triad, we add a suffix. The trick is learning what these suffixes mean, and determining where the prefix ends and the suffix starts. Let’s look at the two most common chord suffixes:
(a) maj7 or ?7 indicates that a major 7th is added to the triad. This suffix combines with a major triad to create a major 7 chord (1–3–5–7), or with a minor triad to create a minor-major 7 chord (1–3–5–7).
(b) 7 indicates that a minor 7th or b7 is added to the triad. This suffix combines with a major triad to create a dominant 7 chord (1–3–5–7) or with a minor triad to create a minor 7 chord (1–3–5–7). The one noticeable exception to the rule is the diminished 7th chord: The dim designation (or the symbol “º”) indicates that the triad and the 7th are diminished. A diminished 7th is flatted twice (7).
Different prefix/suffix combinations are used to indicate all the various types of chords used in music. The table on page 74 shows seven common chord symbols, how they are read, and how they are constructed.
To learn more about these chord types, play each of them ascending and descending. For example, to practice Cmaj7, start on C and play 1-3-5-7-7-5-3-1. To practice Cm7, start on C and play 1-3-5-7-7-5-3-1, etc. Look for as many locations on the neck to play these chord structures (called arpeggios when you play the notes in succession rather than simultaneously). Practice them from every root, and learn the specific note names that each chord contains.
Learning to read chord charts takes a lot of work and time, but in the long run you will be a better bass player for it. Imagine being able to look at any chord symbol and immediately know all the notes in that chord, as well as where they are on your fingerboard. That’s a powerful place to create music from.
Next time we’ll look at how to interpret these chord symbols in a chord chart with different styles.
