Chord Symbol

A chord symbol is the letter name printed above the staff. C, Am, G7, naming the harmony so you can play it your own way rather than note for note.

The staff says which notes; the symbol says which chord. Under a melody, G7 lets you play G, B, D and F as a block, as a broken chord, or as a bass G with two notes above it, and all three are right. A songbook prints symbols because an accompaniment is a choice.

Capital letters above the top staff, with a suffix: m for minor (Am), 7 for a dominant seventh (G7), maj7, sus4, dim. A slash (C/E) puts a different note in the bass.

Take a lead sheet with C, F and G7 on it. Play each chord in the right hand and its root in the left, and keep time with the melody. That is an accompaniment, learned in two minutes.

Open any piece of sheet music on this site and do it now. Reading is a recognition skill, and recognition is built by finding things, not by reading about them.