The Nashville Number System (NNS) is a way to write chord charts that was popularized in the Nashville studio scene, but now commonly used by music directors and performing musicians in worship and cover band settings.

Recording session origins

Since session musicians are typically hired to create the parts of a song on the fly, number charts were devised as a simple way to communicate the structure of a song—the chord changes, the form, the arrangement—as succinctly and clearly as possible.

You can read more about its origins in this Nashville Number System article (Wikipedia).

How the Nashville Number System works

Numbers instead of chord letters

A hallmark of the Nashville Number System is that chords are expressed using numbers instead of letters. Those numbers are in reference to the major key that best fits the song.

If you're familiar with the concept of "Movable Do" (Wikipedia) from solfège, you'll feel right at home with number charts. (In short, "Do" is 1.) If not, we'll give a quick primer below.

Using numbers instead of letters makes it easy to play the song in any key, without having to rewrite the chart. In the studio, time is money, and since the final key of a song is often determined in the recording session, a songwriter or producer could prepare a chart ahead of time, but leave open the decision of the song's key.

What about minor keys?

Another peculiarity of NNS — particularly if you're accustomed to using numbers for analyzing functional harmony in traditional music theory paradigms — is that charts are rarely notated in a minor key. They are almost always notated in the relative major of the minor key. So, instead of a minor-1 (i), NNS would use a 6-minor (written as 6- or 6m).

This will make more sense as we get into specific examples below. For now, just note the convention.

Space instead of measure / bar lines

Nashville charts omit a lot of markings that you might find in more traditional styles of charting.

One example is the use of measure or bar lines. In more traditional lead sheets style charts, a vertical line (|) demarcates each measure. One or more chords can fall within a measure, and rhythms typically need to be expressed by slashes or more traditional notation to show when chords should change within a measure.

In NNS, a lone chord number signifies that the chord should be played for the full duration of a measure, using any rhtyhm, unless otherwise marked.

If multiple chords are to be played in a single measure, since there are no bar lines to group chords together, NNS either underlines a group of chords, or surrounds the chords with parentheses.

Simple example: converting chords to numbers

In the key of C, a common progression might be:

C | F | G | C

In traditional music theory / functionaly analysis, this progression would be written as:

I - IV - V - I

In NNS, you would chart this as follows:

1 4 5 1

To illustrated how you can trasnpose easily when using numbers for chords, in the key of G, this same progression would be played as:

G | C | D | G

If you need help mapping chord numbers to letters, we have a handy, printable PDF reference that shows all of the chords in each key, and what numbers they correspond to.

Ways to make number charts

Wrtie charts by hand

Traditionally, Nashville number charts are written with a pencil and paper. You'll often see people use a sharpie and yellow legal pad.

One advantage to handwriting charts is being able to quickly chart a song in one listen. There's no technology in the way - hear a chord change, write it down. Made a mistake, cross it out.

Hand-writing charts will certainly get you through a session. Unless you can't read your own handwriting. (coughs)

Draw using generic desktop publishing software

If you want a more professional-looking chart for sharing or publishing, or just for your own use, there are a variety of ways to "typeset" number charts, for example, using desktop publishing tools (like Google Docs).

However, this can be time-consuming, as you need to draw in markings like underlines for split bars, repeat symbols, fermatas, etc.

Tap away into an iPad-only NNS app

There are several purpose-built NNS apps that only work on iPad.

In our experience, entering charts on a touch screen isn't nearly as easy and tactile as using a computer keyboard. It's especially fiddly to make changes to a chart, or copying and pasting chords and whole sections.

While these apps produce professional-looking results, we found them time-consuming to use. We could no longer chart a song in one listen.

Type numbers into JotChord™

What if you could just type numbers and NNS-specific markings on a computer keyboard, in plain text, and then magically produce a professional-looking PDF?

This is why we made JotChord™, an app for making beautifully-formatted NNS-style number charts.

• Simply type the numbers, and as you're typing, a PDF chart is continuously updated with the numbers you've typed.
• Since it's a web app, accessible from any browser, it works on Mac, Windows, ChromeOS, and even Linux desktops and laptops, plus iPad and Android tablets.
• The web app has been mobile optimized, making it easy to view and download charts on mobile phones. However, with a side-by-side editor-viewer experience, mobile phones are not the ideal device for creating charts with JotChord™.

With JotChord™, you can turn this:

Title: Need You Now
Key: E
Meter: 4/4
Tempo: 108
$Artist: Lady A
$Chart: JotChord™

IN:
//Piano & Bass only Drums & Guitar in
<4>= <4> <6->= <6-> * 4 4 6- 6-
V1:
4 4 6- 6- * 4 4 6- 6- * 4 4 6- 6- * 4 <4>
CH:
1 1 3- 3- * 1 1 3- 3- * 4 4 <4>
LN:
4 4 6- 6-
V2:
4 4 6- 6- * 4 4 6- 6- * 4 4 6- 6- * 4 <4>
CH:
1 1 3- 3- * 1 1 3- 3- * 4 4 4
BR:
||: 6-_5> 1< 4 5 :||
<4>= <4> 6- <5>
CH:
1 1 3- 3- * 1 1 3- 3- * 4 4
OUT1:

||: 1 1 3- 3- :||{4}
OUT2:
//Fade on last repeat
||: <1>= <1> <3->= <3-> :||{4}

//Words and Music by Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley, Dave Haywood and Jost Kear.
//© 2009 EMI FORAY MUSIC, HILLARY DAWN SONGS, WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP., RADIOBULLETSPUBLISHING,
// DWHAYWOOD MUSIC, YEAR OF THE DOG MUSIC and DARTH BUDDHA
//All Rights for HILLARY DAWN SONGS Controlled and Administered by EMI FORAY MUSICAll Rights for RADIOBULLETSPUBLISHING
// and DWHAYWOOD MUSIC Administered by WARNER-TAMERLAND PUBLISHING CORP.

into this:

Learn more

• Nashville Number System (NNS) key reference chart - a downnloadable/printable PDF showing all of the chord numbers in each key
• Nashville Number System (NNS) for bass - a downloadable/printable PDF detailing the scale degrees on the bass fingerboard for each Major key.