FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Ukulele Sheet Music

Question:
I don't know if this subject has been discussed. I am looking for information about the history of chord symbols as it pertains to the ukulele. Evidently, the first appearance of chord symbols in sheet music was about 1920, right around the same time that the ukulele was enjoying its greatest popularity. Indeed, the chord symbols of that era - and for many years following - were usually accompanied by ukulele diagrams. In fact, for many years chord symbols were known as uke chords. Who here knows of a reliable source of information to investigate this subject?

Answer:
You would think that there would be chord symbols for other instruments - guitar or banjo or mandolin or even accordion - before that. I think I've seen chord symbols for guitar on sheet music as early as 1910, but I can't swear to it. I have seen turn-of-the century banjo books with simple accompaniments for banjo or guitar, and they're all written out on the treble clef. The modern system of chord symbols is in some sense derived from the system of figured bass that was used from about 1600 until the mid-1800s. (Figured bass, or thouroughbass or continuo, gives you the bass note with numbers over it telling you what chord to play. It was used by keyboard, lute, and other chording instruments.) People certainly played simple chording accompaniments on the guitar and other instruments before that - how did they learn them? I've seen a book from the late 1600s showing you how to play chordal accompaniments on the re-entrant Baroque guitar (in various uke-like tunings for 4 or 5 strings) by looking at the figured bass and matching it to various chord shapes. This would be almost like playing uke chords by looking at the piano music, figuring out the left-hand chords, and playing the chord names to match them. I've done this, but it can get tricky, especially sight-reading, if you're not a keyboard player. There were also guitar books that used letters or numbers to indicate common chord shapes (and also tablature, of course). There was more than one system, though - like those patent teach yourself books that train you to use some notation system that no-one else ever uses, so you have to buy all that publisher's books. I've never seen a universally used simple system that existed for the period between say 1820 and 1920. There were guitar players. Everybody knew the basic chords, and would have called them by something like the present names - major and minor triads, seventh chords, diminished seventh chords. So if you were teaching someone basic guitar, and they mostly wanted to accompany themself singing folk songs - as a lot of people did in Europe and North America in those years - you'd have had to call the chords G major and A minor and so on. There must be old song books around with some kind of chord names pencilled in over the words. Somebody's done a thesis on this. You might want to look for books of German or English. songs and maybe guitar or accordion tutors, if you can find any, from the 19th century.