Just FYI, to signal the VI chord, I hold up a thumb and index finger. The VII is the thumb, index, and middle finger. Sharps and flats? Well, hopefully it’s a slow song, and there’s time for them lip-read “sharp” or “flat”.

NNS is essentially a merging of the Roman numeral system and standard pop chords. You get the flexibility of Roman numerals by not being limited to any certain key, but you get the familiarity of pop symbols for chord “flavors” to a point. After that point, NNS sometimes deviates from standard pop chord symbols, though I’m hard pressed to see why. For example, an X is sometimes used to indicate a seventh rather than a numeral 7. I have no idea why.

In other ways, NNS is simpler. A second inversion tonic chord (C with a G in the bass in the key of C), for example, is called 1/5 in NNS. To me, this simplicity should be the goal of all musical shorthand. I can’t type precisely how you’d have written that in college due to the inability to superscript or subscript in this forum, but I can explain. You’d have a 6 superscript and a 4 subscript just to the right of a Roman numeral I.

Not being limited to one key is essential for session players who may need to change keys after an arrangement has been written. NNS saves having to re-write the arrangement in a new key when the producer decides to transpose an augmented fourth away from where you originally conceived the key.

I generally play along with tracks, so I’ve developed my own hybrid shorthand that I use when writing out charts. Once I have the track in hand, I know the key isn’t going to be changed at that point. I may as well go ahead and put a C on my chart every time I hear a C chord. I essentially use a combination of pop chord symbols with bar lines to indicate the number of chords per bar. I’ve never understood why someone would want to use parentheses to indicate bars, when bar lines work just as well.

If the same chord is used for multiple bars…say 4…I’ll write the chord and then put X4. Those Xs on my charts would confuse a NNS, but they make good sense to me.

For the live performer, knowing NNS is another good tool to have in the arsenal, but if the group has a fairly set in stone program of songs that is going to be committed to memory by the player, it’s not necessarily a requirement. It’s really a question of how creative a player can be over top of a track in a live setting, not what particular method they used to commit the song to memory in the first place. If you’re playing many different songs for artists on the Gaither tour, then you’d better know NNS. If you’re accompanying the Hoppers, you may need an understanding of NNS in order to commit the songs to memory initially, assuming they provide you with NNS charts. If you’re simply given a track and told to learn the song, then you don’t have to use NNS per se when writing out your own chart.

I have a feeling many never write out a chart at all…simply learning the chords by playing the track and picking up the progressions by ear. I suspect some are quick studies using this method. There’s nothing wrong with that either as long as they do something creative with it after the fact.

I think Doug’s complaint is that often players settle for chording along with the track and playing simple fills rather than making their performance unique and interesting for a discerning listener and for themselves as artists.

And I agree with him on that point.

Since I know the “group owner” and his penchant for musical quality, one can rest assured that the pianist he hires will do more than “lay down uninspired accompaniment.”

Like David, I have commonly used the NNS by charting Roman numerals (I=one, IV=four, V=five, etc…)

So, is the main difference with the Nashville system found in the actual use of “modern” numerals (1, 4, 5,) instead of the Roman numerals (I, IV, V)?

When I was a college undergraduate, I learned about chords in the classical manner…using Roman and Arabic numeral combinations for shorthand. This continued as I went on to do my graduate work on a music theory major.

Along the way, I made a point to study and come to a working understanding of the more commonly used pop chord symbols on my own. I’ve yet to run across a fake-book marketed to the general public that used Roman numerals or the Nashville number system. There may be some out there, but the vast majority use pop chords.

Like pop chord symbols, the Nashville number system is merely another form of shorthand for writing chords without having to spell out every single pitch and rhythm. To say a pianist is “ignorant” of music theory simply because they don’t use the Nashville number system could be compared to saying a linguist is “ignorant” of the English language if they don’t know how to speak with a British accent.

The criteria for choosing a pianist should be whether or not they know and understand how chords work together. Being able to play off of a chart is fine and dandy, but if they can’t commit the song to memory and then do something original within the structure they’ve been hired to play…be it playing along with tracks or with other live musicians…then you’ve just hired a robot who is reacting to a set of instructions, not a true musical artist.

Geez, I thought I could read a post without the a ubiquitous Crabb reference….silly me!!!

And total agreement about Stan Whitmire. He’s simply the best right now!

You mock the “God-given” talents (your quotation marks, not mine) of those who have more talent than you could ever hope to have. If the talent isn’t from God, which I assume is your point from your quotation marks, then who is it from? This is off-topic, but sometimes I wonder where you are coming from spiritually.

If a pianist has an excellent ear (which truly is a rarity these days), training will not make much of a difference one way or another. Your idea of talent is if someone can play more than a couple of arpeggios - or would that be arpeggii? Seriously, a good ear is more important than anything - for a musician. The Crabb Family and Kingsmen pianists are two of the best that I can think of to demonstrate this. Let’s face it, doesn’t everyone know somebody who has taken music lessons for years and years, but couldn’t transpose a song or initiate a key change to save their lives???

Please note, I am not referring to vocalists; they definitely should have training to improve AND protect their voices.