Nashville Number System: Is that all it is?

[ShadowImage]

It's not just jazz and country, all music works this way (at least, IMO good music) with chord progressions. Of course, if you play djent, hip hop etc then you probably have no need for chord progression and this is all superfluous.

I wish other cities were like Nashville in this respect. Trying explaining chord progression to underground musicians in Detroit was like discussing carbon emissions in an Appalachian coal mine.

 

[SLO Surfer]

My only problem with SOME jazz player is the think they and their music is superior to everything else and the insist on telling you so

This is true with some players in every, single, genre. Ever met a stuck up classical player? Ever met a stuck up traditional bluegrass player? Ever met a stuck up blues player? Ever met a stuck up traditional West African drummer from Ghana? Cause I have.

 

[BassAndReeds]

Sounds like how all of my jazz schooled chums wound up. Playing cruise ships and theater gigs with a smattering of low (non) paying jazz gigs thrown in during their down time. But hey, they're working.

Haha, man, that is me to a "T". Played Cruise Ships for 6 years. I work in IT during the day now, and play whatever gigs I want. Good thing is I have a ton of extra cash for equipment, and my job is ultra flexible. I haven't missed a date because of it yet.

 

[Dana R Gregory]

I know that in Blues, many tunes use a 1, 4, 5, 12 bar progression. I think the numbers refer to a position on the guitar, first position, fourth position, fifth position. I don't play guitar but if another musician flashes me a number of fingers during a blues tune I know exactly what they mean and what I must play.

 

[lowfreqgeek]

Looks like this is a Nashville Number System Chart. So I guess you have to put a minus next to minor chords. And I guess the tonals centers can change, which is good.

As a sometimes-session player myself, this chart would be a breeze to play through once or twice in any key. Nothing fancy, but captures all the info you need to easily transpose into any key. All the form and structure is there. If there were any specific rhythms or lines, they could be written out on the side.

I don't typically use NNS, but knowing how it works is handy. It certainly a lot quicker when you have to listen to/chart the song in one pass and then turn around and play it. Even in New Mexico (far away from Nashville), I don't always get the music ahead of time, and I rarely get an actual chart. Usually just an iphone demo.

 

[bopeuph]

I don't know what they are paid, but they often denigrate those who don't play jazz as if you aren't really a musician unless you play jazz. And that jazz is the only valid music for the intellectual elite because music other than jazz is just for knuckle dragging buffoons.

As a jazz musician, I can confirm this. Once I got the deal for the Duck Dunn book, my friends and professors were all just kind of like, "oh. Good job." And that was it. Most of the guys I work with outside of jazz are excited about the book, though the trad jazz guys are excited about it. The connections I've made are enough to get my non-musician friends excited. The jazz guys just don't think it matters. In college when the local symphony was playing Beethoven 9, I was looking for a friend to go with, they all scoffed at the orchestral genre. "Why would I want to listen to that?"

I'm definitely not saying all the guys do this, but many do.

As for jazz paying well...well, I use my jazz skills for high profile jobs, but playing bop in the local wine bar pays $100 if you're lucky. Playing time and changes behind Il Divo pays maybe a wee bit more.

I'll still take those jazz gigs if I have nothing to do, because it's still fun to swing out.

 

[Holdsg]

One of the primary advantages of any "system" is that all the cats playing can understand quickly and exactly where a song is going.
Same can be said for notation.
It's the common language by which music is made, and it works for those who use it.
Is it pretentious to call it the Nashville Numbering System? maybe, but so is regular notation for a novice. prestissimo vivace!

 

[scuzzy]

i just slide around till the warble stops.

BASS PLAYERS UNITE!

in modest seriousness...why the surprise at it's simplicity? I believe that simple is its sole purpose. so the musicians can quickly and simply play a song.

 

[ctmullins]

<--- incredulity at the proliferation of redundancy

 

[40Hz]

I think it was the ad calling it an "advanced" system. The people who work with Nashville notation don't make any big deal out it, or make grandiose claims for it, from what I've seen. It's just a convenient way to do chord notation if you're going to be called on to transpose at the drop of a hat.

There's always been shorthand notation systems employed in music. The baroque composers had a variety of ornament notations that kept their scores cleaner and less cluttered looking besides saving them a lot of ink when it came to writing out a passage. Same goes for 'thoroughbass' or 'figured bass' notation. It was just a time saver and a convention to improve the readability of a score. It wasn't a secret code protecting some cosmic secret.

So yeah, Nashville notation is no big deal. Even I can use it - so there's no way it's rocket science.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

This is true with some players in every, single, genre. Ever met a stuck up classical player? Ever met a stuck up traditional bluegrass player? Ever met a stuck up blues player? Ever met a stuck up traditional West African drummer from Ghana? Cause I have.

