Exactly. But having devised my own variant of it around age 9, I still think it's stupid to be forced to call it "Nashville." (And I love country music...)
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Nashville Number System: Is that all it is?
- Thread starter BassAndReeds
- Start date
Exactly. But having devised my own variant of it around age 9, I still think it's stupid to be forced to call it "Nashville." (And I love country music...)
Yes it's that simple.. and it has saved me countless times. I've been hired to do many shows and this is the method that works best. A good friend who is a Mel Bay author turned me on to it.
This isn't quite right. Lower case indicates minor, not flat.
So A - C - D - F would be I - bIII - IV - bVI.
Last edited:
Not familiar with "church changes," but rhythm changes is 1 - 6 - 2 - 5. Reason it's called that is because it's the verse progression for the old standard "I Got Rhythm".
Man just pick up some tunes and start laying down. If you have a jazz degree, these historically important country tunes may bore you very quickly.
"We got both kinds of music here, country AND western!"
What we're looking at is a system developed by some guys back in the day who were proud to not have gone to some hoity-toity school for their music learnin'. They picked it up by ear like their pops, but also wanted to make it a little easier to get their paid sidemen to learn their parts, so they came up with roughly the same system that academics in prior centuries had designed for roughly the same reason.
Slightly different markings, and tailored to the style (not a lot of infrastructure for much more complexity than some dim chords & occasional secondary dominants*), and also not designed to replace listening and learning.
It's funny, because basso continuo in the Baroque era was essentially the equivalent of a lead sheet in the modern era, be it Nashville Numbers, tabs, or a fakebook page. Cats have been saying "play these notes but do it your way" for a long, long time.
*At the time, mind you. Things have changed since then and the system's grown, and also gotten informed by classical/traditional notations. It works.
What we're looking at is a system developed by some guys back in the day who were proud to not have gone to some hoity-toity school for their music learnin'. They picked it up by ear like their pops, but also wanted to make it a little easier to get their paid sidemen to learn their parts, so they came up with roughly the same system that academics in prior centuries had designed for roughly the same reason.
Slightly different markings, and tailored to the style (not a lot of infrastructure for much more complexity than some dim chords & occasional secondary dominants*), and also not designed to replace listening and learning.
It's funny, because basso continuo in the Baroque era was essentially the equivalent of a lead sheet in the modern era, be it Nashville Numbers, tabs, or a fakebook page. Cats have been saying "play these notes but do it your way" for a long, long time.
*At the time, mind you. Things have changed since then and the system's grown, and also gotten informed by classical/traditional notations. It works.
I did a typo on what I called the rhythm changes pattern ... it's "3 - 6 - 2 - 5" rather than the "3 - 6 - 3 - 5" I typed in my initial post on this subject ... just like the B section on the Martha & the Vandellas classic "Dancing in the Street".
So the nashville system is more or less the same as the standard roman numerals system except that it uses arabic numerals?
I think they probably just simplified the existing notation first, or it was the first to get wide use, so it gets it's own name.
I might sound like a crazy person, but it's not uncommon in math or physics to use alternate notation for various things that are similar or even the same. It depends on the use case and sometimes the author of the math text you're reading.
Here I think it's quicker to show a number to someone that may not be a trained musician the traditional way. It's also not specifying a key, or letting you change it and use the same numbers, so people with vocal range differences can switch keys around as needed.
I might sound like a crazy person, but it's not uncommon in math or physics to use alternate notation for various things that are similar or even the same. It depends on the use case and sometimes the author of the math text you're reading.
Here I think it's quicker to show a number to someone that may not be a trained musician the traditional way. It's also not specifying a key, or letting you change it and use the same numbers, so people with vocal range differences can switch keys around as needed.
This is the book if you want to learn the system:
The Nashville Number System: Chas Williams: 9780963090676: Amazon.com: Books
The Nashville Number System: Chas Williams: 9780963090676: Amazon.com: Books
As an Amazon Associate, TalkBass may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via links on this site.
I think that is one of the primary distinctions, but not the only one.
From what I've read, the NNS was developed as country music expanded into what is called Countrypolitan music that started borrowing from other easy listening styles. Many of the musicians who played, arranged and wrote in this style were fairly well educated musicians, so it's reasonable to conclude that they brought much of the more traditional forms of notation shorthand to this system. The A Team was the most recorded group of session musicians in Nashville during this period, and some of them were fluent jazz musicians. The drummer, Buddy Harmon had a degree in music, and Bob Moore, the bassist was a capable jazz bassist who performed at the Newport Jazz Festival. They certainly would have been familiar with the more common and traditional forms that use Roman Numerals.
I doubt that any one individual, or group of musicians from Nashville ever decided to call the system the Nashville number system. It's more likely that they gradually evolved their own colloquial way of writing number charts, then other musicians came to Nashville and encountered this system and started referring to it as the Nashville number system.
So it's called the Nashville Number System because a lot of session guys in Nashville used it and we're upset that it's called "Nashville" and the name stuck? Who cares? I'm in Maryland and we use Jersey barriers on the roads.
the number relate to the chord progression not the key.
The key doesn't matter in NNS has it only want to know the chord sequence in relation to the major scale.
Ahhh ! But y'know, with NNS and the major scale box ... you don't need to know all that. You move the scale box
NNS makes even more sense with a guitar and a capo using the CAGED chords. You don't even need to think of chords - a 1 is a C shape, 4 is an F shape, etc.
Music Theory Part 2: "CAGED" and the Nashville Number System
Music Theory Part 2: "CAGED" and the Nashville Number System
