'Nashville Number System'??!!

[Thorpey]

Hey all

Just mooching through a few Brent Mason vids and things online, and I heard him talking about the Nashville Number System/Charts...

... I've searched online... As usual however it is all jumbled and not really much good for someone who doesn't know a great deal about it

So I thought who better to ask than you guys here... Any info on this system would be appreciated

James

[Jhengsman]

It is just memorization, instead of specific chords you are giving interval steps. The leader announces the key and from there you move up and down to whatever note corresponds to the number of steps given. Capitol numerals are major chords, lower case are minor

[BillAftermath]

Yes. In basic terms (without 7ths) it would be like this. Capitols are major and lower-case are minor, as Jhengsman said. It goes like this.

I ii iii IV V(dominant) vi vii(diminished)

EDIT: Another thing that goes along with this is calling notes in a key by their number in the scale. This generally just goes 1-7, where chordtones go higher than 7 if a 7th is present.

[jazztele]

you have to know the key of the song and major scale harmony. Every key has seven notes, which can be harmonized into seven chords. The pattern is always the same.

1-major
2-minor
3-minor
4-major
5-major (dominant)
6-minor
7-half diminished

So if you take, Cmajor, for example (C D E F G A B) and somebody says, "okay, it's a 1-6-2-5 in C" you play C, Am, Dm, G.

Roman numerals are nice if the chords are hamonized a little "jucier." for example, V13b9 in C is a G13b9 chord.

[BigMike]

Chas Williams has written a great book; 'The Nashville Number System'.

Here's an Amazon link...

http://www.amazon.com/Nashville-Numb...0677106&sr=1-1

[Thorpey]

Ahhh Eureka so it isn't half as complicated as these freeby websites make it sound... Thanks guys, and i'll be sure to grab me a copy of that book, it'll make writing down my own chord progressions much faster i'm sure!

[Budda]

"Worship Together" series of books, has some "How To" books in their line. And they also spell out in pretty detailed fashion, Nashville Styled Charts. And show the same Tunes in Notation, Chord Charts and Nashville Charts. So, it's nice the see the same Tunes within all 3 differing Formats, basically side by side.

Whether you play "Christian Music" or not, it's a pretty informative series of Books/CDs.

[C-Bone247]

I believe the original intent of the Nashville numbering system was to indicate the chord changes without committing the chart to one key. Since the vocalist's comfort factor would ultimately determine the key.

[cj11l]

Here is a cool article from Premier Guitar from a few months back

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazin...mystified.aspx