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Chord charts


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Randy Stein recently posted that he used chord charts:

I had never heard about using chord charts when using a concertina.  For guitar and piano, yes, but I never thought about using them for the concertina. 

 

Randy told me that he uses chord charts like these jazz chord charts:

https://standardrepertoire.com/all-of-me.html

 

There are other forms of chord charts, some with chords set against song lyrics, but AFAICT they are all very similar in principle.

 

So, my question for Randy and anyone else that uses chord charts is how do you go about doing it?  What are the processes involved in learning and playing a tune using a chord chart?

 

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When I was tasked with learning this tune for a theatrical production (I was cast as the “Street Musician” in an amateur production of “The Madwoman of Chaillot” six years ago), I knew it was unlikely there was already an arrangement out there for a 46-key Hayden concertina, so I had to come up with my own. I listened to as many varied settings of the song as I could find on youtube to glean ideas regarding bass lines, inner voices and harmonies. Combining all that I had found, I finally came up with my own chord chart that I was able to fashion into an arrangement. Then I went about learning to play it.

 

It is the only time I have used a chord chart to learn something on the concertina, and the whole process, from thinking about how I might arrange it to learning it to performing it was the most difficult undertaking I have ever attempted with the concertina.

 

Edited to add: When Randy heard me play it at NESI that year he asked “Where did you come up with those chords?”

Edited by David Barnert
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One of the joys of folk music is that there is rarely one 'right' chord sequence, there are always valid alternatives.

However when playing in a band, it is usual to agree on a sequence, which may not be the obvious choice. 

That is where having a chord sheet can act as a useful aide memoire.

 

I use a great free website to create my own chord sheets for those situations - https://www.chordsheet.com/

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1 hour ago, AndyNT said:

I use a great free website to create my own chord sheets for those situations - https://www.chordsheet.com/

 

 

Interesting  ... I took a look at the chord sheet website and found this example sheet near the top of the list!!!

 

https://www.chordsheet.com/song/png/223451/sous-le-ciel-de-paris-various-artists

 

 

(Nice performance, David)

 

Chris

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23 hours ago, AndyNT said:

One of the joys of folk music is that there is rarely one 'right' chord sequence, there are always valid alternatives.

 

I heard someone say once that the difference between Western/Swing Week at Ashokan and Northern Week at Ashokan was that at Western/Swing Week everybody plays the same chords with different tunes while at Northern Week everybody plays the same tunes with different chords.

 

23 hours ago, AndyNT said:

I use a great free website to create my own chord sheets for those situations - https://www.chordsheet.com/

 

I wasn’t aware of that one. Did it exist six years ago?

 

21 hours ago, SqueezyC said:

 

 

Interesting  ... I took a look at the chord sheet website and found this example sheet near the top of the list!!!

 

https://www.chordsheet.com/song/png/223451/sous-le-ciel-de-paris-various-artists

 

 

(Nice performance, David)

 

Chris

 

Thank you. As you can see (or hear) I made some rather different choices. I also found out pretty quickly that singers don’t like to sing it in A minor, so I had to rearrange and relearn it in D minor. Fortunately on a Hayden that’s a pretty simple (although not trivial) operation.

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