Nashville numbers minor

[MathOfInsects]

4 hours ago, Steve Nathan said:

I hope you don't think I was offended in any way. I was not.  Once you get used to numbers, you tend to prefer them to letters.  I suspect if someone was calling changes to me I'd rather hear 3flat than G#flat.  Of course, studio or live, the original concept of using numbers is still valid.  Singers frequently turn around and say, "could we take this down a 1/2 step" or similar, and with numbers, your charts are ready to go and no mental gymnastics are required.  Years ago I was on a record date in NY with some heavy hitters (Will Lee, Hiram Bullock, Steve Jordan).  Jeremy Wahl (original Spyro Gyra) was the arranger.  The singer kept changing her mind about the key, and each time Jeremy would collect everyone's charts and re-write them.  He didn't need to re-write mine as I'd been writing my own number charts for each track.  After about 3 or 4 times, Will and Hiram came over and asked me to show them how my charts worked, and we wen't numbers from there out.

I'm curious though...now that Ireal Pro makes transposition as simple as selecting the new key, do you think newer players will start to dilute the prevalence of Nashville numbers? Ease of transposition is the whole reason the Nashville number system arose. Now that any chart can be transposed instantly, I could see players reverting to charting everything in the key it's in. since there's no downside to it for them. Or even just in C, and transposing from there. 

What do you think? Do you see anything like that happening with the younger players you come across?

[allan_evett]

On 7/10/2022 at 5:23 PM, Dave Ferris said:

 

Charts/lead sheets in most cases are made to be sort of a blue print and meant to be interrupted by the player. That's where the line is drawn between someone, a legit player for example, who reads verbatim what is written, and someone who enhances, or makes those notes and chord slashes on the page come alive.

No one ever came to a live concert or gig, or listened to a record and said--- hey he/she's not reading a real chart.  I didn't come here to listen but to see someone read ! Let me see that chart, I'm feeling cheated !

So true. I do a church accompanying gig 3x/week, normally playing from in-depth, written score (with changes written above).  The style is basic, Catholic liturgy along with more modern, acoustic guitar-driven material.  Fairly often the ballads have very detailed piano scores - which read as intended for church organ. Initially, the MD's instruction was, 'Play the accompaniment, as written", but when I did that it sounded far too busy - and rather out of sync with his guitar playing. Now much of the time he supplies lead sheets/charts for me, and is starting to let me come up with parts and co-produce the live sets. There are still several places where signature lines from the piano are essential, but the response has been positive to the creative freedom being given.  

[Steve Nathan]

Not sure how much interest (if any) there is in this, but I copied this chart from today's OD session to share.

 

[BernMeister]

2 hours ago, Steve Nathan said:

Not sure how much interest (if any) there is in this, but I copied this chart from today's OD session to share.

 

Thanks, Steve,

 

This is interesting. A couple of questions, if I may:

• What is the significance of the supposed asterisk (*) symbol?
• At the Tags (and other areas), you've got what looks like 6b9 ? Is this shorthand for 67(b9), or a b6(9) chord? If so, I'm seeing a recurring theme where the accidental is following (instead of preceding) the number, as in the 4# in the verse (unless I'm not reading it correctly). Is this reversal common practice or just a way to save on horizontal spacing?
• Regarding slash chords, do you ever find yourself needing to write in specific modifiers? In this chart, I see that most of the slash chords are quite simple.

 

Finally, knowing full well that it's so much faster to write NNS out by hand, do any of you use an app or scoring application to create your NNS charts?

[Steve Nathan]

12 hours ago, BernMeister said:

Thanks, Steve,

 

This is interesting. A couple of questions, if I may:

• What is the significance of the supposed asterisk (*) symbol?
• At the Tags (and other areas), you've got what looks like 6b9 ? Is this shorthand for 67(b9), or a b6(9) chord? If so, I'm seeing a recurring theme where the accidental is following (instead of preceding) the number, as in the 4# in the verse (unless I'm not reading it correctly). Is this reversal common practice or just a way to save on horizontal spacing?
• Regarding slash chords, do you ever find yourself needing to write in specific modifiers? In this chart, I see that most of the slash chords are quite simple.

 

Finally, knowing full well that it's so much faster to write NNS out by hand, do any of you use an app or scoring application to create your NNS charts?

The asterisk indicates a repeat of a riff or lick. The writer originally had something that only occurred every 2nd bar, but we ended up changing to a part from the EG that covered two bars.  the 6b9 is interesting in that some people chart this as b69 as you suggested.  For me, most people don't call keys/notes flatB or #G,  it's always been Ab, Bb G# etc. and that's how I relate to the number representation.  As this was cut in E, it's a C9 in this case. If it were a C7 flat9, the b9 would be in parentheses.

There may be some who use an app of some kind to chart, but I don't know of any.  Most of the players I've worked with for years, chart in one pass, as they hear the demo for the first time, and you're right that it's pretty fast that way.