Marcel
03/09/26
:)
Thank you for a nice article :) PS. I want to recommend a free tool for learning Nashville Number System: ***nnstrainer.***
Nashville Number System Decoded
Underlying theory and essential applications for the Nashville Number System
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About this course
The Nashville Number System not only gives you the means to communicate with other musicians in an intelligent way, it also gives you a fundamental understanding of music, chords and chord progressions in a way that you most likely have never thought about and in a way that will revolutionize your perspective of the fretboard and enlighten the way you view music, chord progressions, keys, and melodies.
Your guitar sage for this learning adventure, Erich Andreas has been playing and teaching guitar for nearly 30 years. His guitar lesson video channels on YouTube have attracted over 40,000,000 views. Erich has authored several books on the subjects of guitar and music and was featured in the Wall Street Journal and on Wall Street Journal Live.
We’re very proud to welcome Erich to the family with his first TrueFire course, the Nashville Number System Decoded.
”We’ll learn the foundational pieces that build this new perspective and then apply these concepts to real-world scenarios, charts, and songs. This new understanding will help you easily navigate songs and their progressions while decoding what your ears have heard all along.
In my 30 plus years of playing and teaching guitar, the Nashville Number System alone has revealed the inner workings of music more than any other method or perspective that I've come across. If you TRULY want to improve your understanding of music, develop your ear, and know where to play on the fretboard in ANY key, you must understand this easy but game-changing method!”
Erich organized the course into three sections. In the first section, you’ll start building a solid theory foundation bolstered by core elements of the Nashville Number System. You’ll also develop your knowledge of the neck and learn to see the major scale as numbers: Primer Overview, The Nashville Number System, The Relativity Of Music, Memorize The Neck, The Major Scale & Numbers and Movable Usable Scale Forms.
In the second section, Erich expands your understanding of chordal theory, western harmony, and develop simplified ways to play chords and progressions in any key: Diatonic Harmony, Three Basic Chord Types, Chords & Major Keys, Seven Diatonic Chords, Chordal Scales: G Major, Chordal Scales: C Major, Finding Chords Using NNS, The 1 4 5 Zig Zag and Relative Major And Minor.
In the third and final section of the course, Erich guides your application of the key learnings in the first two sections across five different types of Nashville Number Charts. For each, you’ll first analyze the different numbers and symbols to figure out the changes of the tune and then Erich gives you a performance example for each.
”You’ll start out with a simple skeleton chart of a 12 bar blues progression in the key of A. Next we’ll analyze a slightly more complex chart with more chords and symbols for a pop-country tune in C. Then we’ll work on a song that incorporates split bars and slash chords with an indy folk-rock feel. We’ll also work on a ballad in 6/8 time, where we’ll use a capo to give us the familiarity of the key of C while playing in C#. Our final chart will incorporate a more complex song form, slash marks and push symbols, and we’ll use the capo again, this time playing the tune in the key of G#.”
You’ll have Nashville Number charts, diagrams, tab and notation for all of Erich’s demonstrations. Erich also generously provides the backing tracks for you to work with on your own.
”Learning the Nashville Number System not only gives you the means to communicate quickly and clearly with other musicians, it yields a fundamental understanding for how chords and progressions are built from the ground up. Most importantly, you’ll develop a 10,000-foot perspective of western harmony which underlies the entire popular songbook, across all style.”
Grab your guitar, and lets decode the Nashville Number System and music itself with Erich Andreas!
Your guitar sage for this learning adventure, Erich Andreas has been playing and teaching guitar for nearly 30 years. His guitar lesson video channels on YouTube have attracted over 40,000,000 views. Erich has authored several books on the subjects of guitar and music and was featured in the Wall Street Journal and on Wall Street Journal Live.
We’re very proud to welcome Erich to the family with his first TrueFire course, the Nashville Number System Decoded.
