Nashville Number Charts

Here's another piece I wrote and posted on the SongRamp board, but again its useful here. Unless you're getting ready to demo something you probably don't need to worry too much about doing this, and if you're playing your songs yourself then writing the chords out is probably fine.

The number charts are designed to show the chords of a song by relationship, rather than by holding it to a certain key. Instead of writing the chord itself, every chord is assigned a number based on how many scale degrees it is from the key. If we had written a song in the key of C then the chords would be:

1 - C
2 - D
3 - E
4 - F
5 - G
6 - A
7 - B

Now, depending on the singer, we may need to change the key in order to place the melody within the singers range. If we have the chords written on the paper then someone needs to first write the relationship to the key center, and then figure out the new key. Skilled musicians can figure out chord as they're playing along, meaning you can use the same chart for playing in multiple keys.

I believe the number only dictates the 1 note of the chord so you can create a minor chord by writing "6m," which would represent an Am in C or "57" which would represent a G7 in C. Sometimes a minor is also represented with a - instead of an m.

The system is very similar to writing chords as roman numbers (I, ii, iii, IV, etc.) except that you don't use capitals and small letters to indicate maj/min.

A full chart would includes BPM, key and the full structure of the song. Basically, someone should be able to pick up the chart and play along with the song without ever having heard it before. There are symbols for letting chords ring, strumming patterns and all sorts of other situations and the charts can get complex but they're a great way to pass on a lot of musical information in a short period of time.

Most studios develop their own handwritten charts so there's no need to create one before you are having a song demo'd. However, if you want to develop a better understanding of your own song it may be worth noting the relationship its chords have to the key or some of the rythmic patterns it has in it.
I'll try and find a good example of one to show you, but if you search Google Images for "Nashville Number System Chart" you'll find a whole bunch of different examples.

Until next time!