This article was written by nvsongwriter

Learn the Nashville Number System

The Nashville Number system is the greatest thing ever invented for the working musician. The principles are basically the same. There are some differences but I will point those out as we go along.

When Neil Matthews created the original Nashville Number System in the late 1950’s, he was looking for a way to help he and the other members of the Jordanaires, Elvis Presley’s Vocal Backup Group, learn vocal parts more quickly. Charlie McCoy, A Nashville session musician and music leader of the Hee Haw television show, took what Matthews created and, together with some of his recording session friends came up with the system musicians use today.

For musicians, the Nashville Number System is a chord charting system that makes charting and transposing keys easier and quicker. With this system, the scale degrees of the major scale, C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, are changed to numbers. The major scale using the Nashville Number System would be 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

In the last lesson, I talked about half steps and whole steps and how in certain orders, I call formulas, can be used to create chords and scales. If you will remember, the formula for the major scale traditionally is whole step, whole step, half step, then 3 more whole steps and another half step, sometimes noted W-W-H-W-W-W-H. I also said in my Guitar Number System we will note it with numbers, 2-2-1-2-2-2-1. You can in turn, use this formula to create the major scale in any key.

This numerical approach to music is the language professional musicians use to communicate everyday in Nashville and other music centers live and in the recording studio. Studio musicians will listen to a demo recording of the song to be recorded and write out their own number chart as the sound engineer plays it from the control room. Then they record the song, each creating their part based on the number chart the just made. All the parts we hear in the music we love is created this way, right there on the spot. There are no pieces of paper with lines and little black notes on them. It’s all done with number charts.

A number chart for the Bob Segar classic “Old Time Rock and Roll” would look like this:

1 1 4 4
5 5 1 5
1 1 4 4
5 5 1 5

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Wow, been waiting for this one for quite a while.  Especially after getting to see these guys live a couple of months ago, they were awesome by the way.  But I am a little puzzled about the direction the guys are going….it is going to take me a few days to really get into the lyrics and melodies before I make a final judgement, but “The Light Meets The Dark” seems to be heading in a different direction from “Over and Underneath” musically.  To me “Light” is heading toward a sound very similar to Switchfoot, and lyrically even though their faith is in there everything is mainstream friendly.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, look at Switchfoot and Needtobreathe, they get to share their faith with a lot more people than the average Christian artist or band ever would.  After a couple more days of listening I hope to update this review with my final thoughts.

Update 5/13/2010 – I have spent the last two days listening to “The Light Meets The Dark” trying to get a better feel for the music and the lyrics.  I must say this is a really good CD, and would be a great second album for anybody else, but I was expecting more for these guys.  From a Christian stand point I was really looking for more of what they gave us with Over and Underneath.  As a fan of Tenth Avenue North I definitely like the cd, the music is good, the lyrics are deep:

The Truth Is Who You Are

Flesh and blood, You offer us
Oh to eat the bread and drink the cup
Oh to taste, to see, to feel, to touch
Emmanuel
God with us
Emmanuel
God with us

Cuz You came to bring the chains apart
You wake the dead and sleeping of our hearts
You gave us truth
The truth is who You are
Its who You are
Its who You are
Its who You are

For some reason at the end of the CD I am still looking for more.  There are some good tracks, I would recommend:

1. The Truth Is Who You Are
2. All The Pretty Things
3. House of Mirrors
4. Empty My Hands
5. On and On

The guys have definitely grown as musicians since their first release.  This album is very well produced, lots of nice overlays and fills that definitely add to the overall feel of the album.  Again if you are buying this expecting more of what you got with Over and Underneath you will be a little surprised.  Musically this CD is somewhere between the first release and the mainstream.  If you are looking for Christian anthems or praise and worship go get the Passion Awakening CD.

Don’t get me wrong this is a good CD and I am definitely not knocking the guys for their growth as musicians.  I didn’t buy this CD expecting it to be full of praise songs, but I was a little surprised at the direction that they went with this CD.

All in all I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Well Awaken 2010 has come and gone, and it has taken me a couple of days to get my head back together and get a good nights sleep.  Man what a night, what a day.  Got to the venue about 10:00 am and left about 1:00 am, man I am glad I don’t do that every weekend.  First, I need to say thanks to so many people that made this happen.  I can’t list them all, but you know who you are.  This event couldn’t have been a success without so many great volunteers.  No we didn’t have a sell out crowd, but the event was a success!  We had some great bands and a great night of worship.  For those of you who bought tickets and didn’t make it, you really missed out.  Just ask anyone who was there.  Would I do it again?  Yes, definitely.  There is no doubt in my mind that we were supposed to do this.  Sure I wish it would have been a packed house but the 5 or 600 that saw the event got a blessing.  There is no doubt we learned a lot.  Sure we made some mistakes, but we will know a lot more about what to do next year.  The most important thing we saw was that doing something like this takes a tremendous amount of time and effort.  Getting it together in three weeks was difficult but not impossible.  Next year we will take about 3 months to put it together.  Secondly we won’t plan the event the night of the Gum Tree or college graduation.  We will definitely double check to see what is going on before we set a date.  Of course we choose May 8th for a specific reason, and I don’t regret that at all.

I must say a big thank you to the bands that came:  Shane & Shane, Brenton Brown, The Glorious Unseen, Northstar, Notus, and Cross-Eyed.  From the pre-show to the finale everyone was great.  We got a little late start with sound check running long, but everything came together great.  It was amazing to get to be around so many great Christian artists.  And I picked up a few little tips and tricks along the way.  Even joined Cross-Eyed on the stage to play a few songs.  It was nice to be able to crank up the Vox for a change.

Thanks to Gary Permenter!  He did a great job.  If you are looking for a speaker, you need to check this guy out.  Not only is a very funny, but he is great man of God.

Another big THANK YOU to everyone from ICC who helped make this event possible.  You guys are great and made this a first class event.  This wouldn’t have been possible without you.  The Davis Event Center is a awesome venue for any concert.  I can’t believe more people haven’t made use of it.

And last but definitely not least, Thank You God.  Without you none of this would be possible.  You make all things good and you definitely had a big hand in this event.  THANK YOU

I hope to get some event pics and videos added later today so check back often.

photos by Lee Adams

What a great song by Addison Road, really speaks the truth about our lives:

If you have never listened to Jeff Johnson you are missing out big time.

What a great song to start out Sunday morning with.

Here is Our King by David Crowder
Check out David Crowder Tabs at Rockin’ With The Cross

You can win four front row seats and back stage passes to Awaken 2010, only 7 days away.  Click here for details

JESUS PAID IT ALL
by Kristian Stanfill

Get more Kristian Stanfill Tabs at Rockin’ With The Cross

Beautiful Song By Chasen

One of my favorite songs of the new CD, Come As You Are by Pocket Full of Rocks
Get the tab at Rockin With The Cross