Nashville Number System

Lonesomedave · #1 08-10-2011, 02:59 PM

hey adam, great to have you here and proud to have you in nashville.

i have a question about my 14 year old son, Davy.

he is, frankly, a phenomenal bass player. not near as good as you and, say victor wooton yet, but give him a few more years... who knows. he currently practices about 4-5 hours a day.

he is starting the 9th grade tomorrow at nashville school of the arts, and they have a wonderful guitar professor there called "Doc" actually James Satterwhite.

i was wondering about a class or seminar or something where he could really get intensively involved and get some intensive instruction in the Nashville Number System.

do you know of any such, or maybe how about you offering one. i bet there are a lot of people who would really like this.

anyway, thanks for your time.

/s/ Dave

Carver · #2 08-11-2011, 10:04 AM

Buy this book and start reading. I've been using NNS for around 15 years, and still refer to this book from time to time. Everyone has their own "style" of writing a chart, and this book covers most variations and all of the shorthand notations. Have him play with the sample charts, write a few on his own, and he'll be reading/writing Nashville numbers like a pro in no time!

Amazon.com: The Nashville Number System (9780963090676): Chas Williams: Books

adamnitti · #3 08-12-2011, 05:24 PM

hi dave!

i look forward to hearing your son play one of these days! sounds like he's on the right track and has the tremendous benefit of having a supportive father!!!

the book carver provided the link for is really good. i think it would work well as a reference for getting into reading number charts... obviously, some of the best applied exercises you can do would be to actually rehearse going through charts like these with other musicians, in real time 'under the gun' of the metronome or drummer. the concept of looking ahead and preparing for each subsequent measure doesn't disappear even if you are just reading numbers or shorthand.

i just started a 6 week masterclass series at my studio a few weeks back, but the idea of doing a course on the number system would be very cool. hmmm... maybe i'll put together a short curriculum now that you've got my wheels turning...