I was watching a video of some studio time with a bunch of Nashville Session Musicians. (I capitalized that, because these guys/gals deserve capital letters – wow talk about professional!) They were using the Nashville Numbering System.

I noticed they would listen to the song, make a chart, go out into the studio and cut it as if they have been playing it all their lives. Awesome! I also noticed they were saying things like, “the chorus is a 1,4, 6minor the first time trough, but lets make it a  1, 4, 5 the second time” and “on the diamond, let’s get a quick 5 in there before the turnaround”.

What tha? Yeah, I knew it was the Nashville number system, but I never knew it was that cool. (Meaning it is useful, but especially if an idiot like me is listening to a conversation and confused)

So, I have sat out to learn this, and to use it in all my live, and studio gigs. I think I have talked all my musician friends into it as well. It would make life much more professional and easier when getting together. How? you ask….well let me give some examples.

Say you are playing live at the local burger, beer, and jam place. A lady approaches and wants to sing “over the rainbow” (Sorry LOL). You know it in C, but she wants it in Eb. Hmmmmm Well you look to your band mates and say it is a 1, 4, 6, 5 in the verse and the chorus is a 1, blaa blaa, blaa…. and everyone plays through. Even easier if she brought a chart with her….she is a professional too.

Or lets say you lead a worship group at church. You spend time each week printing out chord charts in the correct keys. You have eight people in your group. Each one needs a chart. If the main singer gets ill, and you have a backup, they may want to sing it in a different key. That means you print out another bunch of chord charts. You just went from helping the soul to killing trees. You could have saved a few trees, paper cost, and time, if you would just print the songs out using the numbering system.

One chart, covering all the keys = numbering system. Wow!

…do I even need to use the studio example again? Good. I hope by reading you might catch on a little better. At the least, I will tell you where you can learn more near the bottom of this article.

Now, let’s see what Wikipedia says about it.

“The Nashville Number System is an informal method of transcribing music by denoting the scale degree on which a chord is built. It was developed by Neil Matthews in the late ’50s as a simplified system for the Jordanaires to use in the studio and further developed by Charlie McCoy. The system uses Arabic numerals and does not explicitly state the quality (e.g., major or minor) of the chord. By writing chords as numbers, music may be transposed easily. As a simple system of transcription, it can be used with only a rudimentary background in music theory, and may not be as intimidating to learn for musicians unfamiliar with traditional notations. If a set of musicians has basic familiarity, improvisation and jam sessions can be quickly explained using numbers, and chord changes can be communicated mid-song by holding up the corresponding number of fingers. The system is flexible, and can be embellished to include more information (such as chord color or to denote a bass note in an inverted chord) as the user desires. “

Now, let’s see if we can learn something together.

First, one must know the Major Scale. A Major scale is WWHWWWH, steps that is. Whole step, whole step, half step, etc. On a guitar it would be interrupted this way.

On a single string. A whole step has a fret skipped in between. A half step is the next fret in line.

In other words, the G Major scale on the low E string would be tabbed out as:

Fret 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15

Turn this into numbers with 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,and 8

Your 1 and 8 will obviously be the same only an octave apart.

So for the G major scale it would be

G A B C D E F# G

or G=1 A=2 B=3 C=4 D=5 E=6 F#=7 G=8

With the number system, the below is always true:

1 = Major, 2 = Minor, 3 = Minor, 4 = Major, 5 = Major, 6 = Minor, 7 = Minor Diminished

We will stop looking at 8, since it starts to repeat from that point as an octave.

So, taking the Key of G, as we used before…lets see what the chords are for each number. Then we’ll transpose it to a new key.

1 = G Maj

2 = A min

3 = B min

4 = C Maj

5 = D Maj

6 = E min

7 = F# min dim

Now – we’ll transpose it to the Key of D for and example:

1 = D Maj

2 = E min

3 = F# min

4 = G Maj

5 = A Maj

6 = B min

7 = C# min dim

One chart = All keys

You can learn this and become a better player with only a small understanding of music theory.

As we go along, I hope to post more about this system since it seems to be overlooked in the novice music world. That’s why we’re here also, so we can share ideas and learn.

Now for a handy chart, until it is all in memory:

As promised here is a resource I kept coming across while Google’ing about the Nashville numbering system. It is called The Nashville Number System by Chas Williams

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