Worship Musician Magazine September 2020 | Page 126

BASS THOSE DARNED CHARTS | Gary Lunn In today’s world it seems that it is all about survival. To make it through 2020. The good news is that we are over half way there. The bad news is that some of those darn worship song chart writers (that we always read) have not improved in their chart writing. And, as far as I know, they still do not write charts in numbers (a.k.a the Nashville Number System), not to mention their lack of accurate, consistent bar/measure indication. I could go on, but nonetheless, it can be frustrating for any musician who is trying to do/play their best, sometimes in spontaneous situations. Every time I read through one of those charts of a song that I am not familiar with, the first thing I notice is that I have absolutely no clue on which beat the chord changes should fall. Without having heard the song several times, there really is no way, typically, that you can correctly sight-read the chart. For worship leaders who play an instrument while they lead... yes, these charts are fine. They already know the song that they are going to lead with. But to bassists who have to play the root note correctly on every downbeat, it can be difficult or disastrous. Often I see the chord changes placed above the word in the song when they occur, but I find it almost impossible to accurately count and play each chord the proper number of beats before the next chord is to be played. If I don’t already know the song, as a solid bassist, I am officially hosed. There will be many mis-played chords (or lack of chords played). So you may be wondering (if you don’t already have your own system), what is the easiest way to fix these “glorified” lyric sheets? Here is my process. If I haven't had time to listen to the song before rehearsal (it does happen...) then I will get my trusty Apple Pen and enter into edit mode in Music Stand (an app for church worship music). As the band plays the song I usually turn my bass off and start counting/marking my chart as fast as I can. And by the way, having a correct chart by service time is way more important than attempting to play every note during the rehearsal. Typically, a chart will have one chord over the lyric with no indicator of how many beats you actually play that chord. For example, if a song has an A chord and a D chord over the first line, I need to know exactly how many measures I am to play those two chords. It might be one bar apiece or it might be two. So let’s say it’s two bars of A and two bars of D and my chart looks like A D over the lyrics. The easiest way to fix this is to insert an extra bar per every measure played. Now my chart will look like A A D D. This totally shows me that I play two bars of A and two bars of D. Each letter name represents one bar (4 beats for each chord in 4/4 time, etc.) This is one of the “easier” chart fixes. Indicating split bars is the other most-needed editing requirement. This will show you how many beats in a measure each chord will get if there is more than one chord in a single measure. For example, if a section of a song has three beats of G and one beat of C, your chart probably looks like this: G C G There is absolutely no way that you are able to tell how many beats each chord gets, even if it’s over the lyric where the change occurs. To fix this you need to quickly draw parentheses around the first G and C (to indicate that they occur within one measure). Then, simply draw a single hash mark ( ` ) under or over the C chord (meaning “one beat for this chord”). Now you have 3 beats of G and one beat of C clearly indicated. In a song where the G chord gets 2 beats and and the C chord gets 2 beats then it is not necessary to draw any hash marks in that bar (we call this a “split bar” or an “evensplit bar”). Of course there are many variations to this, but at least now you know how to mark it on your chart so that you will play it correctly. The only way to become accomplished at this skill is to practice doing it. The more you do it, the faster you will become. This will greatly increase your confidence in learning a song so please practice this before rehearsal. The outcome will be that you better represent your most important post in the band, thus bringing a new level of excellence to each service. Blessings!! Gary Lunn Gary is a session player/producer/writer in Nashville, TN. Contact him at [email protected] for scheduling or any questions. [email protected] 126 September 2020 Subscribe for Free...