Interpreting measures from guitar chord music

[ephyp044]

Hey! I’ve been attending a local group guitar lesson lately and I’d like to bring my banjo and try playing some rolling backup. We play worship songs and I’m trying to figure out how to interpret the music so I know how many measures to play each chord and when to change chords. The music they give us is the lyrics with the chords above the words to indicate when to change the chord on guitar. For example see this music for I’ll fly away.

If I’m playing a forward reverse roll with eight 1/8 notes per measure for example, how do I determine from this music how many measures of each chord to play before changing to the next chord?

And, What if there is a chord change in the middle of a measure, how do you deal with that?

Thank you!

[Michael_Mark]

Hey @ephyp044, welcome to the forum! So glad to have you.

Chords over words like this don’t immediately tell you anything about measures—just what words the chords change on. If you really need a chart that tells you how many measures to hold each chord, the Nashville Number System is a great way to go, but a lot of the time you don’t actually need this. Instead, focus on at what points to expect a chord change—both by knowing what words they change on and by listening in the moment. Besides looking at guitar players’ hands, you can definitely feel and hear when the band changes chords. Luckily, on this chart, all the chord changes are on the starts of measures, and there are none that change in the middle.

Check out the Sight Training and Ear Training courses for helpful instruction on how to notice things in the moment. The Ear Training course is made for guitar, but the chord listening concepts are applicable to all instruments.

[cboling]

Welcome to the forum, @ephyp044!