If you want a little help download my Nashville System Cheat Sheet below. Once you have it makes playing and analysing music quicker and easier. With just a little practice you can get familiar with the Nashville Number System. If a chord is changing from Minor to major a triangle or capital M is used. Or it could be written with a lower case m, b7m. For example an F minor chord in the key of G would become ‘b7-‘ where the dash is used to identify the minor chord. If a chord is changing quality for example from Major to Minor a – or lowercase ‘m’ is used. This would be notated as a b3 but the note is still a G natural. This makes 2, 3, and 6 minor, indicated using dashes and the seventh chord occurring diatonically is a diminished chord. It doesn’t make the chord function make sense to me so I tend to change the numbers to reflect the minor key. I don’t personally do that because I find it confusing. They just refer to everything as if it was major even when In a minor key. For example in the key of C: C 1 D 2- E 3- F 4 G 5 A 6- B 7dim Keep in mind that they key signature and all accidentals (flats and sharps) are applied. Traditionally the Nashville number system doesn’t actually change whether you’re in a minor or major key. For example the key of E, the 3rd of the scale is a G# if you flatten that 3rd you get a G. The number represents the chord in that key. A b3 does not mean that the note is necessarily flat. So to get an F chord we simply notate it as a b7 chord.ĭon’t get confused between a flattened scale degree and a flattened letter name. If we look at the chords in the key of G, we see that the 7th chord is a F#. If a song includes chords out of the key, additional notation is needed.įor example if you’re in the key of G but a song includes an F chord which is outside of the key.

What If A Song Includes A Chord Outside Of The Key? Nashville number system chart for guitar The Nashville Numbering System is a method of denoting chord letter symbols by using roman numerals, and its one of the most important concepts taught in guitar lessons, really useful when dealing with chord progressions.

Nashville number system chart symbols