Lead Sheet:

What is a lead sheet?:

A lead sheet is very similar to a chord chart. It outlines the chords, key and time signature like a chord chart. But also includes key melodic sections, lyrics and harmony and is often more instrument specific.

A lead sheet is often also called a fake sheet and is designed so a group of musicians can use it to 'fake' playing a song without access to the full arrangement. A famous collection of lead sheets for jazz standards is 'The Real Book' and it contained the basic musical information a musician would need to perform and improvise over jazz standards.

How to read a lead sheet?:

A lead sheet uses traditional Western music notation. The key, time signature and bars are the exact same. Only key melodic phrases and harmony are written down along with lyrics. This is shown on the left with a lead sheet for Amazing Grace. As you can see it is very simple. This leaves a lot of room for musicians to play around with the song. There are no specific instrumentation markings so it can be played on any instrument as seen below by someone playing a solo piano arrangement of it.

Why do we use lead sheets?:

Like chord charts, lead sheets are a really easy way for musicians to perform music without having loads of complicated sheet music. Most professional musicians will use chord charts or lead sheets because it puts all the members of the band/ensemble on the same page. They include additional musical information such as melody which is often left out in chord charts. Overall they are one of the most important parts of a performing musicians tool kit.