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The Nashville number system is not just a musical trick that some musicians in some remote part of the country use occasionally. It’s THE musical language professional musicians use in Nashville and other music capitals every day in the recording studio and live on stage. In the late 1950s, Neil Matthews (1929-2000) of the Jordonaires, Elvis Presley’s vocal backing group took up the concept of form notes and developed the first version of the Nashville Number System. Nashville session ace Charlie McCoy and his fellow musicians developed it further into the version used by professional musicians today. You may remember Charlie from the television series Hee Haw that aired from 1969 to 1997 in syndication. For a more detailed article on the Nashville number system, see the link at the bottom.
To understand this system, you must first understand the main scale. If you need help understanding the main scale, just 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 assigned an Arabic number to replace the name of the letter of the alphabet. In the key of C, for example, the major scale is CDEFGAB and finally the eighth C. In the Nashville number system, the scale becomes 1-2-3-4-5-6-7.
Then chords are built from each degree on the scale. In traditional music theory, we are taught that on a major scale, chords 1, 4, and 5 are major, chords 2, 3, and 6 are minor, and chord 7 is diminished. Playing in Nashville, I learned that in modern popular music, any of the 7 degrees of scale can be any of the four types of chords in music, major, minor, augmented, or diminished. This and the fact that Arabic numerals are used and not Roman numerals are two ways in which the Nashville number system differs.
of traditional music theory.
The other thing you need to know is how to form the different types of chords. Briefly, using the C scale above, a major chord is formed with 1, 3, and 5, the minor chord is formed with 1 b3 and 5, an augmented chord uses 1, 3, and # 5, and the diminished chord is 1, b3. and b5. Extended chords like 6, 9, and 13 chords simply add additional notes to one of these four basic chord types. Suspended chords simply move the third degree of the scale a half step forward and then resolve it back to the third degree of the scale.
These are the basics of the Nashville number system. If you need more help, just follow the link at the bottom of the page. Good luck and God bless you. Look out for another article on using the Nashville number system and reading number tables, coming soon to a stage or studio near you.
