How do I know where to write chords on chord sheets (3/4 time signature)

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Hi, I am on lesson 6 and have been using the Justinguitar app and it has been great. Recently I decided to learn a song not on the app using only a chord sheet. My question is, how do I know where the measures are in a chord sheet? I see the chords above the lyrics and I know the time sig (3/4) but how would I know how many measures are in a line?

Also, the song is an old Christian Hymn so listening to it is harder because there isn’t just one way it is done. Most recordings are fairly different.

Thanks,
Caleb

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pick the recording you like best and listen for the chord changes. Chord sheets are useless if you don’t know the song/melody.

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You’ve hit on one of my per peeves about most crowd sourced chord sheets…

For some reason, chords that may repeat for several measures are only shown once. I guess more experienced players can figure this out intuitively. But it’s a lot to ask for most beginners.

I certainly struggled with it. My solution was to pencil in ALL the chords - positioned over the EXACT syllable of the word where the chord changes (it’s very common for a chord change to happen in the middle of a word).

Another thing to watch out for - alignment of lyrics with chord changes is often only approximate. The chord is positioned exactly over the first word of a line on the sheet…but you listen to the song, and you can hear that the chord actually changes either before , during, or after that word.

The good news is that - much of the time - the chord will change on the “1” count of the measure. I usually approach a new song sheet by singing along to the recording, and doing a “4 finger tap” for 4/4 songs, or “3 finger tap” for 3/4 songs.

I tap a different finger for each beat in the measure For 4/4 … 1 - thumb, 2 - index, 3 - middle, 4 - ring.

I pay attention to which finger is down when I hear the chords change, and how that lines up with the lyrics, and mark up my chord sheet accordingly.

It’s a lot of work, but brings clarity from confusion. It’s also a good way to develop your ear. Been doing this for a couple of years now, and I can now quickly tell if a chord sheet is wrong, and sometimes even correct on the fly.

Another really good option is to use the Moises app. It does a pretty good job of identifying chords, and they recently fixed it so it actually shows the chord changes properly lined up with the measures. Moises also lets you slow down the song , add a metronome click , loop sections, and isolate vocals and instrument. These features are a huge help in figuring out songs and developing your ear.

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It seems to be becoming my mission to point out how terrible these chord sheets are for raw beginners. Too few guitar people emphasize how much of a learning curve there is to use these.

BUT, they are SO PERVASIVE. You can’t go anywhere and avoid a chord sheet. Especially if you’re looking for a beginner-friendly version of a song to play that’s relatively basic strumming.

I had an experience with a supposedly beginner-friendly guitar group in town. They were nice people, but the chord sheets…

The jam circle was absolute chaos. I’m convinced it had a fair bit to do with the fact that the chord sheet seems to make it harder to play in a mixed group unless you know what you’re doing - and are therefore not a beginner.

I was chatting with some people afterwards (I ended up just watching and doing a little singing, and not even trying to play my guitar), and they were surprised that I could read tabs because very few of them could. Wait…what? Tabs are easier than chord sheets for me. By far.

I did actually use a chord sheet successfully for the first time this weekend, though. I was working through the beginner strumming version of Dolly Parton’s Jolene that Justin has available. 2 things made it work. The song sheet showed the chords for that song essentially at the start of each measure. So if a chord was played for multiple measures, it was written down repeatedly. And justin’s explanation in his video to accompany it explains the time signature in a sentence. Song is in 2/2 time, strums are done on the beat, and the first strum is emphasized. Could have been written on the song sheet, even.

I really wish it was standard practice to write the chord at the beginning of every measure, even if it’s repeated. Honestly I don’t even care about the lyrics at this point. I’m not singing along with my playing yet. I am still focusing hard enough on moving my fingers when/where they need to move that there’s no way I’m singing along. Especially if my little finger is involved in at least one chord.

I’m definitely sick of terrible chord sheets, though. I bought myself a copy of Guitar Pro when the sale + Justin’s discount code were both up. Once I get myself able to make sense of those bad chord sheets, I’m going to start putting the stuff I play into tab format, assuming I don’t have access to it in that format already.

I got my hands on a “library” of thousands of song sheets awhile back, too. Blech.

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Interesting, because I have a MUCH harder time with tabs than chord sheets. If I’m familiar with the song at all, I find when to do the the chord changes completely intuitive.

Tabs just tell me where to put my fingers, and I already know that.

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I am running across quite a few tabs that blend elements from sheet music. Some of them show it all mashed together. Others show the tab right alongside the sheet music. Justin uses both of these depending on the song, I suppose. Ultimate Guitar often blends tabs with just enough elements from sheet music to figure out timing. Guitar Pro tends to show tabs alongside sheet music. TrueFire also shows tabs with a little extra notation alongside the sheet music.

