4 WAYS TO KICK ASS AT CHORD-CHART SESSIONS BY JOHN BOHLINGER
In the excellent documen- tary film The Wrecking Crew
[read more about it in Hot
Links, April 2011], session
legend Tommy Tedesco says,
“Producers presented musicians with a road map, just
chord symbols ... but that’s not
music.” And he was absolutely
right: Unless you are reading
actual notes on a staff (which I
enjoy about as much as doing
long division), chord charts do
not make a song.
Do you remember the first
time you read a chord chart
for a rock song? When I was
13, I wasted $4 on the sheet
music for Aerosmith’s “Walk
This Way.” I thought I was
buying the key to the mystery
of that awesome intro riff and
the funky verse vamp. What I
got were the lyrics, a notation
on the staff showing the vocal
melody line, and this:
that the chords on the paper do
not match the recording.
Most chart-reading situations
fall into two categories:
( 1) Cold reading for a live
performance.
( 2) Reading for a session.
If you are reading cold at
a live gig sans rehearsal, your
best bet is to listen to the bass,
drums, and vocalist, and find
a simple part that works with
them. It may not be a face-melting performance, but you
will be a quiet hero for avoiding
any train wrecks. Shine on the
solos, but comp that rhythm
with care!
If you are reading a chart in
a recording session, ultimately,
you’re doing more creating than
reading (unless it’s a note-for-note karaoke track). That’s what
makes great studio players—
Probably the biggest mistake novice players
make on reading gigs is that they bluff their
way through.
Playing both alone and
with the record, I flailed away
manically for an entire afternoon,
never even remotely sounding
like Joe Perry. Like most of you,
I eventually sussed-out what he
was doing, surmising it was a bit
more complicated than a cowboy
strum-a-strum-a-strum on an
open C. Chord charts give the
reader alarmingly little informa-
tion: a time signature, a key, and
some chords laid out in mea-
sures. In most cases, the chart is a
simplification of the actual part,
and there’s always a good chance
their ability to start with a rough
road map and get to a destina-
tion that does not yet exist.
JOHN BOHLINGER
is a Nashville multi-instrumentalist best known for
his work in television. He
has been the bandleader
for the 2009, 2010, and
2011 CMT Music Awards,
all six seasons of NBC’s hit program
Nashville Star, and on many specials for
GAC, PBS, CMT, USA, and HDTV. His
compositions and playing can be heard on
major-label albums, motion pictures, over
100 television spots, and even Muzak. Visit
him at youtube.com/user/johnbohlinger or
facebook.com/johnbohlinger.