”We’ll learn the foundational pieces that build this new perspective and then apply these concepts to real-world scenarios, charts, and songs. This new understanding will help you easily navigate songs and their progressions while decoding what your ears have heard all along.
In my 30 plus years of playing and teaching guitar, the Nashville Number System alone has revealed the inner workings of music more than any other method or perspective that I've come across. If you TRULY want to improve your understanding of music, develop your ear, and know where to play on the fretboard in ANY key, you must understand this easy but game-changing method!”
Erich organized the course into three sections. In the first section, you’ll start building a solid theory foundation bolstered by core elements of the Nashville Number System. You’ll also develop your knowledge of the neck and learn to see the major scale as numbers: Primer Overview, The Nashville Number System, The Relativity Of Music, Memorize The Neck, The Major Scale & Numbers and Movable Usable Scale Forms.
In the second section, Erich expands your understanding of chordal theory, western harmony, and develop simplified ways to play chords and progressions in any key: Diatonic Harmony, Three Basic Chord Types, Chords & Major Keys, Seven Diatonic Chords, Chordal Scales: G Major, Chordal Scales: C Major, Finding Chords Using NNS, The 1 4 5 Zig Zag and Relative Major And Minor.
In the third and final section of the course, Erich guides your application of the key learnings in the first two sections across five different types of Nashville Number Charts. For each, you’ll first analyze the different numbers and symbols to figure out the changes of the tune and then Erich gives you a performance example for each.
”You’ll start out with a simple skeleton chart of a 12 bar blues progression in the key of A. Next we’ll analyze a slightly more complex chart with more chords and symbols for a pop-country tune in C. Then we’ll work on a song that incorporates split bars and slash chords with an indy folk-rock feel. We’ll also work on a ballad in 6/8 time, where we’ll use a capo to give us the familiarity of the key of C while playing in C#. Our final chart will incorporate a more complex song form, slash marks and push symbols, and we’ll use the capo again, this time playing the tune in the key of G#.”
You’ll have Nashville Number charts, diagrams, tab and notation for all of Erich’s demonstrations. Erich also generously provides the backing tracks for you to work with on your own.
”Learning the Nashville Number System not only gives you the means to communicate quickly and clearly with other musicians, it yields a fundamental understanding for how chords and progressions are built from the ground up. Most importantly, you’ll develop a 10,000-foot perspective of western harmony which underlies the entire popular songbook, across all style.”
Grab your guitar, and lets decode the Nashville Number System and music itself with Erich Andreas!
What you'll learn
- Navigate fretboard using bass note relationships
- Analyze chord charts quickly
- Read complex chord charts
- Understand chord scale degree connections
- Communicate musical progressions using number system
Release date: 11/09/2015 • 1h 28m runtime
Sample lessons
The Nashville Number System
History & Purpose
The Major Scale & Numbers
Demonstration
Movable Usable Scale Form
Demonstration
Chordal Scales: G Major
Demonstration
What's included
29 lessons • 22 charts • 4 Jam Tracks
Nashville Number System Decoded
The Nashville Number System not only gives you the means to communicate with other musicians in an intelligent way, it also gives you a fundamental understanding of music, chords and chord progressions in a way that you most likely have never thought about and in a way that will revolutionize your perspective of the fretboard and music itself. Having this new perspective will truly enlighten the way you view music, chord progressions, keys, and melodies.
We'll learn the foundational pieces that build this new perspective and then apply these concepts to real-world scenarios, charts, and songs. This new understanding will help you easily navigate songs and their progressions while decoding what your ears have heard all along. In my 30 plus years of playing and teaching guitar, the Nashville Number System alone has revealed the inner workings of music more than any other method or perspective that I've come across. If you TRULY want to improve your understanding of music, develop your ear, and know where to play on the fretboard in ANY key, you must understand this easy but game-changing method!
SECTION 1: NNS Primer
In this first section of the course, I'm going to give you a primer to the Nashville Number System. You'll be learning the foundational concepts of how and where we get our "numbers" for this method that will forever change the way you interpret music.
