Nashville numbering system

duotone

lincolnblue said:

duotone said:

Nashville Number System Explained

https://youtu.be/0nrJSZb2KLg?si=uPEoopo1sx_niMjb

Learning Songs Quickly - Redesigning Women

https://youtu.be/ZXpvcXdhatg?si=xKqIOzxP06fmXXYA

Had a watch of the first video - was helpful. I understood it all. I guess what I need to train myself in is in each key, knowing what the 4 chord is, 5 chord etc.

If I'm playing a song in C and change it to E or G (or use a capo on 5th fret to play G shapes) etc I can usually just play the correct chords without thinking about it. But if I was in E and someone said to play the 4 chord, I'd have to work that out. I guess it comes with practice

I’m glad it was of some use to you, I haven’t watched it in a year or 2, but I remember it being helpful.

PAL

Yeah each of the chords relate to the note in the major scale. So in the key of A a typical blues/12 bar would be the 1/4/5 
  chords. A-D-E which you probably already play and know. So there isn't too much more for you to learn.
  The idea of the Nashville numbering system is rather thinking in chord names you just think numbers so if a song was in say 
  the key of G and the key needed to be changes you would be asked to play the same thing ( Chords ) but in a different key.
  this saves writing everything out again.
  For practice play C.Am.F.G then do the the same in D then E etc, Practice without a capo . Good luck.

Snags

viz said:

stratman3142 said:

But I'm not so keen on numbering the chords for minor keys in terms of the relative major key.

Correct! It’s awful and stupid! The one chord is the root chord, regardless of tonaility. It’s the home chord. Calling it a 6 goes agains everything. Especially as they call a dorian home chord the 6 too. 

<Digression> I had a similar problem for ages when looking at scale patterns laid out against a chord chart style box on the neck, because guitar tutors seem determined to extend them to cover all possible notes within a  'box' across the strings, so the bloody things almost never start and and on the actual root note.

Coming from a classical piano background, where playing a scale of e.g. G starts and ends on a fucking G, thank you very much, it took me quite a while to wonder why some arsehole was saying "So in G we start with the open E string ..."

viz

Exactly! It’s like trying to do modes before you can do scales. 

ricky50

duotone said:

Nashville Number System Explained

https://youtu.be/0nrJSZb2KLg?si=uPEoopo1sx_niMjb

Learning Songs Quickly - Redesigning Women

https://youtu.be/ZXpvcXdhatg?si=xKqIOzxP06fmXXYA

Thanks for this - great video really well explained. It's not very complicated but her teaching is spot on.

guitarjack66

Danny1969 said:

Revolutions said:

Evo said:

It isn't usually common to specify whether the chord is major or minor unless it's out of key. That means chords 1, 4, and 5 are always assumed to be major and chords 2, 3, and 6 are assumed to be minor unless otherwise indicated.

Haha, thanks for the info  - the explanation above made zero sense to me until you mentioned that standard classification for major/minor

This will really help me with charting my stuff that always looks really messy as chords with no structure. Time I learnt!

There is no minor key really ... as I said a minor key is written as  it's relative major so Am is written in C, Dm is written in F etc. 
For myself I will chart some stuff as minor  .. It just feels better to think of some songs that way but that's just for me. 

I think this way too. I find it much easier. 

Pierrederesistance

viz said:

stratman3142 said:

But I'm not so keen on numbering the chords for minor keys in terms of the relative major key.

Correct! It’s awful and stupid! The one chord is the root chord, regardless of tonaility. It’s the home chord. Calling it a 6 goes agains everything. Especially as they call a dorian home chord the 6 too. 

You could just as easily chart a song with a Dorian tonality as C Major.
It feels needlessly complicated to me to do anything else.
Perhaps the difference between the "Nashville" system and other similar ways of charting is that it's designed to make things as simple as possible. In practice, there really is no difference between A minor and C Major, if you have the experience of playing either of those tonalities you know that an E major for instance is a chord that will bring tension and acts as a dominant, and wants to lead to the A minor, whether that A minor is the 1 or the 6m so you'd play the same stuff in that context in a solo whichever key you think of yourself as being in. 
You also have to account for songs where the verse feels like it's in a minor and the chorus feels to be in the relative major. 

viz

Pierrederesistance said:

viz said:

stratman3142 said:

But I'm not so keen on numbering the chords for minor keys in terms of the relative major key.

Correct! It’s awful and stupid! The one chord is the root chord, regardless of tonaility. It’s the home chord. Calling it a 6 goes agains everything. Especially as they call a dorian home chord the 6 too. 

