Fork In The Road Music

This is the final post of an online lesson in Basic Chord Theory and the Nashville Numbering system. This lesson deals with how to put together scales and chords. It is built on lesson one which talked about intervals and whole and half steps and lesson two which dealt with scales and chords.

Part III -Using Nashville Numbering to Transpose

Using the Nashville Numbering system makes it easy to play any song in any key. It works simply using the following steps.

1.Write down the tones (letters or chords) in the original key.
2.Assign the corresponding numbers
3. Write down the tones in the second key
4. Find and replace

Lets say you want to transpose the chord chart for the chorus of “

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” to the key of C.

G  C  D  C       G  C  D  C
Hey       I love Jesus
G  C  D  C       Em     D
He        loves me

1. Write down the tones. Since it is in the key of G we would write down:

Letters:    G     A     B     C    D     E      F#

2. Write down the numbers

Letters:    G     A     B     C    D     E      F#
Numbers :  1     2     3     4     5     6      7  

3. Add the second key:

Letters:    G     A     B     C    D     E      F#
Numbers :  1     2    3      4     5    6      7  
New Key:   C     D    E      F    G     A     B

4. Find and replace

C  F  G  F       C  F  G  F
Hey       I love Jesus
C  F  G  F       Am     G
He        loves me

You are replacing the 7 letters (A-G) only. Any notations like minor (m) or (7) remain to the next key. So notice that on the word “Me” Em becomes Am.



Ex. 6.

Transpose the following chord progressions using the Nashville Numbering system from the original key of G to the key given in the example.

Original Numbers New Key
1. G    C   D    C         1  ___  ___  ___          A  ___  ___  ___ 

2. G    Em  D   C         1  ___  ___  ___          D  ___  ___  ___ 

3. G  Am   C  Em         1  ___  ___  ___          C  ___  ___  ___ 

Using the Nashville Numbers to transpose is very helpful in some situations. For example, if you are playing guitar and need to use a capo to move a song to a more playable key. It is also helpful for quick transpositions if you have music in one key, but it is uncomfortable for a singer, you can quickly move the song to a more acceptable range.

Starting off using the system-

So if you can use the Nashville Numbering system to transpose one key to another, why not just start of notating your music with the system. Look again at “Hey I Love Jesus” in the last section. Instead of writing out the original chords, you could just start off with the numbers. It would look something like this

1  4  5  4       1  4  5  4
Hey       I love Jesus
1  4  5  4       2m     1
He        loves me

Written like this you could now play this in any key that you were comfortable with.

Ex. 7. Transpose the song to the following keys:

Key of C

Hey       I love Jesus

He        loves me


Key of D

Hey       I love Jesus

He        loves me


Key of E

Hey       I love Jesus

He        loves me


I hope this has been helpful to you. I could go into much more depth about the system but just wanted to give you a basic understanding of how this works. It should be noted too that there is not a “standard” for the Nashville Numbering notations and there are some variations. The key is to find what works for you, and your group and stick to it.

Please feel free to use this with your praise team or for personal study. If you want the answers I can get those to you. If you missed it, view lesson one here, view lesson two here

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More from rgmmusic

• Online Lesson- Basic Chord Theory and Nashville Numbering Part 1
• Online Lesson- Basic Chord Theory and Nashville Numbering Part 2
• Instrumental Reflections #3

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