The Nashville Number System
The NNS system is a way of notating and understanding music using numbers and intervals (distance between notes) instead of our traditional musical alphabet. It was made famous by Nashville studio musicians whose "back-to-back" studio sessions made it challenging to memorize a dozen or so songs EVERY day; they needed a better way! Necessity is the mother of invention, and so the Nashville Number System was born! This shorthand method of notation and understanding allowed the seasoned musician to perform songs "off the cuff" having never heard the song before, saving musicians time and energy.
For me and the many musicians who have embraced this method of musical understanding, it's become the most important tool in our arsenal. It's the "magic" behind fretboard memorization and knowing what, when, and where to play. Once you see music from this new perspective, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.
The Relativity Of Music
When singing a song like "Happy Birthday," no one asks for a key before singing because we can sing melodies "relatively." That is, we have a very basic singing understanding of intervallic (distance between notes) relationships because of many years of talking, singing, humming, listening to music, etc.
We can apply this same concept to our understanding of the guitar. How would you like to play chords to songs with the same ease as singing "Happy Birthday"? It's very possible if you understand this concept and start applying the tools as I'll reveal in this course.
Memorize The Neck
We do need a basic understanding of the fretboard to optimize this method and get everything we possibly can out of it. In time, you'll have the fretboard "memorized," or better yet, you'll understand how to quickly navigate to or identify any and every note on the fretboard with ease. From Jimi Hendrix to Eddie Van Halen, this is where we all start! There are three concepts you need to be very familiar with:
- String names from low in pitch to high in pitch are: E, A, D, G, B, E. You can remember this with the word picture:
Eddie
Ate
Dynamite
Good
Bye
Eddie - Musical alphabet is A-G. There is no H and so on in music.
- Every note has a sharp, except for B and E. Remember the Beatles song: "Let it BE"
The Major Scale & Numbers
The major scale is the benchmark of all "western" music and much of world music. The major scale will be our "ruler" for evaluating chords, keys, chord progressions, etc. A true understanding of this scale both backwards and forwards will quicken your understanding of the NNS. Since we're thinking in intervals (whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half), we don't have to memorize what keys have sharps/flats etc. Everything becomes "relative."
Please make sure that you're able to create linear (across one string) major scales for ANY note. You want to be able to do this for both open and fretted notes. Make sure you can do this quickly, both backwards and forwards. This will truly help your understanding as we proceed through the course.
Remember again that we're talking about intervals, so don't get confused if you identify a note as a sharp or flat (example: F#). When thinking about this relative world of music, we don't have to be constantly thinking about the musical alphabet and sharps/flats. In time, this will start feeling very natural to you.
Movable Usable Scale Form
This major scale form 1 can be played in any key, starting from either a sixth string OR fifth string root, so it's a VERY movable and usable scale. This scale is the most used scale in the history of music! You can use it in any key and in fact is the basis of all jazz modal theory. It's also a great exercise, but most importantly for THIS course, this form will help us quickly identify the number and root note of our commonly used chords for any/all keys. It's VERY powerful, so please have it memorized and be able to play it up and down the fretboard using both sixth and fifth string roots.
VERY IMPORTANT: Don't forget to count the numbers up/down as you are playing this scale.
+ 22 more lessons
Reviews
11 results
DrumsLee
Verified buyer
05/07/23
Love it
Always wanted to know more about the Nashville number system the session players used to quickly learn their parts.
Stephen
03/29/23
One of the best on TrueFire!
I really enjoyed this course.It's a great resource to understand major diatonic harmony and how to use a capo. Is a 'blue player', this course inspired me to come up with my own progressions and start writing my own songs the Nashville way. What's even better is I can quickly chart out my ideas using NNS. Highly recommended!
Ximo
03/06/23
Thinking in numbers
Easy course but very helpful in order to learn songs by heart using numbers, two tonalities and a capo.
Lotharius
Verified buyer
11/12/20
Very good
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