After getting the basics down and then adding some instructions for the musicians, now you’re ready to do a little “advanced” chord charting (at least that’s what I consider it!). Why call it “advanced”? Well, anyone can do a chart as I did in my basic setup, but you actually have to understand time signatures and measures to do this. You do not need a degree in music theory, but you do need to understand a few basics of it.

I tried my hand at mapping out an entire chord chart with measure/beat indicators. Here’s how it came out. It looks a little overwhelming, doesn’t it? Yeh, and I’m not too happy with how the rest of the chart came out. Overall, though, any player could take this chord chart and just about play along with the song, even if they had never heard it before. All they would need is the rhythm pattern. Oh, and note at the bottom where there was actually a more syncopated chord progression going. I had to go over that part separately with the band, because to try and notate it within the chart would have made things much more complicated than they already were and more confusing than they really needed to be.

Also note how in the chart shared above how I’ve marked each individual (quater) beat of the measure as with a backslash, like this:

|G  /  /  /  |D  /  /  /  |C  /  /  /  |

But if the changes are just on the first of each measure, then an instrumental section might be better marked this way:

|G         |D       |C      |

That looks much cleaner and is just as easily understood: the chord change obviously happens on the first beat of each measure.

While it might be effective to map/chart out an entire chord chart with these measure markers, I’ve since drifted more towards a minimalist approach to indicating measures in chord charts. Here are my basic guidelines:

1. Instrumental sections should always have measure markings.
2. If the chord changes (for singing sections) are simple and straightforward and can be easily understood without measure markings, then I do not use them.
3. However, if there is any measure(s) which has an atypical chord change for the song which would best be clarified through indicating measures

You could sum up my thoughts thusly: “If you don’t need ‘em, don’t use ‘em!” (or “less is more”)

Okay, we’re almost to the end of this series on chord charting. To finish up, I’m going to go over a few pointers on making chord charts as effective as possible.