True enough. I've met all those guys, except the African.

 

[Michael Eisenman]

i just slide around till the warble stops.

That's golden.

 

[morgansterne]

I give it some credit for making a lot more sense than organ music figured bass. That's a really dumb system.

 

[Jay Corwin]

This thread is funny. I love that a NN conversation quickly shifted into jazz hating elitism. Kudos for that route TB'ers.

It's just another tool that people used to get the job done. Cripes you should see some of the shorthand I write on setlists to get me through unfamiliar territory. Maybe I should patent my method (Dr. Evil finger quotes) and sell it.

 

[silvertone]

The system works great for me.
I frequently play bass, guitar or mandolin at monthly jams and anyone stepping up to lead a song that can give a brief 1000 foot view of the architecture of a song structure using Nashville numbers certainly makes delivery of said tune way easier. It can also be used to conduct the band if for example the leader says "vamp on the IV."

 

[Maple]

I don't know the NNS (didn't even know it existed) but from taking a quick look at that chart example, it seems to serve a somewhat different purpose than the more traditional chart...

1. As mentioned previously - simple key changes at the session. It would take a bit of down time to transcribe a chart that is written around a specific key. Especially if it has melodies written out.

2. This includes more arrangement information. The dynamics appear to be written in - dictating how the band should perform behind the singer. In jazz, the players typically feel it out on the fly. But when tracking a vocalist, and especially a pop singer, you don't often want the band to outshine or to be calling the shots on the recording. Rather, you want them to follow what the producer or singer think is best for that song.

 

[HeadWind]

OP, I wondered the same thing when I first heard about the NNS, and to a large extent I think you are right, at least about the reinvention part. I too felt it seemed a bit pompous. I assume the inventor simply didn't know about traditional chord notation.

This is a customer review (not mine) for The Nashville Number System: Chas Williams: 9780963090676: Amazon.com: Books, I think it gets it right:

...It's a bit funny, though, because it ends up being almost as complicated as learning standard music notation, if you go the whole way. They just use different symbols for the same things--like a diamond for whole note, for example. I'm not at all sure that it really wouldn't be just as easy to become good at reading standard music notation as reading Nashville...

Yes, looks like there is a lot more to it than just the numbers of the root of the chords. From that Amazon link:

 

[moles]

Why is naming something "Grandiose"? Your momma named you - and you ain't done s&^#.



(Also just having a bit of a laugh )

 

[Hahaha]

It's really not as simple as it seems. Over the years it has developed into a very clever system that can convey a surprising amount of information. You have to be able to read time in standard notation. If a specific bass (or other instrument) line is called for it will write it using standard time notation with the intervals of the line written underneath. An example would be something like 8 8th notes indicated in standard notation with 1 1 b3 1 4 4 b5 5 written under the notation.

A whole note is indicated by a diamond drawn around the number. A quarter note played an 8th note ahead of a measure is indicated by a > above the note, likewise a 16th ahead of the beat is indicated by >>. These are just a few examples of the shorthand used in the system; there is much more.

Even some of the members of the A Team in Nashville scoffed at it at first, but once they caught on to it's convenience and expedience, they embraced it.

 

[staccatogrowl]

Numbering systems have been used in classical music for centuries. One example is Heinrick Schenker's system of musical analysis. This system is very useful and used today.

Schenkerian analysis has also been applied directly to jazz for decades in books like John Mehegan's Jazz Improvisation: Tonal and Rhythmic Principles, which was a landmark text originally published in the mid 1960s. More recent detailed academic works like Steve Larson's Analyzing Jazz:A Schenkerian Approach, 2009, dissect the appropriateness of the Schenkerian application to jazz.

Regardless, NNS is a variation on a theme that focuses on numeric harmonic function and musical "shorthand." A point of interest is that those with little formal harmony training have never been exposed to Schenkerian analysis. They learn to associate harmonic function in NNS, finding it highly useful and concise.

Battles of the "elites" include classical vs jazz vs country, etc. Of interest, those that look down on NNS believe that NNS is the bottom of the food chain. Actually, NNS users often laugh at and look down on those that don't know NNS. It's all very silly, isn't it?

As some attest, knowledge of a roman numeral harmonic shorthand for classical or jazz makes learning NNS a piece of cake. Why not just enjoy that ease of translation? NNS is a useful tool for many, and more musicians would benefit from knowing a tool to analyze and communicate harmony in a shorthand form.

If you want to communicate in France, learn French. If you want to play in Nashville, or with musicians that know NNS, learn NNS. Speak the language appropriate for the circumstance.

As usual, use the tools that serve you best. Make music. Ignore the detractors.​