Hello, I am going to be playing some music and I am going through the chord charts making my little notes that I make. The chord is written as this D(4) What does that mean? Attatched is the song for refrence. Thank you.
Do It Again - SongSelect Chart in G.pdf (262.2 KB)
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It might be a simplified version of denoting it as a sus4 chord, i.e., a chord made from 1-4-5 (i.e., there is no third here, neither major nor minor).
Thus D(4) could be D-G-A
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According to this it may be a Dadd4, or a 1-3-4-5 chord. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of consensus out there about it on different sites… sus4, as joergkutter said, seems to be the other main option…
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Agree!
Also agree here!
In this very floaty sound in contemporary worship music, you can go into any sus or add4 or 4 chord with both of these ideas in mind.
If you’re thinking of playing bass ideas outside of root and 5th, just try different combinations. If the 3rd of the D still sounds good - great.
If the 4, great.
Most of the time the 4 or add4 is something that is a function of a keyboard drone or a guitar high string that keeps ringing out, and actually doesn’t have much to do with the chord movement.
I’d probably - because I went and listened to the song and tried it out - would go with the option of 1-3-4-5 if I were to play anything other than root and fifth. A leading tone in the bass there would sound good, if it were placed nicely.
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Here is one explanation I found:
Dsus4 = D4 = 1–4–5 = D-G-A
Dadd4 = D(4) = 1–3–4–5 = D-F#-G-A
Dadd11 = D(11) = 1–3–5–11 = D-G-A-F#
Following this it would mean a chord written as D(4) would be Dadd4.
Gotta love music theory eh 
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Except when D4 also means Dadd11 and D(4) can also mean the add/sus is optional 
Short forms often have different meanings for different genres of music eg. jazz vs christian. One should endeavour to not write ambiguous notation if possible.
I don’t think this is going to happen.
A lot of composers and transcribers seem to feel they have to overly complicate things but as you said a lot depends on the genre of the music.
I would be happy just to find the Lead/Tab sheet for a song I want to learn that is correct.
The most reliable source I have found would seem to be anything published by Hal Leonard.
When you look at the actual sheet music for a song you want to learn the melody line is usually correct, but a lot of the time the chord progressions and tab , if shown, are not. I mean when it comes down to it there are only six main chords for any key. I did not include the diminished 7th in this line up. Here again the genre can play a big part. I know nothing about jazz, classical or gospel music composition guidelines but for Pop, Blues, and Country music this has always worked for me.
The music from @Aldwinn88 in the OP appears to be gospel but I would like to know if it is really necessary to include G/B, C6, D(4) chords, or, can this be simplified to using the six normal chords in a key signature?
These thoughts come after seeing this video from the Axis of Awesome If you have not seen it I would recommend you watch it.
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