Real Book Question

[haidearsouthfl]

In the real book sometimes instead of a chord name there will be a slash what does that mean? for example:
|C-7 | / / F7|Bbmaj7 |etc.

[cjmodulus]

Originally Posted by haidearsouthfl

In the real book sometimes instead of a chord name there will be a slash what does that mean? for example:
|C-7 | / / F7|Bbmaj7 |etc.

AFAIK it's a continuation of the previous chord. So in your example it's one full bar of C-7, then the next bar is C-7 for two beats then F7, etc. I could be wrong but that's what I've done at jams and it's worked fine.

[fish slapper]

the slashes mean that the next chord doesn't change on the first beat. In your example, you'd stay on C-7 until the third beat of the second measure, move to F7 for two beats, then move to Bbmaj on the first beat of the last measure.

[Schlyder]

Originally Posted by cjmodulus

.... it's a continuation of the previous chord.....
it's one full bar of C-7, then the next bar is C-7 for two beats then F7......

^ This.

The purpose is to make the chart easy to read. Less cluttered to the eye basically

[Russell L]

That's right, the slashes represent beats.

Don't confuse it with a slash that has two dots, one dot high to the left, the other one low to the right, both dots close to the slash. It's a symbol that means to repeat the previous measure. If it has a number above it, it means repeat the previous "however many" measures (sometimes also with a bar line down the middle of the slash).

[SLaPiNFuNK]

Rather than putting:

|C-7 | C-7 F7|Bbmaj7 |etc.

They put

|C-7 | / / F7|Bbmaj7 |etc.


Not very common, but does happen...

In that case, the F7 changes on beat 3...

Sometimes you see rhythmic notations above the chord progression...

[Pacman]

Not technique related, moved to General Instruction.