Using Sheet Music
Most sheet music is arranged for piano. Piano music is written using two or three staves, with the chord symbols written above the top staff. It may also contain unfamiliar symbols and terms. At this stage you need only look at the top staff, which contains the melody line (tune), the lyrics and the chords. In some sheet music guitar chord diagrams may also be included. Banjo chord diagrams are rarely shown. As most sheet music is arranged by keyboard players, many piano arrangements of banjo based songs do not sound anything like the recorded versions. Tablature versions of sheet music are gradually becoming more popular and in many cases are very accurate arrangements of the song. If you would like to learn more about reading music and tablature see Progressive Banjo.
Many piano arrangements are also in difficult keys for a beginning banjo player and often use unnecessary chords. Piano sheet music also gives no indication of how to strum the chords. So piano sheet music is only a guide for a banjo player, although it is useful for lyrics and as a general chord guide.
If the song contains chords that you are not familiar with you can:
- Learn how to play this new chord as shown in this book.
- Change the key of the son.
- Substitute an easier chord.
The following easy chord table lists the type of chord you may see in the sheet music (on the left of the table) and the simpler chord you can substitute (on the right). Once you know how to transpose and substitute chords you can play almost every song ever written using only a few basic chord shapes. As your knowledge of chords increases, you can gradually add in all the other chord types.
