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Nashville Number System


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Posted

Works great for fairly diatonic chord progression based tunes.

Riff based stuff, not so much; not so good for Mushuggah transcriptions.

Therefore, pop, country, commercial, and singer songwriter stuff is usually chord progression based and fairly diatonic, so it works well for that stuff.

Works great in the studio when a singer is trying to "find their key".

Also helps to see a tune from a harmonic perspective......other than just "here's the chords." After a while, you start to see the same chord cadences and progressions over and over and over and over and over again.....

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What do you guys think about the Nashville Number System. Is it relevant in the guitar world? I read a good article about it. Let me know what you think.


Nashville Number System

Well, it's basically using arabic numbers for the standard roman numeral chord function system - which is used all the time in jazz, and which I find very useful in pop and rock, at least for understanding key theory. (And most rock is tonal, or at least tonal enough to make functional numbering relevant.)

I suppose the NNS is OK if you don't use too many extensions (I guess it's mostly triads in country ;)).

In the Nashville system, how would you write a V7 chord (such as G7 in key of C)? You couldn't use "57", because - I notice on that page - "5/7" in NNS means a G/B (in key of C).

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In the Nashville system, how would you write a V7 chord (such as G7 in key of C)? You couldn't use "57", because - I notice on that page - "5/7" in NNS means a G/B (in key of C).

 

 

You just write the 7 in smaller case next to the chord. Like this:

 

 

57

 

Hope the fonts make it look right.

 

EDIT: The 7 goes up high, next to the chord, as opposed to down low like the fonts have it here. No way I know of to make it look right with this here computer thingie....

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Hope the fonts make it look right.


EDIT: The 7 goes up high, next to the chord, as opposed to down low like the fonts have it here. No way I know of to make it look right with this here computer thingie....

OK. I still prefer the roman numerals - less chance of confusion when handwriting.

 

Which reminds me, what about major-minor distinctions, for non-diatonic chords? Ie, secondary dominants or borrowed chords?

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Primarily it helps to simplify and correlate the transposing of chords, in one standard chord progression, from one key to another....

Part of the required music language to play 'live' with other folks...it helps get everyone on the same page quickly on what to do in a song....

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Posted

OK. I still prefer the roman numerals - less chance of confusion when handwriting.


Which reminds me, what about major-minor distinctions, for non-diatonic chords? Ie, secondary dominants or borrowed chords?

 

 

Majors are just the number. Minors are the number with a small m next to it. Secondary dominants are just the number with the 7. If, for example, you change the ii to a II7, it is still written as 2 with a seven small, up top next to it.

 

Imagine any chord symbol, and you just put the chord nomanclature next to the number. If you are dealing with a flatted interval chord, you just put a flat symbol next to the chord and it's nomanclature.

 

The N.N.S. was originally used for "ear players" to be able to come in and play a chart without being told each note to play. To add their "thing" to the structure. And in country music, live on stage, you heard instruction given via the numbers. "Fifty Five Eleven Head, Chorus starts on the four, solo on the verse and bridge starts on a six minor. Here we go...One Two Three..."

Just means that the intro has 2 bars of the five chord, chorus starts on the four...etc. And that translated to the studio scene that made Nashville famous starting in the late 40's.....and so they used the same system on paper that they used on stage, except the ENTIRE chord structure was written down.

 

With today's more complex structures (relatively) there are so many kinds of variations that include secondary dominants, extensions, non diatonic stuff etc. But at it's origination, country music and the N.N.S. was pretty darn diatonic.

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Posted

For sure. It's simply not designed for that.

 

OTOH, what do you mean by "best thing"? It might be the best thing if you are trying to communicate to players who only use it...

 

... but it might not be the easiest or most natural thing compared to other systems.

 

GaJ

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Posted

For sure. It's simply not designed for that.


OTOH, what do you mean by "best thing"? It might be the best thing if you are trying to communicate to players who only use it...


... but it might not be the easiest or most natural thing compared to other systems.


GaJ

 

 

Sorry "best thing" is in reference to how easily a chord progression can be communicated to other players.

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