I arrived in Nashville in December of ’94, the day before my first rehearsal with a new artist. Fresh off of a Texas house gig, I was not too confident that I was ready for this, but here I was. In a rehearsal studio, surrounded by seasoned professionals. They all had great gear and every one of them could flat out play! I was cool with that. I was no slouch, right? Well, my bravado concealed the fact that I was scared !#@%less. My intense fear became an extreme, internal panic, when I overheard an exchange between two of the more prolific players. It went something like this:

Bass player) Now, down here at this 1415, what kick pattern are you gonna play?

Drummer) Do you mean the 1415 in section B?

Bass player) No, right here after the 1144, in the pre-chorus.

Drummer) Oh, I’m going to 4 on the floor.

What in the world were they talking about? I scrambled, trying to figure out what a 1415 was. I thought to myself, maybe their counting 1/4 notes. Nah, that’s too many quarter notes to keep up with and the song would be 8 hours long. Maybe it’s a frequency. That’s even more ridiculous than my first ridiculous theory. Maybe, just maybe, I should have done some research before I found myself in the room with these guys.

Maybe, just maybe, I should have done some research before I found myself in the room with these guys.

The good news was, I knew my parts and faked my way through the day. The bad news was, I had a weakness. It wasn’t my playing or my singing. It was the fact that I didn’t know the Nashville number system. Looking back, I don’t know how I survived the music business until my late twenties without even crossing paths with this information.

From Wikipedia: The Nashville Number System is an informal method of transcribing music by denoting the scale degree on which a chord is built. It was developed by Neal Matthews, Jr. in the late ’50s as a simplified system for The Jordanaires to use in the studio and further developed by Charlie McCoy. It resembles the Roman numeral and figured bass systems traditionally used to transcribe a chord progression. By writing chords as numbers, music may be transposed easily. As a simple system of transcription, it can be used with only a rudimentary background in music theory. Improvisation structures can be quickly explained using numbers and chord changes can be communicated mid-song by holding up the corresponding number of fingers. The system is flexible, and can be embellished to include more information (such as chord color or to denote a bass note in an inverted chord).

Clear as mud, huh?

I added a link to the de facto book on the subject to the right column of this article. Chas Williams does a wonderful job of explaining the number system, including handwritten charts (transcriptions) for several country standards. The system is now in wide use in the US, but it is a must-have skill, if you intend to be a studio or live musician in the Nashville music scene.