JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Musician Message Forum Difference Between Lead Sheet & Sheet Music...

Roy inspired this thread... Just to clarify the difference. Most musicians use lead sheets. Sheet music is sold to the general public.

Although "lead Sheets" have variations. This is the typical one:



Typical sheet music:


Best, John

Yeah the lead sheet usually what you see in a church hymnal, the transcribed melody with some chords thrown on top, which I wrote hack leadsheets all the time back in my band days, and all they really do is let the other musicians know what planet your on.

Sheet music gets more involved, usually whoever makes the sheet music arranges the music themselves for whatever instrument. Usually for piano. Guitar is pretty much chords and feel.

But even full sheet music leaves so much out of what you actually hear on the record.

Usually you are playing somebody else's arrangement of a popular aomg, some are very accurate, others not so much.

I do all my charts, sans guitar chords. Just the symbols, melody and lyrics. I like having my tunes on paper. But, for many country songs I wonder why it even makes sense, since the melodies are often verbose and nuanced, not like songs with big notes ( such as Somewhere Over The Rainbow or 'Crazy' or the song in your example ). To my way of thinking, if the song is such that it works well instrumentally, that's the time to put it in lead sheet form.