# Amazing Grace — harmony-only lead sheet in A major

## Title and instrumentation

- **Amazing Grace** — words John Newton, 1779; tune New Britain, 1829 (the credit line from your chart, printed under the title).
- A harmony-only lead sheet for the worship band: one treble staff, labelled "Chords", with the chord symbols over beat slashes. Everyone who plays from changes (keys, guitars, bass) can read it. There is no melody line, as you asked.
- Sounding key: **A major** (three sharps). The chord symbols are at concert pitch.

## Duration and form

- 3/4 time, one page: a one-beat pickup, then two verses of 16 bars each (Verse 1 bars 1–16, Verse 2 bars 17–32).
- Each verse is marked with a boxed label taken from your chart. A double bar separates the verses and a final bar ends the page.
- Each line of music is one line of the lyric, four bars per line.
- Progression (each verse): | A | A7 | D | A | A | F♯m | E | E7 | A | A7 | D | A | F♯m | E7 | A | (A held) |
- Your chart carries no tempo and none is printed. At a moderate hymn pace (about ♩ = 72–90) the two verses take roughly a minute to a minute and a quarter, before any intro, turnaround or ending the band adds.

## Difficulty and playability notes

- Six chords only: A, A7, D, F♯m, E, E7. All sit in open or first-position shapes on guitar; F♯m is the one barre chord.
- Guitarists who would rather keep the shapes of your original G chart can capo at the 2nd fret and play the G-chart shapes (G, G7, C, Em, D, D7); that sounds in A and matches this sheet.
- One chord per bar, except the last A of each verse, which lasts two bars. The harmonic rhythm is slow and even.

## Performance notes

- Every bar has three beat slashes: play the chord shown through the bar. A bar of slashes with no new symbol (bars 16 and 32) keeps the chord before it.
- The small italic words under each line are your chart's lyric, copied word for word, so the band can follow the singer. Each line starts with a pickup word or two sung before its first chord ("A-", "That", "I", "Was", "'Twas", "And", "How", "The"). Those words are printed on beat 3 of the bar before the line, before the barline. The first "A-" has its own one-beat pickup bar, with a rest because no chord sounds before the singer's first word. The rest of the line's words start under the line's first chord.
- **The held A at the end of each verse (bars 15–16 and 31–32).** Your chart gives one chord against "see" and "believed" and doesn't show how long it lasts. This sheet shows it held for two bars, as the hymn is usually sung, so every lyric line is four bars long. No chord was added: the second bar just continues the A. If your singer doesn't hold the word, skip bar 16 (and bar 32) and go straight on.

## What was done and what was not

Task: existing music with only the requested changes — Amazing Grace (your ChordPro chart).

Done:
- Re-keyed from G major to A major: every chord moved up a whole step (a major second). G → A, G7 → A7, C → D, Em → F♯m, D → E, D7 → E7. The sheet has the same 30 chords as your chart, in the same order and with the same chord types.
- Checked the re-key two ways. The Roman-numeral reading of all 30 chords in A matches the reading of your original in G in the same order (I, I7, IV, I, I, vi, V, V7, …). Each chord root moves up exactly a major second. The key signature is A major's three sharps.
- Kept from your chart: the title, the credit line, the 3/4 time signature, the two verse labels, the line structure and every lyric line.
- Set out on the page from the hymn as it is sung, without adding any chord: the two-bar hold on the last A of each verse, and the pickup words placed before the barline (including the one-beat pickup bar at the start).
- My layout choices: one line of music per lyric line, beat slashes in every bar, boxed verse labels, a double bar between the verses, the staff label "Chords", US Letter paper.
- The chords were re-keyed one by one rather than by an automatic transposition, because the transposing step works on notes and your chart has none. The checks above confirm the result.

Not done:
- No melody was added or implied, as you asked. The slashes have no pitch: they mark the beats only.
- No tempo mark, intro, turnaround, ending or repeat was added, and there are no transposed parts for B♭ or E♭ instruments (none were requested).
- The lyrics are cues per line, not syllables under notes, since there are no notes to carry them.
- This commission includes no audio recording.
- About the editable MusicXML file: it matches the PDF and holds the chords, key, time signature, the pickup bar, beat slashes, verse labels, lyric cues, line breaks and bar lines. The staff is named "Chords". The credit line is stored in the file's composer field, so notation programs show it at the top of the first page; on the PDF it appears under the title on the right. The slashes are stored as slash noteheads without a pitch. Most programs show them as slashes, but a few may treat the staff as a percussion-style staff when they open the file.

Review level: I checked the score myself in this session (chords against your chart, the engraved page by eye) and revised it after one round of independent review. That review was of the earlier draft; this version has not been reviewed again.

## Files in this folder

- `lead-sheet.pdf` — the harmony-only lead sheet in A major, one page, US Letter.
- `lead-sheet.musicxml` — the same lead sheet as editable MusicXML, for MuseScore, Dorico, Sibelius, Finale and similar programs.
- `GUIDE.md` — this guide.