Corey Harmon4 months ago (edited)

+Jose Espinoza I'm referring to what is known as the Nashville Number System. Music has 7 major notes: A B
C D E F G - and these notes all have sharps or flats according to whatever key you are in. Chords for each key
fall suit to those sharps and flats, and also have major or minor characteristics. Each chord has a numeric value
for it's position within the key's scale. Knowing our chordal scale of any key enables a musician to quickly
transpose a song through the use of numbers only, because the numbers are the same for any song regardless of
the key. For example - if we are in the key of "A", the chordal scale for this key is: A - Bm - C#m - D - E -
F#min - G#dim and If we assign a numeric value to each of these chords, we get A (1) - Bm (2) - C#m (3) - D
(4) - E (5) - F#min (6) - G#dim (7). The key of "C" would be: C (1) - Dm (2) - Em (3) - F (4) - G (5) - Am (6) -
Bdim (7). Unless noted otherwise, the 2, 3 & 6 are always minor chords and the 7 is always diminished. So let's
take a look at how this helps us: If we have a song in the key of "A" where the verse chords are A - D - F#min -
E, then another way of saying it could be: The verse chords are 1 - 4 - 6 - 5. Rather than printing out a chart in
several keys for multiple singers, a studio band would simply create a chart using the numeric value and then
ask the singer what key they would prefer the band to play the song in. If the chart says 1 - 4 - 6 - 5 for the verse
chords, then no matter what key the singer chooses, the band knows to play those numbers, only in the
appropriate key. If the singer chooses the key of "A", the band plays: A - D - F#m - E...if the singer chooses the
key of "C" the band plays C - F - Am - G...if the singer selects the key of "G", the band would play G - C - Em -
D...and so on. The chords are different for each key, but the numeric value for where they sit in the scale
remains the same: 1 - 4 - 6 - 5. I hope this helps. It's an incredibly valuable learning for any musician and I
highly recommend you add this to your knowledge base. (assuming you're a musician). You can reference this
chart if you like:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/77/8b/f3/778bf307bf1e8569fef0ccc1b704a573.jpg And you can
read more about the theory behind this practice here: https://www.worshiptraining.com/module-1/how-to-use-
the-nashville-number-system/