CHAPTER
21

Lead Sheets and Scores

In This Chapter

• Creating clear and readable written music
• Understanding the differences between lead sheets, chord sheets, and scores
• Learning how to create a full score for choir, big band, or orchestra
• Exploring easy-to-use music notation software for your computer

Once you’ve written a piece of music, you need to present it in a way that other musicians can easily read. There are many different approaches to notating written music; which ones you use depends in part on the type of music you’ve written and who will be playing it.

If you’ve written a song for a rock or country band, the music you write can be fairly simple—chords and melody will generally suffice. If, on the other hand, you’ve written a piece for chorus or a full-blown symphony (good for you!), you’ll need to create a detailed score containing the individual parts for each voice in the choir or instrument in the orchestra.

Whatever type of written music you create, you need to keep it neat and make it easily understandable. Musicians have to be able to read the music at first pass (called sight reading), which means it helps to follow certain established parameters. There’s no point in being unique if nobody can read your music!

Follow the Rules

Whatever type of music you prepare, you need to follow certain notation rules—guidelines, actually, since they’re not set in stone. These guidelines include the following:

• The first instance of each staff for each instrument or voice must have its own clef sign, key signature, and time signature.
• Typically, the time signature is shown only in the very first measure—and wherever a time change appears.
• Each instrument should be clearly marked at the beginning of each staff. (The first instance typically has the full instrument name spelled out; subsequent staves can use abbreviations.)
• In band and orchestral scores, group like instruments together (all the trumpets together, for example).
• For instruments that use the grand staff (both bass and treble clef), group the two staves by using braces.
• Measure lines should be drawn through all the instruments belonging to the same section—but not through all the instruments in the score.
• If you want, you can combine all like instruments on a single staff (all the trumpet parts on one staff, for example).
• If an instrument or voice will be resting for an extended period of time, you don’t have to include the staff for that instrument or voice during the rest period.
• Use letter markings to notate individual sections of the music. (For ease of reading, letter markings are typically enclosed in a box or circle.)
• Number your measures—or at least the first measure of every line. (Alternately, you can insert a number mark every 5 or 10 measures.)

It goes without saying that the music you create should also be readable. If you’re writing it all out by hand, make sure you produce clear and distinct notes that are easily distinguishable on the staff. If you have poor penmanship (like I do!), consider taking a calligraphy course to improve your handwriting, or use a computerized music notation program to create great-looking music on your computer printer. (See the “Use the Computer” section later in this chapter.)

These rules apply to the score you compose and that the conductor uses. As for the music that the musicians themselves read, you have to create individual parts for each instrument. (This is not a requirement for vocal scores.) So if you’ve written a piece for a big band, you have to create a separate first trumpet part, and a separate second trumpet part, and a separate third trumpet part, and so on. When you write out the individual parts, include only that instrument’s part—the conductor is the only person who gets to see all the parts together on the master score.

Take the Lead

The most common form of written music is the lead sheet. A lead sheet doesn’t include any individual instrumental parts; all you get is the song’s melody, chords, and lyrics.

As you can see in the following example, a typical lead sheet consists of one staff for the melody line, with lyrics under the staff and chords above it.

Lead sheet.

Lead sheets are simple to create, and they’re ideal for notating popular songs. If you play in a rock or country band (or even a jazz trio or quartet), you can use lead sheets to present much of the music you play.

Make It Simple

Even simpler than the lead sheet is a piece of music that contains only chords—no melody lines and no lyrics. There are two different approaches to this type of music, and we’ll look at both.

Chord Sheets

The chord sheet is just what it sounds like: a sheet of music containing only the chords of a song. The chords are presented measure by measure, so that members of the rhythm section (piano, bass, and guitar) can play through the song with minimal effort.

Chord sheet.

The Nashville Number System

In the field of country music, especially among studio musicians, a different type of chord sheet is used. This method of writing chords is called the Nashville Number System, and it uses numbers instead of letters.

In the Nashville Number System, everything revolves around the tonic chord of a given key. That tonic chord is assigned the number 1. The chord based on the ii of the key—a minor chord—is assigned the number 2m. (The m tells the musician it’s a minor chord.) The chord based on the iii of the key—also a minor chord—is assigned the number 3m. And so on up the scale, up to chord number 7.

As you can see, major chords are distinguished by number only; minor chords have an m added. Extensions are added as superscripts to the right of the number, so that a dominant seventh chord based on the fifth of the scale is noted as 5⁷.

A chord chart using the Nashville Number System looks something like the following example.

Chord chart using the Nashville Number System.

Because the Nashville Number System doesn’t use traditional notes, it is ideal for musicians who don’t know how to read music. It also makes it very easy to change key—just play the 1 or 2 or 3, or whatever chord in whatever key you want; it’s as easy as that.

Sing It Loud

Arranging for choirs is a bit more complicated than sketching out chords for a rock band. Choral music normally has four or five parts, and each part has to have its own line in the score.

