There’s more than one way to make a quick-and-dirty chart that will get you through the gig.
Chops: Beginner
Theory: Beginner
Lesson Overview:
• Understand the basics of the Nashville Number System.
• Learn how to create charts quickly and effectively.
• Create accurate, readable charts for the rest of your band.
Throughout my career as a guitarist, I’ve received plenty of last-minute calls to cover a gig or session. I’ve heard everything from “Can you cover this session for me on Friday?” to “Can you fly to Los Angeles and do the Jay Leno show on Friday?” Such calls usually come a day or two beforehand.
Dealing with this kind of pressure is part of being a professional guitarist. If you’re going to accept the gig, then you have to be able to deliver. As a result of these calls I’ve grown musically and I’m used to virtually any type of situation. One way I’ve been able to pull it off is by using charts and cheat sheets to learn lots of material in a short time.
I’m currently working as the guitarist and musical director on the TV show Live from Daryl’s House. This means not only must I learn the songs for all the various artists, but I’m also responsible for writing charts and arrangements for the other guys in the band, doing the occasional horn arrangements, and creating lyric and chord charts for Daryl Hall and often the artists themselves. In this lesson, I’d like to share how I use charts and musical “shorthand” in real-life situations to get me through some of these last-minute calls.
Rough Chord Charts
When I’m dealing with a simple arrangement and I know the musicians are going to cover all the parts, I’ll often just write a simple chord chart. It’s not the prettiest chart, but the chords and form are correct, so it will get the job done. In Ex. 1 you can see a chart I wrote up for “Love You Like a Brother.” We played this with the legendary Billy Gibbons on Live from Daryl’s House. If there are more intricate parts, I’ll use Sibelius to make the charts cleaner.
Nashville Number System Decoded
During the 10 years I spent working in Nashville as a studio player, I picked up a lot of tips and methods for some musical shorthand techniques. One of these is more commonly known as the Nashville Number System. Originally developed by the Nashville studio players in the ’50s, it’s a simple but ingenious system of writing out chord progressions by using the corresponding numbers based around the harmonized major scale.
For example, a G–C–D progression in the key of G would be written as 1 4 5. A C–Am–Dm–G progression would be 1 6- 2- 5 (the minus signs indicate minor chords).
The beauty of this system is that if a singer comes into a session and says, “That key is too high. Can you move it to Gb?” you won’t need to transpose any letters in your head, you can just adjust the chords while looking at the same harmonic movement. It does have its limitations though. I wouldn’t try to write out a Steely Dan tune with this system, and key changes within a tune are often awkward. Once you learn to hear root movements, you will eventually get to the point where you will be able to write out charts very quickly without an instrument.
The simple progression in Ex. 2 is in the key of E. Above each symbol I’ve written the chord name to help decipher what everything means. In the first measure, you’ll see a 1 with a diamond around it. The diamond is meant to symbolize a whole note, so let the chord ring through the entire measure. Although there are variations on this, whenever you see two chords in one measure, each chord is either underlined or written in parentheses. You can also use dots on top of each number to denote beat placement. And remember, as we saw a moment ago, a minus sign or dash on the right side of a number means to play it as a minor chord. In this example, that’s a C#m.
In the third measure, notice a scraggly little arrow going from the b7 to the 4. Sometimes these are called “pushes” where you anticipate the second chord by playing on the “and” of beat 2. Remember: Each chord gets two beats when they are underlined.
The final symbol to check out in this example is the 1/3 in the fifth measure. This is a quick way to notate specific voicings or inversions of chords. Here, we play an E major chord with a G# (the 3) in the bass.
I moved to the key of Bb for Ex. 3. As you can see, we’re capoed at the 3rd fret (which makes this progression actually in the key of Db). This is something you could easily run into on a songwriter session.
Ex. 4 is our final example of the Nashville system. Nothing new here, except for the fourth measure. Here, we are walking up to the 6- chord in the final measure. Each chord gets one beat (indicated by the dots above each chord). Although this is a minor-sounding progression, everything relates to the major scale. This is very similar to what you would see on a Nashville session.
Living in the Real World
Last year I was on vacation in Japan with my wife when I got a call from Larry Carlton’s manager who informed me that Larry’s bassist (who is also Larry’s son) was sick and couldn’t make the tour. I was hired to go in and play bass with Larry, and this meant I had exactly one afternoon and night to learn his set before the rehearsal the next day (and the Tokyo Jazz Fest the day after that). I got all the MP3s and some of the charts, but I had to chart out most of the tunes myself. My chart for “Ink Blot 11” from Larry’s Fire Wire album was in the set. Ex. 5 is the chart I made to cram for that tour.
This tune has a variation of a lick on each time through the repeats. I memorized each lick and instead of writing it out, just came up with a name (“Triplet,” “Low end,” and “Long 6ths”) for each variation. This would be an example of using a chart just for chord and song structure, since I’d memorized the bass line and all the fills.
Mixing It Up
Often I’ll use a hybrid version of standard notation and the Nashville system, but it’s usually just for me. The reason for this is that I’ll write out any hooks, signature licks, or riffs that are important in standard notation, and keep the chord chart in numbers. I’ll also write any rhythmic hits or punches in standard notation above the numbers.
If I’m doing a gig with an artist that includes more than five songs, I sometimes will use cheat sheets so I don’t have to have the charts on a music stand. This makes you look much more pro to the artist and assures them that you have spent many days learning their material ... even though it may only be the night before!
Ex. 6 is an excerpt of my cheat sheet for a gig I did with singer/songwriter Marc Broussard. I was able to cram 15 songs onto three pages.
