The Nashville Number System Straight From Nashville

The Nashville Number System isn’t just some musical trick a few musicians in some remote area of the country use occasionally. It is THE musical language professional musicians use in Nashville and other musical capitals every day in the recording studio and live on stage. In the late 1950’s Neil Matthews (1929-2000) of the Jordonaires, the vocal backup group for Elvis Presley took the concept of shape notes and developed the first version of the Nashville Number System. Nashville session ace Charlie McCoy and his musician buddies further developed it into the version professional musicians use today. You might remember Charlie from the Hee Haw television series which ran from 1969 until 1997 in syndication. If you would like a more detailed article about the Nashville Number System, please see the link at the bottom.

To understand this system, first you need to understand the major scale. If you need help understanding the major scale, simply follow the link in my resource box. The major scale is made up of 7 different notes, 8 counting the octave, which is a repeat of the first note, 8 steps higher. In the Nashville Number System, each note, also called a scale degree, is given an Arabic number to replace it’s alphabet letter name. In the key of C, for instance, the major scale is C-D-E-F-G-A-B and finally the octave C. In the Nashville Number System, the scale becomes 1-2-3-4-5-6-7.

Chords are then built from each scale degree. In traditional music theory, we are taught that in a major scale, the 1, 4 and 5 chords are major, the 2, 3 and 6 chords are minor and the 7 chord is diminished. I learned from playing in Nashville that in modern popular music, any of the 7 scale degrees can be any one of the four types of chords in music, major, minor, augmented or diminished. This and the fact that Arabic numerals and not Roman numerals are used, are two ways the Nashville Number System differs

from traditional music theory.

The other thing you need to know is how to form the different chord types. Briefly, using the C scale from above, a major chord is formed with the 1, 3 and 5, the minor chord is formed with the 1 b3 and 5, an augmented chord uses the 1, 3 and #5 and the diminished chord is 1, b3 and b5. Extended chords such as 6th, 9th and 13th chords simply add extra notes to one of these four basic chord types. Suspended chords simply move the third scale degree up one half step to the forth and then resolve it back to the third scale degree.

These are the basics of the Nashville Number System. If you need more help with it, simple follow the link at the bottom of the page. Good luck and God bless. Watch for another article about using the Nashville Number System and reading number charts, coming to a stage or studio near you soon.