This might be old news to a lot of you, but one of the “must-have” tools in your songwriter’s bag of tricks is The “Nashville Number System”.
This system, as the name implies, was developed by the seasoned session players in the Nashville studios in the 1950’s. The problem was standard music charts were written in one specific key. If the singer needed a different key, the transposition of the chords took too much time in an expensive studio environment.
Solution! The Nashville Number System!
Here’s how it works – The 7 notes of the major scale are assigned – you guessed it – NUMBERS!
For example, the key of C major scale consists of C D E F G A B. With the NNS the notes are C=1, D=2, E=3, F=4, G=5, A=G, 7=B. So a familiar tune with 3 chords of C-F-G is 1-4-5 in the system. I know that this sounds ridiculously simple, but believe me, this is a great way to learn the relative chord structure of songs and very useful for studio work and jams.
Note – there are many links out on the web on the system and there are more complicated versions. If you want the ultimate book on this, get Chas Williams book from Amazon on the subject.
If you are serious about your songwriting and getting cuts, learn this system.
