If you're not familiar with musical notation and markings, trying to decipher a Lead Sheet/Sheet Music can be quite confusing. I thought it might be helpful to define the elements that make up a lead sheet. Below you'll see an excerpt from the beginning of "Hey Jude" by Lennon & McCartney.
Definitions
Title: This is what the song is called.
Credits: This gives credit to the person/people that created the music and wrote the words. Sometimes you'll also see credit given to the arranger here.
Tempo Marking: This will tell you how fast or slow to play the piece. The number given(in this case 74) refers to the BPM(beats per minute). Set your metronome to this number and play in time with the click!
Time Signature: This tells you what time the song is played in. How many beats per bar/measure, and what note gets the beat. Look for a future Post to explain this in more detail!
Key Signature: This will tell you what key you'll be playing in. It designated the accidentals assigned to the notes in a piece of music. Look for a future Post to explain this in more detail!
Clef Symbol: This symbol tells you where the notes are placed on the staff. Without this symbol at the beginning of a piece, you wouldn't know which notes correspond to which lines/spaces. Look for a future Post to explain this in more detail!
Chord Symbols: These are symbols, presented in short hand, describing which chord should be played over which beat. Look for a future Post to explain this in more detail!
Melody: The Melody is the main musical line being heard above the background/accompaniment in a piece of music. Usually what you're singing!
Lyrics: The words!
Barline: A Barline is used to show separation of each rhythmic section throughout a piece of music. This varies according to which time signature the piece is being played in.
Bar: A Bar is the rhythmic section designated by the time signature, and bars are visibly separated by barlines.
Dynamic Markings: These symbols will tell you how loud or soft the music should be played at a specified point during a piece of music. There are also other dynamic markings to accent parts within a piece of music to give it color and feeling. Without dynamics everything would sound blah! Look for a future Post to explain this in more detail!
Piano Scroll: The piano scroll is the assigned part the pianist will be playing. In the piece above it could also be called the accompaniment.
Hopefully this gives you a little more insight into the wonderful world of music notation. I'll be writing future posts that will explain the definitions above in more detail. In the meantime, keep making music! Practice makes Perfect ;-)
~JLS~
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