NEED HELP with Nashville Number System

[Don Poland]

How about from CD?

Yes, you can do it from a CD also. Check out George Wixon's website, lots of good info there.

[Hans Holzherr]

In the key of G, is the F chord written as b7 or 7b, or something else...?

Hans

[Jeff Agnew]

Hans,

Yes, either would be correct. The preferred way would be "b7". This is because there might be some confusion if you were trying to notate, for example, a b9 chord. Which then might look like 7bb9 (I can't specify superscript here on the forum, but you get the idea).

Also, Skip's comment was right on target. Even if everyone knows the chords to a warhorse song like Silver Wings, the chart specifies the exact arrangement -- how many verses, number of bars to the intro/outro, where the lead break occurs, etc. Good charts will have signature licks, rhythm figures, tempo, and other elements written in.

Obviously, one doesn't need charts to play a VFW with a group of pickers who have been together for 20 years playing the same arrangements. But to play a TV spot, stage show, or steel show on-the-fly, with no rehearsal, charts are a lifesaver.

[Eric West]

I'm home under the weather, and I know it says "Nashville" but here are a few bandstand things I've picked up over the years.

Finger symbols, besides the obviously comical have helped.

1-7 major, fingers up. (1-7 minor fingers bent down if you agree on it). All related to the 7 note scale. Bass players don't play the third until they know. (Steel players play a third that's flattened 15-20 cent's so what's the diff.. Maybe that's why..)

Keys, number of sharps.(G D A E B C#) Fingers up. Keys in flats, (F Bb Eb Ab Eb Db (C#) Fingers down. C is a round zero.

Holding bandaged fingers up means that you were stupid enough to play the ole "knife between the fingers in the chair" game with Old Uncle Eric after the gig the night before...



EJL

[Michael Douchette]

Not to disagree with Jeff (his tag says Dallas, I've only been a studio musician here in Nashville, the system we are discussing, for 34 years), we don't typically write b7. The limitations of the forums posting system don't allow me to type an example, I'll have to describe it. We would write 7b, then the b9 would be written smaller, up to the right, in (). Some would signify it as (-9).

[Jeff Agnew]

Not to disagree with Mikey D. either. But I wasn't presuming to speak for the way things are done in Nashville. As with so many things, us Texans are known to borrow concepts and claim ownership. After all, we're the folks who tell Mexicans they don't cook Mexican food correctly. So to clarify my point:

Although I've seen almost as many different NotReallyNashville Number System chart styles as people writing them, the advantage of putting the #/b in front of the number is that there is no mistaking whether it applies to the chord or is an alteration. I actually started writing them the way Mikey does. But so many folks around here were doing it the other way, I switched to the Dark Side. Because sometimes the chart writer's penmanship wasn't so good, or the photocopy was bad, or the numbers were so small it was hard to see the difference between the superscript and baseline positions. Clearly, this is not the way it's done in Nashville but keep this in mind: they think "BBQ" comes from a pig when every Texan knows "barbecue" comes from a cow.

Apologies to those who thought I was speaking for Nashville studio musicians.

[Jerry Hayes]

James, if you're going to learn the "Nashville" number system, another thing that goes hand in hand with it is "chord signs" for use on the bandstand. They're pretty easy. If you look at the number chart that was posted you'll see the key of G has one sharp in it so for G you'd hold up one finger. One finger pointed down would be one flat which would be the key of F......Others are:

two sharps (fingers up)....Key of D
two flats (fingers down)...Key of Bb
three sharps...............Key of A
three flats................Key of Eb
four sharps................Key of E
four flats.................Key of Ab
five sharps................Key of B
five flats.................Key of Db

When going up one # is G and two #'s is D which is the five of G and so forth as three #'s is A which is the five of D and so forth.

When going down one flat is F and two flats is Bb which is the IV of F so three flats is Eb which is the IV of Bb and so on and so forth..........

Where I live (in southeast Virginia) they know none of this stuff and use a thing where one is A, two is B, three is C, etc............I learned the numbers and signs when I worked in the LA area........JH in Va.

[Michael Douchette]

Jeff, no presumption assumed or taken. (Talk about borrowing, I sure would like to borrow some good Texas brisket, I'll tell ya! BBQ here is so dry and nasty...)

The important thing is to write it in whatever way helps you to understand and play it properly; that's all that matters. I remember Buddy Harmon's charts were like:

------8------
------9------

He would just write the number of bars in a phrase; talk about useless to anybody else!

[Roger Crawford]

But he's a drummer! When I did drum charts, that's very similar to what I wrote. Only needed to mark special punches, stops, etc. When I hand out my steel charts, the drummers often tell me they don't need them. I ask them how they're gonna know that the last measure of the verse has two quarter note hits and a half rest. Then they take the charts! Probably don't read them, but they take them.

[Don Brown, Sr.]

Michael, were you on the road with Tammi as well as doing her studio work?

