Specific chord voicings in a lead sheet

[RickP]

I'm thinking about lead sheets for groove based music, mostly samba. Original tunes

I want to specify exact chord voicings here and there -- without affecting the comping pattern.

That is, I'm saying to the chord instrument player, "Use your rhythms, but with my voicings".

If I write out the notes on a staff in the chart, the players will play that chord, but only exactly where it's written. That's not what I want.

I want to specify the exact harmony but to keep the rhythm up to the player.

Lead sheets aren't designed for that.

My question is what is the best way to do it?

I've tried it by putting in a chord in the bar I want, but using diamond noteheads and text saying "suggested voicing".

I've done it with some creative chord names e.g. C7sus(add10).

I've seen it done with an extra staff after the end of the tune with voicings.

Is there a standard way to do this?

[JJP]

What you choose depends on the context; however, I would not use diamond noteheads, because those are commonly used to represent comping rhythm with no voicing information.

You may try notating with solid, stemless noteheads at the chord change and then rhythm slashes for the rest of the bar. That way the voicing is shown, but the rhythm is not indicated. You may also want to put the voicing in parentheses so that the player doesn't think you want the the voicing played specifically on that beat. You could add a small text indication "(voicing)" at the first instance to clarify.

Another text indication could be "rhythm ad lib." at the first instance. You could use "sim." later to indicate this idea continues. It's not standard, but should be clear to any player who understands English and knows how to comp.

Again, all this depends on context -- how crowded the notation already is and whether it seems clear given the other information on the page.

[RickP]

Thanks! Several good ideas that I hadn't thought of.

I like the idea of the voicing, stemless, in parenthesis with text the first time "suggested voicing". I'll have to see if Musescore will let me move it all the way to the left while permitting the rest of the measure to be preserved. Probably two voices, parenthesis symbols and some things invisible will work.

To distinguish between melody notes and chord voicing (this is for lead sheets) I used diamond noteheads (not that I'm defending that practice, I have come to understand that it's imperfect). But, it allowed me to show the chord and keep the melody distinct.

In one chart, where there was room, I actually wrote the notes I wanted under the staff as in "F Eb A D".

[RickP]

Old thread, but I thought I'd follow up since I now have what I think is a reasonable solution. This forum helped, as did a pianist I work with.

The pianist wanted to see the chord symbols written out on stems, which is understandable. I wanted to make it clear that they are not to be played in the rhythm the placement of the notes/stems would seem to suggest. That is, "players: play these voicings in whatever rhythms you choose".

Here's what resulted. In Musescore, I added a second treble clef instrument. I wrote out the chords in the new, lower, staff. Then I made them half notes (in 2/4) and made the stems invisible.

The pianist pointed out that Musescore would allow me to hide unused measures and make the staff smaller. (It's in the Instruments menu).

I then dragged the first barline from the upper staff to the lower and Musescore did all the others automatically. This eliminates any ambiguity regarding whether the small staff refers to the chord symbols on the line above vs. below.

To the left of the first instance of a small staff, there was plenty of white space in which to write "Suggested voicings" and, below that, "Rhythm ad-lib".

The result is, the chart includes the specific voicings with, minimal clutter, and makes it clear the rhythm is up to the player.

Another approach might be to do it with a small staff floating right about the chord symbol. I can't recall the name for that.

[Fred G. Unn]

Can you show an image of either what you are trying to do, or your solution? People have been doing variants of the "suggested voicing" thing for a long time. Perhaps if you shared an image it would be clear why you need a non-standard solution to this.

[RickP]

Here's the solution I came up with, with the help of this forum and a local colleague.

I claim no expertise in notation.

I did make an effort to find other solutions. What would be the "standard solution"?

Btw, I understand that it might be better to have the ossia staff (if I'm using that term correctly) be floating ABOVE the main staff, but I couldn't figure out how to get Musescore 4.1 to do that.

ossia1.jpg (90.84 KiB) Viewed 673 times

[MalteM]

Just open the instruments panel on the left and drag the ossia staff with the mouse (see attached screen recording video).

[RickP]

Thanks, that worked.

[Fred G. Unn]

I did make an effort to find other solutions. What would be the "standard solution"?

Ugh, sorry, I thought I responded to this, but I guess it didn't post and the draft didn't save so here's "take 2."

Now that I see it, your solution actually looks pretty good! I would change the noteheads in the top 2 examples to be unstemmed black noteheads like the bottom 2. As they appear now, they look like whole notes. I know you have "rhythm ad lib" written there, but there will be a strong temptation to play them on beat 1. I would strongly question whether the top 2 voicings are even necessary though, as they are pretty basic. (And I'd add cautionary accidentals to the maj7 on the G# chord and the G and D on the Gmaj7.)

Here are 3 styles from one of the Shur Real Books. Often a second "rhythm" staff will end up with specific voicings:


Or it could fit under the melody notes:


Or a separate voicing guide:


In some of the early Aebersold books there is a sample voicing just with black or white noteheads. Many of the Hal Leonard educational level arrangements have various comping patterns and voicings written in too. I had some more examples on "take 1" of this post, but that's what I have for now, LOL.

[RickP]

Thanks again for another helpful reply!

I changed the noteheads to black. A quarter rest then shows up for beat 2, but I made them invisible.

The G#minmaj isn't complicated, but since I don't want the fifth on top, I kept the ossia staff (is that the right term?) with the voicing I had in mind.

I have that Sher book and I'm aware of the approach. The issue has been that if you write it and it looks anything like regular music, it will get played with whatever rhythm seems to be specified -- and not the free-form (or whatever to call it) groove of the tune. My experience has been that I can't reliably get players to reliably ignore something on the printed page no matter how much I plead.

I think the usual thing in jazz is that the voicing is left to the player. But, I'm trying to get exactly the sound in my head -- and there doesn't seem to be a standard method to write to the player - "your comping pattern, but my voicing". If I'm mistaken about that, I hope somebody will point it out.
Putting an extra staff at the end labeled "sample voicings" is done, but the ossia staff is harder to miss, I think.