How to read a chord chart

There are many questions that I receive week to week, but one that I hear the most is, “How do I know what to play based on the chord chart?”

I’ve heard this from many of you as well, which is why I’m excited to shed some light on this today!

Maybe you’ve been asked to play for your church, a band or simply with some friends, and they’ve given you a chord chart. This chord chart, which is a layout of the song either has letters (like Am) or numbers (referring to the Nashville Number System) and possibly the song lyrics.

You have the chords, you have the song’s structure, but nothing about the rhythms where you play certain chords, or with what inversion. Where do you get this info from? How can you know how to take the info from this page and translate it into a well played song?

This is exactly what we’re going to talk about today, so let’s jump in!