The chords: The rest of the chord symbol tells us which notes to play in the mid-range of the piano, between the bass notes and the melody. The bass is a time-keeper, like the drums, and the main bass notes occur where indicated, on beat 1, or beats 1 and 3 as the case may be. The most common styles for playing bass notes are the “walking bass”, with four notes played per bar in 4/4 time, and playing “in two”, with two notes played per bar.

This is our bass note, played with our left hand in the low range of the piano (or by a bassist if playing in a jazz band). The bass notes: The first part of each chord symbol - in the example above, B-flat, B, C, C-sharp - indicates the root of the chord. We play all of the pitches as marked, but can change the rhythm and phrasing as we see fit. The melody: Generally played with the right hand, in the high range of the piano (or by any other instrument when playing in a jazz band), the melody consists of the notes within the treble clef staff. For the jazz pianist, there are three essential things that we must translate from the lead sheet to the piano: Not to worry - our online jazz piano teachers can show you the keys to identifying the flaws in a lead sheet, as well as how to interpret a lead sheet with intelligence and style.

At best, at lead sheet is one person’s interpretation of the given song, and at worst it is riddled with mistakes. It is extremely rare that a lead sheet you find in a book or on the internet has been written by the composer him/herself.

The challenge, however, is that unless you have written the lead sheet yourself, no lead sheet is trustworthy. A lead sheet is the written form of the jazz piano language, consisting of one staff only, in treble clef, a single melody, and chord symbols.īeing able to read a lead sheet makes learning new pieces fast and easy, and sight-reading a snap.

Piano chord chart jazz