Nashville Number System: Is that all it is?

BassAndReeds

BassAndReeds

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Oct 7, 2016
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#1
This may be a slight continuation of another CL rant thread, but I think there's some merit, so starting a new thread.

The Nashville Number System. Can somebody please tell me it's more than just: I chord, ii chord, iii chord, etc... Seriously. There has to be something more, to give it such a grandiose name as "The Nashville Number System". I mean, please tell me there's at least some number to change the key of the bridge or modulate up a half step in the 3rd chorus. Something. Maybe even a number for a secondary dominant, say a major VI chord instead of a minor vi chord. And I won't even rant about adding a 7th to any of those, we'll leave that for another day.

Why is Country music stuck 60 years behind everyone else? And why do they perpetually claim to make inventions of things that were invented 60 years before they "discovered" it.

"We use this advanced music tool called the Nashville Number System. We're so smart. Don't know it? *scoff* You take a chord, and then turn it into a number!!! Then you can use that number in any key you like. We're so smart." --- "Dude, um, we've been doing that in Jazz for like 80 years now" --- "Nuh, uh" --- "Umm, seriously, we learn all songs in 12 keys. Transposition is expected daily" --- "What did you call me?!" --- *facepalm*
 
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#2
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#4
guy n. cognito said:
At least you aren't inappropriately angry about it.....
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To be fair, I'm just having a bit of a laugh.

But also I've spent a good 2 hours searching the internet trying to figure out what I'm missing, if it's a "Method". Or why such a simple thing needs such a self-indulgent moniker. Why not just say, "Play a ii - V - I". Or "Play a IV - V - I"?

Coming from a Jazz background, I don't say "My band uses the 'New Orleans Transient Key Method'. And if you know it, then you're not part of the club." Sounds a bit pompous right?
 
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#12
OP, I wondered the same thing when I first heard about the NNS, and to a large extent I think you are right, at least about the reinvention part. I too felt it seemed a bit pompous. I assume the inventor simply didn't know about traditional chord notation.

This is a customer review (not mine) for The Nashville Number System: Chas Williams: 9780963090676: Amazon.com: Books, I think it gets it right:

I bought this book because I wanted to find out what the Nashville number system was all about and how it differed from the numbers that jazz musicians commonly refer to--usually in Roman numerals. Not much difference, really. I once saw a jazz pianist coach his bassist through a live performance of an old jazz standard that the young bassist didn't know by simply flashing fingers at each chord change--and there were more than just three chords in that tune. When a jazz musician says "IV chord," he's saying exactly what a Nashville player says when he says "4 chord." It's just that they got there by different routes.

I found this book fascinating, particularly as to the lengths to which Nashville-using musicians have each gone to flesh out the Nashville number system. It's a bit funny, though, because it ends up being almost as complicated as learning standard music notation, if you go the whole way. They just use different symbols for the same things--like a diamond for whole note, for example. I'm not at all sure that it really wouldn't be just as easy to become good at reading standard music notation as reading Nashville. But this book is a fascinating and fun read, particularly the various and varied actual handwritten pages of Nashville notation made by experienced musicians.
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#13
guy n. cognito said:
The Nashville Number System Fake Book: Hal Leonard Corp., Trevor de Clercq: 9781495014093: Amazon.com: Books

There are others as well. Happy reading.
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smeet said:
OP, I wondered the same thing when I first heard about the NNS, and to a large extent I think you are right, at least about the reinvention part. I too felt it seemed a bit pompous. I assume the inventor simply didn't know about traditional chord notation.

This is a customer review (not mine) for The Nashville Number System: Chas Williams: 9780963090676: Amazon.com: Books, I think it gets it right:
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Thanks guys. I ordered the book. Seems like it will be a quick/easy read, as again I have a degree in jazz and it's all the same stuff, just without the roman numerals. But I like to know all things music. I think it also has a lot of country hits and historically important songs in it. At least, I hope it does. And that will be good for me to learn.
 
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#14
Basstards said:
To be fair, I'm just having a bit of a laugh.

But also I've spent a good 2 hours searching the internet trying to figure out what I'm missing, if it's a "Method". Or why such a simple thing needs such a self-indulgent moniker. Why not just say, "Play a ii - V - I". Or "Play a IV - V - I"?

Coming from a Jazz background, I don't say "My band uses the 'New Orleans Transient Key Method'. And if you know it, then you're not part of the club." Sounds a bit pompous right?
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I don't think the country players are laughing with you.
 
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#18
Basstards said:
Eh, you can't please everyone. If it's just the same, I laugh at myself in the same manner.
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I don't think you mean any ill will, but you got to remember as soon as you say you're a jazz player, you start to sound a bit pompous. That would be the universal you, btw.
 
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#19
Gravedigger Dav said:
I don't know how far back it actually goes, but my aunt, who toured with Roy Acuff in the 50s was using it.
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From Wikipedia, so I guess take with a grain of salt: "The Nashville Number System is a method of transcribing music by denoting the scale degree on which a chord is built. It was developed by Neal Matthews, Jr. in the late 1950s as a simplified system for The Jordanaires to use in the studio and further developed by Charlie McCoy. It resembles the Roman numeral and figured bass systems traditionally used to transcribe a chord progression since as early as the 1700s."
 
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#20
Basstards said:
From Wikipedia, so I guess take with a grain of salt: "The Nashville Number System is a method of transcribing music by denoting the scale degree on which a chord is built. It was developed by Neal Matthews, Jr. in the late 1950s as a simplified system for The Jordanaires to use in the studio and further developed by Charlie McCoy. It resembles the Roman numeral and figured bass systems traditionally used to transcribe a chord progression since as early as the 1700s."
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cool. When I worked in Nashville, I found it very useful for pickup gigs. About the only country musicians that read (in my experience) are the session guys. Even Roy Clark once was asked if he read music. His response was, "Not enough to interfere with my pickin'."
 
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