Let’s look at a typical four-part choral score. The parts are arranged with the highest voice (soprano) at the top, and the lowest voice (bass) at the bottom. The four vocal parts (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass) are grouped together with braces, and a piano accompaniment is included below the vocal parts. The top three parts use the treble clef; the bass line uses the bass clef. Lyrics are included below each staff.

SATB choral score.

When you create a choral score—or any score with multiple parts, for that matter—make sure a measure within one part aligns vertically with the same measure in all the other parts. In fact, the notes within each measure also should align between parts. If it helps, use a ruler to help keep the notes in alignment when you’re writing the score.

Jazz It Up for Big Bands

Another popular ensemble—particularly among high school and college musicians—is the big band, or jazz band. A typical jazz band includes a lot of instruments, which results in a fairly large piece of music. For example, whereas a choral score might get two groups of staves on a page, a jazz band score typically takes a whole page just to display all the different instruments.

When you create a big-band score, you have a choice of how you deal with transposing instruments. You can create a concert key score, with all instruments written in concert key; if you take this approach, you have to make sure you transpose the individual parts when you create them. Alternately, you can create a transposed score in which each instrument is written in its transposed key; this type of score might be harder for the conductor to read, but it more accurately represents what the musicians see on their individual parts.

Creating parts for the rhythm section is particularly interesting. In most cases you can use slash notation and indicate the chord changes, but you don’t have to create fully realized parts. The big exception to this is when you have important rhythms that you want the rhythm section to reinforce; you can note these rhythms using slash notes, as shown in the fifth measure of the example.

Score for big band.

Strike Up the (Concert) Band

An even bigger band to write for is the concert band. Unlike a jazz band, a concert band includes virtually all the brass and woodwind instruments, along with a full percussion section—snare drums, bass drums, timpani, marimba, and so forth. A concert band is almost like an orchestra, but without strings.

Concert bands evolved from traditional marching bands. The musicians get to sit down, and the instrumentation was augmented from the slightly more Spartan marching ensembles.

When you’re writing a concert band score, you include the following groups of instruments, in top-to-bottom order:

• Woodwinds: Piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone
• Brass: Cornet, trumpet, French horn, trombone, bass trombone, baritone horn, tuba
• Percussion: Timpani, percussion (with separate staves for snare drum, bass drum, and so on)

The example here shows a typical concert band score. As with jazz band scores, concert band scores can be in either concert key or transposed.

Score for concert band.

Make the Big Score—for the Symphonic Orchestra

Now we’re in the big leagues. Creating a score for full orchestra is a major undertaking, if for no other reason than there are many instruments to deal with. Because of this, most orchestra scores are written on large sheets of paper—11 × 17 inches or so. Because of the sheer size of the beast, you’ll probably get only four to eight measures on each page, which means the typical orchestral score also is fairly long.

As you can see from the example, instrument families are grouped together in the score in the following order:

• Woodwinds: Piccolo, flute (first and second), oboe (first and second), English horn, E♭ clarinet, B♭ clarinet (first and second), bass clarinet, bassoon (first and second), contrabassoon, French horn (first, second, third, and fourth)
• Brass: Trumpet (first, second, and third), trombone (first, second, and third), tuba
• Percussion: Timpani, percussion (including snare drum, bass drum, marimba, etc.)
• Harp
• Piano
• Strings: Violin (first and second), viola, cello, double bass

As with big-band scores, you can create orchestral scores in either concert key or transposed keys—whichever works better for you.

Because most orchestral pieces are fairly long, it’s important to include proper road mapping in your scores. Number each measure, and designate each section with a new letter. This way musicians (and the conductor!) can easily find their places during the starting and stopping of the rehearsal process—or if they happen to fall asleep during a long rest in a live performance!

Score for full orchestra.

Use the Computer

In the old days, it was a real pain in the rear to create scores for large ensembles. Every part had to be written separately, by hand, and transposed as necessary. That was a lot of writing, and didn’t always result in the most readable pieces of music—especially if your handwriting is as bad as mine!

Today, thanks to computer technology, a lot of this notation process can be automated. Music notation software, available for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems, enables you to create a complete piece of music—including full orchestral scores—from your computer keyboard. The result is a professional-looking piece of music, complete with proper note spacing and notation marks.

All music notation programs let you enter notes on the page with either your mouse or computer keyboard. All you have to do is click a position on the staff, and a note appears.

Many of these programs also let you connect a MIDI keyboard and input music directly from the keyboard to your computer. The notation program translates the notes you play on the keyboard into corresponding notes on a staff. You can then fine-tune the music onscreen as necessary.

The two most popular music notation programs today are Finale (finalemusic.com) and Sibelius (sibelius.com). Both programs work in similar fashion; Finale costs a flat $600, while Sibelius is sold on a subscription basis for $9.99/month. Fortunately for cost-conscious or outright starving musicians, both programs are also available in lower-priced and/or student versions, so you can get similar (but not identical) functionality at a bargain price.

