This is going to be the last post (for now) on creating chord charts. After getting all your lyrics and chords laid out, with instructions for the band as well as adding some measure indicators, you just need to take a step back and look over the chart. Is there too much information cluttering it up? When you look at it does it just look like a mess of letters and words and slashes? Here’s the biggest question for me (at least right now in chord chart creation): can I glance at the chart and almost immediately pick out where the chorus is (if not a chorus, then separate sections)?

Here’s the reality, while your team will use the chart at first, many musicians memorize at least partially as they learn. So they will be glancing away from the sheet to check on your visual clues, but also just to focus on worshipping (I hope). In any case, when they turn their eyes back to the chart, will it be easy for them to find the section they need? If not, maybe some re-working is in order.

For most songs with a chorus, that chorus is the primary division of the song – if you can find the chorus, the section you need (if not the chorus) is right above or below the chorus. Your musicians must be able to find that chorus at a glance! In using charts that are not quite so clearly laid out, I’ve found myself making brackets or lines or just drawing around the chorus of various songs I’m playing just so I don’t lose my place when I have to look away.

Recently I ran into this issue in creating some chord charts for a service I’ll be leading soon. I resorted to different methods for different songs. On one song, “Hallelujah (All I Need)”, I found the writer’s chord chart on his site, but  the sheet was really minimal and after creating a chord chart I realized it was pretty involved. I resorted to putting a box around each chorus to set them apart from the rest of the chord chart. I think it came out pretty good without making the chart overwhelming.

Another song, “God of All,” had a chord chart on the album website, but (again!) I found the chart to be inadequate – primarily because I was going to tweak the arrangement and I wanted to notate the changes in the chart. After getting everything down, the chart wasn’t too busy, but the divisions were just not sticking out to me. Instead of resorting to boxes, I just added extra blank lines between each section of the song, which turned out rather well.

Here’s one more option for making the chorus of a song stick out from the rest of the song: indent all of the song except for the chorus. It might look something like this:

verse verse verse
verse verse verse

chorus chorus chorus chorus
chorus chorus chorus chorus

verse verse verse
verse verse verse

chorus chorus chorus chorus
chorus chorus chorus chorus

bridge bridge bridge
bridge bridge bridge

chorus chorus chorus chorus
chorus chorus chorus chorus

This method is a little more subtle, but it can be effective. In the end, there are many different ways to make sure the divisions of a song are clearly delineated. The method is less important than its effectiveness: does it help the instrumentalist quickly find where they want to be on the page or does it distract?