I have also played trumpet and taken a semester of piano in college, so I can read sheet music, too. I’m very rusty with it, so identifying the notes from sheet music is veeeery slow for me still. But I am able to get information from it when I’m playing. On TrueFire, once I get the fingerings worked out, I’ll often hide the tabs and just show the sheet music with the chords written above. I am slowly beginning to recognize chords as written in straight sheet music, also.

ASCII tabs show very little, I agree, but I don’t encounter those terribly often.

I have a really hard time with chord sheets.

Maybe part of it is my background, though the last time I had to read sheet music for anything was more than 20yrs ago, but I find that easier to deal with than “simpler” chord sheets.

My wife, OTOH, who has a much stronger musical background than I do, began playing ukulele in January and has no problem with chord sheets. But if I put tabs in front of her (I do find uke tabs from time to time), her eyes glaze over.

Maybe I’m just a mutant?

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Yes, chord sheets are very pervasive, because they are a compact way to display the chords of a song. They aren’t really for beginners, though, you are right about that.

This is the wrong approach, I think. As a beginner, you should pick a song that you want to learn, find the chord sheet, and then write out a “tab” for it yourself. You don’t need any software, just use some blank tab paper (search online for it) and a pencil. Follow @Tbushell 's technique above to figure it out.

A friend who is just starting on guitar had complaints similar to yours and I made this simple sheet to help him understand the timing and chord changes.

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What’s the wrong approach? I got my hands on that library of chord sheets. The vast majority of them I have no interest in playing and won’t be putting down tabs for them. The ones I do want to play, I’ll put down in tab. I’m going to use the software because I have it, no other reason than that. Also because it’ll be cleaner than I will wind up writing out myself with pencil and paper and also because keeping a folder of pdfs (or a big multi-page one with a linked table of contents) is a lot less messy to keep than a binder (or binders) full of song sheets.

My wife got a tablet for her uke jams. That’s apparently the standard way her uke friends use to bring their song sheets with them. I like that method. The guitar group I checked out awhile back prints their song sheets and it looked like most people in the jam had big binders full of them.

What’s most annoying about song sheets is that this is the primary way that music seems to get distributed by jam groups and others. Then beginners are expected to convert them into something they can use to learn to play the song (and further, the expectation I’ve run into is that beginners are expected to know how to do this, and when you ask about it, you get blank stares and unhelpful explanations). But then yeah, tabs are a clunky format to tote around to a jam as a memory aid, especially because a song is likely to occupy more than one page so you’ll have to turn pages, so now you need to go back to the song sheets.

There just has to be a better way of dealing with this from a beginner’s perspective. As a beginner myself, I don’t yet have the answer. A big part of my whinging and ranting about it is the fact that I’m also turning this problem over in my head to find that better way. I do work in education and know a few things about teaching methodologies. I’ve seen a few ways that technology can be helpful for a beginner to get around this problem. Justin uses his system that’s been helpful. TrueFire uses a different one. And that helps me see it from a couple different angles. But neither of those systems is necessarily going to be helpful for a jam group that wants to be open and welcoming to true beginners who have just picked up this hunk of wood called a guitar and are also learning about different types of musical notation.

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Caleb @CalebSymons
I raised a similar topic a while back and since then have come to these current conclusions. I am sure others will disagree with these but that’s fine, whatever works for you, you go with it.

I basically divide playing songs into two categories, playing by myself or with others. I should say I am always singing the song either out loud or in my head and that is important.

Playing by myself - if you have Justin’s Tabs which show all the chords related to the lyrics and how the chords fit into the bars, all nice and straight forward. However if you want to do a song that Justin has not done you run into the problem you mention of chord sheets which only show where it changes. Sometimes there are tabs as well, as in Ultimate Guitar, but they often don’t agree. What I do is listen to the song and fill in the gaps, you have to play through and get it to sound right for you. Of course it may not match the original exactly but does that really matter. I should say I don’t generally play along with the original so it doesn’t matter for me.

Moving on to playing with others - in my case it is at the guitar club. We generally work with chord sheets which only show where chords change. It can be two or more songs each time we meet, in my case often songs I have not played so you have have the ability to change at the right point and also keep the rhythm going. Quite a challenge for a beginner like me but it certainly improves your skills. I think if it was suggested that we spend the first hour taking a song apart and agreeing where all the bars stopped and started not many would like that, it’s all about playing songs is it not.

I would add another category in playing with others like when we perform in front of an audience at the guitar club concerts, entry is free. We are all amateurs of differing abilities and yes we work on the song set over a few weeks but practice together possibly only half a dozen times. Again we don’t take a song apart into bars for the verses and chorus for one good reason. You have to keep the rhythm going at a steady pace, after all rhythm is king, whoever is singing may be singing at a faster or slower speed than the notional tempo so you have to change chords with their lyrics. I am sure some people will be aghast at this but it is the reality of playing live you have to flexible. It is not recording in a studio with multiple takes and putting the best bits together. We do however agree the instrumental parts in terms of number of bars and the chords in each bar, some may have four chords! It is so the vocals know when to come in.

Ok I have put myself up to be shot down.
Michael