Positioning Chord Symbols and Rehearsal Marks for Jazz

[bophead]

When engraving jazz tunes (e.g. lead sheets or vocal/piano score) and using rehearsal marks for the different parts (e.g. A1, A2, B, A3) where should those marks be positioned regarding chord symbols?

1) rehearsal marks in the same line with the chord symbols (which might be the easiest to read for e.g. an improvisor or a bassist following the chord symbols)

2) rehearsal marks above chord symbols

3) rehearsal marks below chord symbols

I have to add that I am using "boxed" rehearsal marks which cannot be confused with the chords.

In a case I am working on (see attached snippet), putting rehearsal marks and chord symbols in the same line would make it necessary moving the rehearsal mark a little bit to the left, so it would not be centered over the barline, to avoid clashing with the next chord symbol. Would that be OK?

Best regards

ATTYA.pdf

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[OCTO]

It looks fine to me. In general, RM should be at any convenient place, and not disturbing the music reading. Also, in your example, I would change to the another font type, such as Sans with bold type, just in order to prevent mixing it with all other "music information" texts.

[NorFonts]

Seems right to me but try to center the chord symbols with the note-heads .

[John Ruggero]

+1 Center the chord symbols. That's the convention, as illogical as it may seem.

[Fred G. Unn]

No, never center chord symbols!!! Always left-align. With longer symbols it makes the beat placement uncertain. Here's a pic from my notation Do and Don't handout I give to students.



Does the center-aligned Dm7(b5) chord come on beat 1 or on the & of 4 in the previous bar? Who knows? With left-alignment it is clear where the chord is supposed to start. With an even longer chord symbol like "EbPhrygian" centering it makes it impossible to know where it actually falls.

[Fred G. Unn]

As rehearsal marks don't actually have to be read, just located, I typically put them above any musical info. That way they don't disrupt the flow of the music and can be easily found when needed. In your example, I would lower the chord symbols closer to the music, and place the rehearsal mark above.



If you want to keep the chord symbols aligned and something not visible in your example is forcing them up that high, then I would move the rehearsal mark a touch to the left and align the baseline with the chord symbols.



I would only move the rehearsal mark under the chord symbols as a last resort as it would both make it harder to locate, and the disrupt the connection between the notated music and the chord symbols.

[bophead]

Regarding chord symbol positioning:

I have taken a look into my (digitized and gathered from American library and university sites) collection of what jazzers call "original sheet music" – hand-engraved vocal/piano scores from the original song puplishers (20ies to 50ies).

As far as I have understood hand-engraved music especially from that period of time music is the ideal for best practice in computer engraving.

And almost each of those music sheets has the chord symbols (respectively the guitar or ukele chord grips with the chord names centered above them) left-aligned to the note-heads (with slight deviations sometimes), so I will stick to that practice – defaulting in Lilypond anyway.

@ OCTO: I tried a sans for the rehearsal mark (Atkinson Hyperlegible from Google Fonts) and will stick to that – not sure yet about the box: rounded or hard edges? To be solved according to my taste.

@ Fred G. Unn: The above said seconds your first answer regarding chord/rhythm relationship. Except for as a follower of Barry Harris' (R.I.P.) method I would probably never write something like "EbPhrygian" above a note But you are of course right about longer chord names.

Regarding your second answer: It makes total sense to me and I will discard the RM placement below. To go after which of your two versions is a question of space, context and taste. In my case the snippet will be placed as an example graphic within a text. So I will have to try out and decide.

Best regards and thanks to all

[Bernie Cossentino]

Just adding to what others here have said...

Generally, I would never place rehearsal marks below the chord line. Not knowing what comes after the example you provide (but particularly here, used as a graphical snippet, as you say), there seems to be plenty of vertical room to bring the chord line down significantly (as Fred G. Unn has done).

As for chord symbol centering...I agree with the consensus to left-align. However, where space is available and context non intruding, centering shorter chord symbols over a note is certainly acceptable (something I might do with the Fm7). It's really a matter of balance.

[John Ruggero]

Interesting. Left aligning must be a new standard, and I am glad of it for accuracy, although it does look a little strange to me.

But it's not what I am seeing in my collection of standard popular sheet music and fake books. Everything is centered including the guitar chord symbols, probably because of the low rhythmic complexity.

Falling in Love with Love.jpg (771.79 KiB) Viewed 9911 times

[bophead]

Here positioning is based on left-aligned Uke grids. Chord names are centered to uke grids. Interestingly two chord names here for either alt tuning or capo use.

The Very Thought Of You_02.jpg (102.23 KiB) Viewed 9908 times

So different possibilities exist – maybe a question of publisher's standards.

By the way: I looks to me like those original engravings have been reused later in compilation books, probably photomechanically reproduced and retouched with just the titling stuff exchanged.

Edit: As written "Symbols over Uke diagrams are for Tenor Guitar and Tenor Banjo, Symbols under Uke diagrams are for six string guitar" – so four instruments are served.