NNS-Nashville Number System

Nashville Number System: The Basics

This system was invented for easy transposing and dialog about songs to be played in a group setting.

It is based on the Do-Ra-Me scale of music. The musical alphabet is simply transposed into Roman Numerals and put in place to represent the scale or progression in different keys. For example let’s take the key of C. C-D-E-F-G-A-B where C=I, D=II, E=III, F=IV, G=V,  A=VI, B=VII. So if our Progression is I-IV-V it is played as C-F-G. So you now have this song in the key of C that you thoroughly learned over the course of last week. You are at a jam and this song comes up to be played in the jam, and you know it! Except the singer gets to call the key of the song and he says G or better yet, “one Sharp”. Now you already know all about “One Sharp” because you recently learned about it in Jeffs Circle of Fifths Class. So the song that you knew in C played I-IV-V or C-F-G is still I-IV-V but played as G-C-D because in G the Nashville Number System(NNS) is G=I, A=II, B=III, C=IV, D=V, E=VI, F=VII.

So now you know about majors and notes in the scale of a key in the Nashville Number System, but what about minors? There are several ways minors are represented. If the designer of the song is using Nashville Number System (NNS) and wants to add the Relative Minor of the Key of C, which is Am or the sixth in the progression it could be written as vi (small letters). But sometimes that Sixth isn’t always a minor or they forget to dot the I or the v looks big. They could write it as 6-. The – sign is minor. What about a G7 in the key of C progression, could be V7 or 57(small seven).

What about rhythm in NNS? Well a song written as “one sharp” I I IV I I V; each Roman numeral is a Measure or Bar in a song. The song could be 4/4 or ¾. Say it’s a 4/4 song and the second measure is split between two beats of G and two of C. It would then be written as “one sharp” I I/IV IV I I V. OK, in songs where there are two chords in a measure but one has one beat and the other has three beats; we then put one dot over the first and three dots over the second or they might just write it out using slashes I//// I/IV/// IV//// I ////I ////V////

So now armed with your circle of Fifths, your formula for Major Scales and the Nashville Number System (NNS) you now have the wisdom to figure out pretty much any Bluegrass Situation.