Hello everybody,
I am new to this website and I have difficulties playing the chords on the gospel chord page.
is the tone before the / the bassnote?
what if there are several notes before the / ?
When I tried to play " His eye is on the sparrow" that did not make sense.
Can anybody help?
Thanks and have a blessed day,
In Christ,
Susanne 
Welcome to the site! So you're confused about the chords...you're not alone I once was when I came across gospel chord boards 5 years ago. People post songs differently, putting the chord symbols or typing out the whole notes in the chords, whatever way they decide to put it up, we shouldn't critize their post or ask them to spell it out, ect., because what they did post took time and effort. But it can be hard to read a post if the poster doesn't have a legend to tell you how to read their post, however many people do post that towards the beginning. Here are some ways people post:
~ such and such: C
that's a chord notation/symbol and you would play it like this, play the C chord in your right and play the root, C, in your left hand as well.
~ such and such: C/A
that's a slash chord if you're reading a fake book or off the top of sheet music, you would read it and play it like this...whatever is to the left is the chord you play in your right hand, and what's to the right of the slash is what you play as your bass note in your left hand.
Now some posters use it the opposite way, but they'll note it.
~ such and such: CEG or C,E,G
that means the you play the notes together...they make up a chord (again look for what the poster makes note of before they type out the whole song...they should have a legend that says this)
~ such and such: C,E,G or C-E-G
means you play the notes separetely. The poster may have noted this see if they did...because people post differently.
~ DA/ GM7
means you'd play the notes that's to the left of the slash together in your left hand, and what's the right of the slash is the chord you'd play in your right. That's also called a polychord or superimposed chord.
Now some posts have a legend, but when you play it, it doesn't sound right, if so, then maybe you should try this...
some might have:
rh (right hand) / lh (left hand)
but when you're playing your notes like that, it doen't sound right...so just do the opposite, play whatever they have in the right hand with your left and vice versa.
If you don't understand chord symbols, try going to a website that will show you what the chords are on a virtual keyboard, and it'll give you the scale degrees. Here's two websites that should help:
Chord Map
http://members.aol.com/chordmaps/chartmaps.htm Look No Hands
http://www.looknohands.com (now this site doesn't use the right names many times of the notes that make up that chord, but you can see where the notes are..so don't depend on it).
Another option is for you to invest in a good chord dictionary, these can range from anywhere to $4 to $20...depends on what you're looking for because some books show more and may have more theory and other materials in it than others. Chord dictionaries, in my opinion, are much better, they not only show you the notes on a keyboard, but they give you inversions, the scale degrees, how it would look on a staff, plus many of the times they go into depth and teach you why the chords are made up this way and more...a great and invaluable tool for beginning musicans. Check out Melbay,
http://www.melbay.com for books dealing with this and many more things in music (also many of mel bay publishing materials are available in many music stores).
Also, you might want to learn how chords are formed because many times posters don't type it out note for note (that's their choice to do so), so the best way for you to do this is to learn why the chord is formed the way it is. Once you learn how they're formed, it'll be easier for you to know what notes are in a particular chord. If you're using the lessons provided on this site, then you're headed in the right direction, if not, then start there. 4HisGlory has lessons that deal with scales and chords. Chords are based on the scales, which are based off of the degrees of scales, so once you learn that, you can understand the chord symbols (chord dictionaries teach you this too).
Here's another site in addition to this one that can help you learn
this:
Chord Wizard
http://www.chordwizard.com/chordtypes.asp Of course there are more sites and more books available than what I've listed, but these should give you a good start. Remember once you figure out the notes, try different inversions to get the sound you desire.
So that's a little break down for you in my own way, I pray that this can help you. Don't be afraid to ask for help again...that's why we're all here to help and learn.
