The Complete Idiot''s Guide to Music Theory

parts for each instrument. (This is not a requirement for vocal scores.) So if
you’ve written a piece for a big band, you have to create a separate first trumpet
part, and a separate second trumpet part, and a separate third trumpet part, and
so on. When you write out the individual parts, include only that instrument’s
part—the conductor is the only person who gets to see all the parts together on
the master score.
Take the Lead
The most common form of written music is the 
lead sheet.
A lead sheet doesn’t
include any individual instrumental parts; all you get is the song’s melody,
chords, and lyrics.
As you can see in the example on page 244, a typical lead sheet consists of one
staff for the melody line, with lyrics under the staff and chords above it.
Lead sheets are simple to create, and they’re ideal for notating popular songs. If
you play in a rock or country band (or even a jazz trio or quartet), you can use
lead sheets to present much of the music you play.
The master piece
of music—the one that
contains all the individual
parts—is called the 
score.
Definition
A lead sheet is
not commercial sheet
music. Sheet music typi-
cally includes full piano
parts, whereas lead sheets
contain melody and
chords only. In addition,
lead sheets are not avail-
able commercially, unlike
sheet music.
Warning

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Chapter 19:
Lead Sheets and Scores
243
Make It Simple
Even simpler than the lead sheet is a piece of music that contains only chords;
no melody lines and no lyrics. There are two different approaches to this type
of music, and we’ll look at both.
Chord Sheets
The 
chord sheet
is just what it sounds like: a sheet of music containing only the
chords of a song (see the example on page 245). The chords are presented
measure by measure, so that members of the rhythm section (piano, bass, and
guitar) can play through the song with minimal effort.
The Nashville Number System
In the field of country music, especially among studio musicians, a different
type of chord sheet is used. This method of writing chords is called the
Nashville Number System
, and it uses numbers instead of letters.
In the Nashville Number System, everything revolves around the tonic chord of
a given key. That tonic chord is assigned the number 1. The chord based on the
ii of the key—a minor chord—is assigned the number 2m (The m tells the musi-
cian it’s a minor chord.) The chord based on the iii of the key—also a minor
chord—is assigned the number 3m. And so on up the scale, up to chord number 7.
As you can see, major chords are distinguished by number only; minor chords
have an m added. Extensions are added as superscripts to the right of the num-
ber, so that a dominant seventh chord based on the fifth of the scale is noted as 5
7
.
A chord chart using the Nashville Number System looks something like the
example on page 246.
Because the Nashville Number System doesn’t use traditional notes, it is ideal
for musicians who don’t know how to read music. It also makes it very easy to
change key—just play the 1 or 2 or 3, or whatever chord in whatever key you
want; it’s as easy as that.
Sing It Loud
Arranging for choirs is a bit more complicated than sketching out chords for a
rock band. Choral music normally has four or five parts, and each part has to
have its own line in the score.
Let’s look at a typical four-part choral score (see the example on page 247). The