I just bought my first fake books and am not 100% sure how to read them. I know you play the melody with your right hand and you voice the melody with your left. But exactly how do you read the chord symbols at the top? For example I have a book that says C/B at the top. Can anyone tell me how to interpret that? Any help would be much obliged.

thanks

thor

I think there's a discussion in a thread in the Adult Beginner's forum.

Anyhow, typically the first (or most of the time, only) letter is the chord. The second is the bass note under that chord. Often the second letter refers either to an inversion or a descending bass line.

So c/g would be

LH - G
RH - CEG

Since you are probably playing the melody and not just singing along to your chords, the LH could play GCE - a C chord, 2nd inversion, or a C chord with a G bass

You might see - as in your example - |C |C/B |C/Bb|C/A

you play a C chord in your right hand (or the melody) but in each beat the bass notes descends C B Bb and A.