THE NASHVILLE NUMBERING SYSTEM: (How It Works)

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For someone who is not a musician, or who is not familiar with music, this may not make sense to you . . . but I'm hoping it will. This that I will explain below is the methodology used by many professional musicians in their process of charting chording patterns in their songs for on stage-performances. Because there are MANY musicians who do not read music (they play---as is said---"by ear") . . . so they have to have a means to identify which chord follows which chord in a song.  In my many years of professional music, I don't recall anyone ever telling me that this process of charting is called the Nashville Numbering System . . . it's just what I've always called it. I hope the below attempt at explanation works for you.   

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Musicians, of course, perform their music by playing various arrangements of chords (such as A, B, C, D, E, F and G). These chords fall within a scale of 8 . . . called an octave; with note 8 being the same as note 1.  To clarify, if you were to sing the song from "The Sound of Music" called "Do Re Mi" . . . you would sing all 8 notes . . . i.e., Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do.  We can see here that the note Do is repeated twice . . . 6 notes apart . . .  so, as mentioned above, from Do to Do is called an octave. 

 

So, as you also realize, each person has a different voice . . . some have a high pitched voice, and some have a very low pitched voice . . . and there's everything in between. So, a person a person who is going to sing a song has to find which chord fits their voice, right?  So, let's say that I am going to sing a song in the key of C; then the very first chord that I would play to begin my song would be the chord of C. Therefore, in this example, C---since it's the first chord I play---becomes number 1 in my song of the scale of 8.  So, if my song was "Do Re Mi," I'd start singing in the key of C.  

 

So, if you went to a piano, and played any key/note, and sang the scale in Do Re Mi . . . starting at that key/note . . . and then moved up one key/note, and sang it again starting from that key/note . . . and then moved up one more key and sang it again . . . you would have started singing the scale in three different keys/notes . . . and the very first key/note you played each time you moved up, would have been key/note number one in that scale (or the Do of that scale). Is it getting clearer?

 

The bottom line is this . . . The Nashville Numbering System changes the Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do in music [chord reading] to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. With 1 being the first key/note/chord in which your song begins. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to write and ask at rish@rish.co.