You could just as easily chart a song with a Dorian tonality as C Major.
It feels needlessly complicated to me to do anything else.
Perhaps the difference between the "Nashville" system and other similar ways of charting is that it's designed to make things as simple as possible. In practice, there really is no difference between A minor and C Major, if you have the experience of playing either of those tonalities you know that an E major for instance is a chord that will bring tension and acts as a dominant, and wants to lead to the A minor, whether that A minor is the 1 or the 6m so you'd play the same stuff in that context in a solo whichever key you think of yourself as being in. 
You also have to account for songs where the verse feels like it's in a minor and the chorus feels to be in the relative major. 

Well, I think that the tonic trumps everything. So the keystone, if you will, is a note that is at the root of the piece. Anyway, your view is 100% as valid as mine, so fine

Pierrederesistance

viz said:

Pierrederesistance said:

viz said:

stratman3142 said:

But I'm not so keen on numbering the chords for minor keys in terms of the relative major key.

Correct! It’s awful and stupid! The one chord is the root chord, regardless of tonaility. It’s the home chord. Calling it a 6 goes agains everything. Especially as they call a dorian home chord the 6 too. 

You could just as easily chart a song with a Dorian tonality as C Major.
It feels needlessly complicated to me to do anything else.
Perhaps the difference between the "Nashville" system and other similar ways of charting is that it's designed to make things as simple as possible. In practice, there really is no difference between A minor and C Major, if you have the experience of playing either of those tonalities you know that an E major for instance is a chord that will bring tension and acts as a dominant, and wants to lead to the A minor, whether that A minor is the 1 or the 6m so you'd play the same stuff in that context in a solo whichever key you think of yourself as being in. 
You also have to account for songs where the verse feels like it's in a minor and the chorus feels to be in the relative major. 

Well, I think that the tonic trumps everything. So the keystone, if you will, is a note that is at the root of the piece. Anyway, your view is 100% as valid as mine, so fine

Yeh absolutely both as valid as each other. I think it comes down to how individuals brains work as much as anything else. 
The only question is, how do you decide which IS the tonic. Hypothetically, If you take a song like my favourite mistake by Sheryl Crow, where the whole verse is on the B Minor, but the chorus is clearly D major, how would you think of that? 

viz

That it starts in Bm and then modulates to D major. Exactly like what you just said

Comfortably Numb does too.

I guess the way I’d say it is, you follow your ear to the root of the song in the same way as you follow your nose to the source of a smell. 

Danny1969

To me it makes perfect sense to chart Comfortably Numb in D maj as there's a tension on the Bm, added 9th etc added deliberately so you don't feel settled on it. It's only when the D maj kicks in on the chorus that it feels like the home chord, and it's like Oh that's the 1 

I wouldn't chart Apache in C maj though, I think of it as A Dorian in the verse and C maj for the chorus ... be interested in what others think if they are old enough to remember this tune ?

viz

Danny1969 said:

To me it makes perfect sense to chart Comfortably Numb in D maj as there's a tension on the Bm, added 9th etc added deliberately so you don't feel settled on it. It's only when the D maj kicks in on the chorus that it feels like the home chord, and it's like Oh that's the 1 

I wouldn't chart Apache in C maj though, I think of it as A Dorian in the verse and C maj for the chorus ... be interested in what others think if they are old enough to remember this tune ?

I agree about Apache obviously - it simply is in A Dorian, there is clearly no question about it. I wonder if Nashville would call the A a 6m or a 2m? Anyway it's a 1.

I simply can not get on board with the notion that the verses of CN are in D - it's soooo wrong it makes me want to do diarrhea, but I'm not going to argue it (other than to say that IMO the entire artistic brilliance behind the songwriting is the modulation between the two characters and the two keys, and do you really play that gut-wrenching, tragic 2nd solo with D major in your heart or brain?), I'm simply going to say you're a fantastic guitarist and I bet you play it bloody awesomely, so it really doesn't matter, and I suffer from high blood pressure anyway so I'm going to take a deep breath and go for a walk with the dog

Pierrederesistance

Danny1969 said:

To me it makes perfect sense to chart Comfortably Numb in D maj as there's a tension on the Bm, added 9th etc added deliberately so you don't feel settled on it. It's only when the D maj kicks in on the chorus that it feels like the home chord, and it's like Oh that's the 1 

I wouldn't chart Apache in C maj though, I think of it as A Dorian in the verse and C maj for the chorus ... be interested in what others think if they are old enough to remember this tune ?

