Week 4 - Lead Sheet - the Finished Product

So far, we have a rough draft of our lead sheet. This week and next we will clean up the lead sheet to make a good-looking chart that is easy for any musician to read.

There are a few things to keep in mind as you make your final copy:

• Write your final version lightly in pencil, then trace over it in pen. Use a pen with blue or black ink (Sharpie Calligraphy pens are what I like best)
• At the beginning of the chart, write the clef, the key signature and the time signature on the first staff only! Every other staff can be left blank.
• Give your players the info they need, such as feel, tempo, what instruments are played when (example: "medium rock feel", "First verse piano & vox only; band in on second verse")
• If there is a signature intro line, write out the melody in notation - usually one staff only.
• Make sure you are clear about sections - write Intro, Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Solo, Outro (or whatever other sections you may have) to clearly mark where those sections are.
• Arrange your measures so that each section starts at the far left of the page. It is okay to have a different number of measures in each staff, so long as it enables the sections to start at the far left. If you only have four or six measures on a second (or 3rd) page, see if you can distribute those measures among the ones on the previous page(s) so you won't have an extra page with only a few measures on it.
• Write neatly!
• Make sure you write chords large enough for your players to be able to read at a distance! Remember that they will probably have your chart on a music stand and will need to have everything written large, clear and uncluttered. Your chart could be perfect, but it won't make a difference if your player can't see it. So, even if your normal handwriting is small, for your chart, make it larger.
• You do not have to write lyrics; however, if there are places where it would help the players to know a lyric, you could write the first couple of words in the phrase followed by an ellipse(…) just to let them know where they are in the song - especially if it is repetitive, or the verse and chorus sound the same.
• Double-check to make sure your graphical and text repeats work for the song structure. Make sure they are easy to see. I usually put little curved lines on my repeat signs to make sure they are eye-catching. Same with your codas and signs - make sure they are noticeable by your player.

These things will help you put together a great chart. We will talk more about this in class.