By www.Fretmentor.com
Once you play music with others, whether you play banjo, mandolin or guitar, you will need to become quickly acquainted with performing in various keys. For instance, a singer or other instrumentalist may request that the group plays a song in the key of Bb. You may know the particular song but odds are that you learned that song in a different key than Bb.
Professional musicians and those who are studio musicians, will utilize a system of charts that are based on numbers, as opposed to the letters relating to the musical alphabet. Yet, the Nashville Numbering System is an effective tool for all performers, whether or not they play at an advanced level. In fact, once a beginner realizes how useful a numbering system can be, they may quickly adopt it.
What is the Nashville Numbering System? How does it relate to you performing an instrument? Is it an important thing that a musician needs to know? How was it developed and by who?
The Nashville Numbering System is essentially a tool upon which numbers are substituted for each chord derived from scale degree of a scale, in order to quickly transcribe a piece of music. Roman numerals (and in other cases, Arabic numerals) are utilized to identify the chord progression used for a particular key. It was first developed in the 1950s by a group of musicians called the Jordanaires, who are best known as being the studio musicians behind many of Elvis Presley's earliest recordings.
To demonstrate this Nashville Numbering System, let's start with the Major Scale. If you are not familiar with the major scale or what the pattern for the major scale is, please refer to the link by clicking on the following: MAJOR SCALE
The following is the C major scale and its scale pattern:
C | D | E | F | G | A | B | C |
R | W | W | H | W | W | W | H |
Now let's change the interval pattern to Roman Numerals from I to VIII:
C | D | E | F | G | A | B | C |
I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII |
VIII |
E | F# | G# | A | B | C# | D# | E |
I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII |
VIII |
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One important thing you should notice is that in a chord chart of numbers, the numbers do not reflect whether or not minor chords or used. I will explore this as well as other aspects of the Nashville Numbering System in Part II, so check back soon.
Copyright 2009 By www.Fretmentor.com