When you approach a jazz musician/band to accompany you, one of the first things they will ask you (if they don't already know the song) is "do you have a chord chart?".

Some of you will already have a book of chord charts of your repertoire. If not, provided that you have rudimentary musical theory knowledge, I can have you up and running writing your own chord charts in no time!

Here are some tips if you want to write your own chord charts:

• Chord charts must have barlines, so this is not a usable chart but this is.
• Fit it on one A4 page, unless it is a song with a long form e.g. Lush Life
• Keep it four bars to a line, unless the song form dictates otherwise
• Use the chord symbol convention used in Sher Publishing’s The New Real Book (and not the Aebersold convention)
• Use double bar lines to mark the sections
• If your performance/capability is more ‘jazz-jazz-style’ than ‘cabaret-jazz-style’, intros and endings do not need to be written in, your accompanist/band can figure it out on the night.
• If you own an iPhone, ignore all the above, purchase iRealBook and print out your charts from there

(If you prefer not to learn how to do your own, I can also write out your chord charts for a fee)