[Stephen Silver]

Jerry and thanks to you and my time at the Stik, I have continued to try and use the finger method, mostly to no avail. In a noisy enviroment, it's so great to not have to discern whether the kick off is D, C, G, E, B......just give me the finger<s> and I've got it.

2 up.....gotta be in D

SS

[Wayne Franco]

You know, the ones that change key 3 times. Do you note the key center somewhere above the numbers or what?

[basilh]

I usually just put (+1) or (+2) referring to the number of steps (Semitones) up, as required..immediately prior to the change and I usually list just the intro verse and turnaround as numbers and then write something like:-


V2,

Ch2,

(+1) 55 or whatever..
Ch3, etc.

and then write the Tag etc.

[Michael Douchette]

Don, yes.

For mods, we just write mod to whatever key.

[Curtis Nicely]

For what its worth, some musicians do not need charts, my grandpa used to tell me (and demonstrated) that eventually a player gets to point where he can "feel" where the music is going, I'll never forget when I started playing guitar, I told him I wanted to play Jimi Hendrix type styles, he had of course never heard Jimi, I popped in a CD of Red House on the hill, and he listened for no longer than 2 seconds, picked up his guitar, and started playing right along (and in key) with Jimi. I know a few other muscicians that can do this as well, numbers may not be needed, but the type of musician that doesnt need numbers is waaaaayyy beyond my current level of talent.

2 more cents on the NV# sys, makes it easy to memorize patterns on any musical instrament, if instead of thinking, thats a C or a D, you think 1 here, up 5 (frets) thats the 4, and up two thats the 5. Makes transposing very easy. Or at least for this newbie it does.

[Steve Norman]

Curtis, I see a lot of lead players (myself included) that upon figuring out the key can improvise leads over a song, which leads to over guitar noodling. Not saying thats what your Grampa did, but the Noodling lead guitarist is like a plague up here in Seattle. Song start,,leads begin,, dont stop till the songs over. Its nice to try and get these guys to play some chords once in awhile so others can put in some instrumentation. Getting Guitarist to learn number charts would solve a lot of noodling excessive lead stuff. As to the blue grass issue, a lot of players are also in a non-stop lead playing mode (banjo) and dont actually know the chords. It would be nice if some off the songwriters could just tell you what key the are in as well. I get a lot of,,its capo'd on 2, chords are G shape, D shape etc...

[Peter Freiberger]

http://www.nashvillenumbersystem.com/

A great book by my pal Chas Williams. Explains it all.

Peter Freiberger

[Stuart Legg]

Ron Randall...

BIAB for Windows has a program called Audio Chord Wizard. Play an MP3 and it will write you a Nashville number chart. in seconds.

I'm sure you've noticed that it calls a lot of chords by the wrong name for instance a 1 for a 6m7 and so on but its still a great program.

[James Collett]

Stuart- it just takes a little bit different of a setup for each song. For most country, you'd want to turn chord sensitivity down a little- you've got to remember it can't separate notes based on instrument, singer, etc. You're right though, great program.

[Richard Douthitt]

My two cents worth. The Nashville Number System will never be accepted by some. I know I have gotten several negative comments from some musicians that don't understand the importance of using it. Alot of people have gotten offended because I use charts and a music stand on stage but I just go on. The system for me has made me a better, more disciplined player and has given me a deeper understanding of (playing the song right). I have played with so many bands that just "wing it" but everyone will still throw their own favorite minor in there some where. The numbers also showed me that some of the old standards that I was playing I wasn't playing them right! Just try it and you will see improvement somewhrere in your skills. It sure has gotten me a lot of work and has surely paid off in the studio. Peace to all!

[Jim Means]

Richard,
I agree, some will never accept it. I used to play bass at church quite a bit and always charted everything because the were notorious for changing keys at the last minute. The guitar player asked me about it and when I explained it he said well that works for bass but not for guitar! Go figure.
A few years ago I was playing bass for the church service at the convention in St Louis. Johnny and Joan Cox were going to be playing Beulah Land. Now I had traveled with gospel groups for 20 years and had played Beulah Land hundreds of times. When Joan handed me their charts and I looked them over they had a completely different arrangement with some different chords. The point is; had I not known the NNS I would have embarrassed myself and ruined the beautiful arrangement.
You can never learn to much about music and you will never know it all.

Thanks everyone for allowing me to go on.

Jim in Missouri

[Ricky Newman]

Well, I stumbled upon the NNS early on in the process of trying to learn E9th PSG. It was incredibly useful to know where to find all the changes on any given fret and to be able to move them around at will.

ex.
I - no pedals
IV - AB
V7 -RKL & pedal B

B0b put up a nice (short) list of the open possibilities for E9th here:
http://www.b0b.com/infoedu/e9theory.htm

It was a terrific jumping off point for me and I can't really imagine thinking about chord changes in any other way now.

I can't advise any other beginners (non- keyboarders)against trying to figure out (and memorize) key signatures, but it was way easier for me to go back and fill in the blanks once I'd been playing PSG with some measure of enjoyment and musicality.