If Finale and Sibelius are a little pricey or overpowered for you, other, lower-cost notation programs are available, too. Finale offers the $119.95 PrintMusic, $49.95 SongWriter, and free NotePad, each serving less-demanding needs. Sibelius offers the $119.95 Sibelius First program, similar in features and functionality to PrintMusic. Then there’s the free MuseScore (musescore.org) and ScoreCloud (scorecloud.com), $24.00 Forte Basic (fortenotation.com), and $59.99 Notation Musician (notation.com). And if you have one of Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablets, the $69.99 StaffPad app (staffpad.net) lets you write your scores directly onscreen with the tablet’s stylus.

Exercise

Exercise 21-1

Use a blank piece of score paper or your music notation program of choice to create a simple eight-measure chart for big band. Base your piece on the chord progressions listed in the rhythm parts, and use the transposed keys for each instrument.

The Least You Need to Know

• Lead sheets present melody, chords, and lyrics.
• Chord sheets are used to present chords only—and can use standard chord notation or the simplified Nashville Number System of notation.
• Choral scores include individual parts for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass plus piano accompaniment.
• Band and orchestral scores include separate staves for each instrument—and can be written in either concert or transposed keys.
• The chore of creating written music can be made easier by computerized music notation programs, such as Finale or Sibelius.

Coda

Thus ends this book—and your first exposure to basic music theory. I hope you’ve found the information in these pages helpful, and that I’ve passed on some of my love and enthusiasm for how music gets created.

The key thing to remember (aside from all the notes and rhythms and such) is that these musical building blocks exist for you to use—however you like. We may say that there are rules and conventions, but when it comes to creating music, all the rules are made to be broken. What ultimately matters is how a piece of music sounds—to you, and to your listeners.

Theory is good, but it’s just a guideline for what happens out in the real world. If you want to use parallel fifths in your harmony, go ahead. If you want to flat a fifth or resolve a turnaround to the ii chord instead of the I, do it. Some of the greatest pieces of music have broken all sorts of rules. As long as it sounds good, it’s all okay.

Just because you’re done with this book, however, doesn’t mean that your music education has ended. In fact, if you choose to make music a part of your life, your education never ends. Every song you listen to, every piece of music you hear is an opportunity to learn more about the music you love. Keep your ears open and your mind free, and you’ll continue to expand your knowledge and skills for the rest of your musical life.

You can also further your music education with more reading. If you’re serious about becoming a better musician, I recommend you check out the following books:

Arranging and Composing (David Baker, Alfred Publishing, 1970; revised edition, 1988)

Arranging Concepts Complete (Dick Grove, Alfred Publishing, 1972; second edition, 1985)

Hearing and Writing Music: Professional Training for Today’s Musician (Ron Gorow, September Publishing, 2000; second edition, 2015)

Melody in Songwriting: Tools and Techniques for Writing Hit Songs (Jack Perricone, Berklee Press, 2000)

Sounds and Scores: A Practical Guide to Professional Orchestration (Henry Mancini, Northridge Music Inc., 1973)

The Study of Orchestration (Samuel Adler, W.W. Norton & Company, fourth edition, 2016)

Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting (Jimmy Webb, Hyperion, 1998)

What to Listen for in Music (Aaron Copland, Mentor, 1939; softcover revision, 2011)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention some of the other music books that I have written. Like this book, they’re all in Alpha Books’ Idiot’s Guides series, and (I hope) are equally easy to read and follow. These books include:

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Conducting Music (Michael Miller, Alpha Books, 2012)

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Music Business (Michael Miller, Alpha Books, 2010)

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Composition (Michael Miller, Alpha Books, 2005)

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music History (Michael Miller, Alpha Books, 2008)

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Drums (Michael Miller, Alpha Books, 2000; second edition, 2004)

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Singing (Michael Miller and Phyllis Fulford, Alpha Books, 2003; second edition, 2014)

Of course, if you really want to learn about music, you need a good teacher. Whether you study one-on-one with a professional educator, or attend music classes at your favorite school or university, a teacher can provide the individual instruction that’s necessary to develop your own unique musical skills.

There are also many music theory resources on the internet. These tend to change from year to year, so go to Google and do a search on “music theory” and see what you find. Among my favorite sites are Teoría Music Theory Web (teoria.com) and Musictheory.net (musictheory.net)—although a quick Google search will find even more sites to explore.

While you’re online, make sure you check out my personal website (millerwriter.com). There you’ll find information about my latest book projects and any updates or corrections to the information in this book. There’s also a contact form you can use to send messages or questions my way. (You can also follow me on Twitter; my handle is @molehillgroup.)

If you love music, as I do, you’ll want to experience as much of it as possible. The more you play, or sing, or just listen, the more you’ll learn about the theory behind the music. So put down this book and listen to your favorite music—or pick up your instrument and start playing. The music is waiting for you!