I think the problem with charting it like that (as opposed to thinking of it like that yourself when you're playing it) is you're expecting everyone to know that the 4 chord in a dorian tonaility is going to be major which is not necessarily a reasonable assumption.
Dorian is probably a safe bet for most people, but I'm an accomplished player with a good knowledge and if someone said to me "it's a lydian thing" and then expected me to know from a number chart what kind of chord the 2 was, I'd have no idea, whereas if it was charted in the related ionian, I might internally have some "Is this right?" moments but I'd at least be playing the same chords as everyone else was. 

viz

Pierrederesistance said:

Danny1969 said:

To me it makes perfect sense to chart Comfortably Numb in D maj as there's a tension on the Bm, added 9th etc added deliberately so you don't feel settled on it. It's only when the D maj kicks in on the chorus that it feels like the home chord, and it's like Oh that's the 1 

I wouldn't chart Apache in C maj though, I think of it as A Dorian in the verse and C maj for the chorus ... be interested in what others think if they are old enough to remember this tune ?

I think the problem with charting it like that (as opposed to thinking of it like that yourself when you're playing it) is you're expecting everyone to know that the 4 chord in a dorian tonaility is going to be major which is not necessarily a reasonable assumption.
Dorian is probably a safe bet for most people, but I'm an accomplished player with a good knowledge and if someone said to me "it's a lydian thing" and then expected me to know from a number chart what kind of chord the 2 was, I'd have no idea, whereas if it was charted in the related ionian, I might internally have some "Is this right?" moments but I'd at least be playing the same chords as everyone else was. 

Damn me, why am I pressing refresh every 5 seconds on this thread? PDR I agree with you here, and we're going a bit off-topic here, but I'd also like to say to everyone, the VERY DEFINITION of Dorian is that it has a minor 1 and a major 4. That is precisely and exclusively Dorian's harmony - that’s what enables its raised 6th. So, everyone, you can only ever play Dorian if the 4 is major, and, conversely, if you ever play a minor piece with a major 4, it has to be Dorian (normally ). And Lydian has a major 1 and major 2.



Cheers all, I'm loving my walk.

Pierrederesistance

viz said:

Pierrederesistance said:

Danny1969 said:

To me it makes perfect sense to chart Comfortably Numb in D maj as there's a tension on the Bm, added 9th etc added deliberately so you don't feel settled on it. It's only when the D maj kicks in on the chorus that it feels like the home chord, and it's like Oh that's the 1 

I wouldn't chart Apache in C maj though, I think of it as A Dorian in the verse and C maj for the chorus ... be interested in what others think if they are old enough to remember this tune ?

I think the problem with charting it like that (as opposed to thinking of it like that yourself when you're playing it) is you're expecting everyone to know that the 4 chord in a dorian tonaility is going to be major which is not necessarily a reasonable assumption.
Dorian is probably a safe bet for most people, but I'm an accomplished player with a good knowledge and if someone said to me "it's a lydian thing" and then expected me to know from a number chart what kind of chord the 2 was, I'd have no idea, whereas if it was charted in the related ionian, I might internally have some "Is this right?" moments but I'd at least be playing the same chords as everyone else was. 

Damn me, why am I pressing refresh every 5 seconds on this thread? PDR I agree with you here, and we're going a bit off-topic here, but I'd also like to say to everyone, the VERY DEFINITION of Dorian is that it has a minor 1 and a major 4. That is precisely and exclusively what Dorian is. So, everyone, you can only ever play Dorian if the IV is major, and, conversely, if you ever play a minor piece with a major IV, it has to be Dorian. (normally)

Cheers all, I'm loving my walk.

I'm glad you're enjoying it, already looking forward to mine at lunch time

Danny1969

I love this stuff cos I'm always learning something. 

viz

Ah nice, well if anyone liked my Venn diagram, here's the full set:

kmajor

I love reading about all this theory but I keep asking myself how did people write all those great tunes before someone sat down and 'invented' all this theory. 

Danny1969

kmajor said:

I love reading about all this theory but I keep asking myself how did people write all those great tunes before someone sat down and 'invented' all this theory. 

You don't need to know any theory to write great songs. Working in a recording studio I often preferred the songs of people who literally knew nothing. 
When it comes to playing great songs other people have written though,  a knowledge of theory is very useful and in a more professional environment essential ... at least in my opinion. 

Music theory is not invented really either is it ?  ... it's essentially maths really at its core so it's always been there

viz

Exactly. Maths and language.