You can see how I use the hybrid mish-mash version of the above methods. On “The Beauty of Who You Are,” I wrote the signature lick in standard notation so I would remember that, as well as the rhythmic hits in the chorus. That’s all I needed to get through the song. For “The Wanderer,” I relied on the Nashville system because when I use a capo on a guitar, it’s easier for me to read numbers—this is where the flexibility of the number system comes in. You could also use index cards for this method as well.
I used the chart in Ex. 7 for a gig I did with John Oates. It’s a quick-and-dirty arrangement of Curtis Mayfield’s “It’s Alright.” I wasn’t exactly sure what key John wanted to do it in, so I used numbers. In the key of C, it’s very easy to read. The rhythmic hits are an essential part of the song, so I wrote those in as well.
When there is an existing chart, I will quickly make my own notes and adjustments to fingerings. If the part is difficult to read on guitar, I may cheat and write some parts out quickly with tab. The chart in Ex. 8 was from a session I did with Harry Shearer, and it’s a very simple line that I doubled with bass. However, if I would have played it as written, it would have resulted in a very uninteresting guitar part. I abandoned the written line at the verse and went with a rockabilly part. Just writing out the tail end of the phrase was enough for me to know to go to the rhythm part on the verse. I’ve recreated the part so you can study the chart and follow along.
Sometimes you don’t have the luxury of being able to write out a chart, or you don’t want to use them on the gig. There are other ways to cram for a gig as well. Once, I was working with Boz Scaggs and I had one night to learn about eight songs with very specific guitar parts. I created a playlist in iTunes and put the songs with the guitar parts isolated on endless loop and just fell asleep listening to the parts. Sounds crazy, but it worked!
I hope some of these ideas and tips will be helpful to you should you find yourself in a time-sensitive situation. Just remember: There’s more than one way to get through it, and the bottom line is, whatever works for you is usually the best way.
Create, layer, and jam with the BOSS RC-1 Loop Station and BIC cable! Enter the I Love Pedals giveaway now and come back daily to increase your odds!
Boss RC-1 Loop Station Looper Pedal
The RC-1 Loop Station is the most intuitive looper pedal from BOSS. Its compact layout provides all the essential functions—record, playback, overdub, and undo/redo—encouraging instant creativity right out of the box.
The BIC 10-A cable from BOSS delivers uncompromising performance that faithfully transfers every nuance of tone and adds a vibrant touch with color options inspired by the brand's most iconic compact pedals.
The National New Yorker lived at the forefront of the emerging electric guitar industry, and in Memphis Minnie’s hands, it came alive.
This National electric is just the tip of the iceberg of electric guitar history.
On a summer day in 1897, a girl named Lizzie Douglas was born on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi, the first of 13 siblings. When she was seven, her family moved closer to Memphis, Tennessee, and little Lizzie took up the banjo. Banjo led to guitar, guitar led to gigs, and gigs led to dreams. She was a prodigious talent, and “Kid” Douglas ran away from home to play for tips on Beale Street when she was just a teenager. She began touring around the South, adopted the moniker Memphis Minnie, and eventually joined the circus for a few years.
(Are you not totally intrigued by the story of this incredible woman? Why did she run away from home? Why did she fall in love with the guitar? We haven’t even touched on how remarkable her songwriting is. This is a singular pioneer of guitar history, and we beseech you to read Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie’s Blues by Beth and Paul Garon.)
Following the end of World War I, Hawaiian music enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity. On their travels around the U.S., musicians like Sol Ho’opi’i became fans of Louis Armstrong and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, leading to a great cross-pollination of Hawaiian music with jazz and blues. This potent combination proved popular and drew ever-larger audiences, which created a significant problem: How on earth would an audience of thousands hear the sound from a wimpy little acoustic guitar?
This art deco pickguard offers just a bit of pizzazz to an otherwise demure instrument.
In the late 1920s, George Beauchamp, John and Rudy Dopyera, Adolph Rickenbacker, and John Dopyera’s nephew Paul Barth endeavored to answer that question with a mechanically amplified guitar. Working together under Beauchamp and John Dopyera’s National String Instrument Corporation, they designed the first resonator guitar, which, like a Victrola, used a cone-shaped resonator built into the guitar to amplify the sound. It was definitely louder, but not quite loud enough—especially for the Hawaiian slide musicians. With the guitars laid on their laps, much of the sound projected straight up at the ceiling instead of toward the audience.
Barth and Beauchamp tackled this problem in the 1930s by designing a magnetic pickup, and Rickenbacker installed it in the first commercially successful electric instrument: a lap-steel guitar known affectionately as the “Frying Pan” due to its distinctive shape. Suddenly, any stringed instrument could be as loud as your amplifier allowed, setting off a flurry of innovation. Electric guitars were born!
“At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.”
By this time, Memphis Minnie was a bona fide star. She recorded for Columbia, Vocalion, and Decca Records. Her song “Bumble Bee,” featuring her driving guitar technique, became hugely popular and earned her a new nickname: the Queen of Country Blues. She was officially royalty, and her subjects needed to hear her game-changing playing. This is where she crossed paths with our old pals over at National.
National and other companies began adding pickups to so-called Spanish guitars, which they naturally called “Electric Spanish.” (This term was famously abbreviated ES by the Gibson Guitar Corporation and used as a prefix on a wide variety of models.) In 1935, National made its first Electric Spanish guitar, renamed the New Yorker three years later. By today’s standards, it’s modestly appointed. At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.
There’s buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but that just goes to show how well-loved this guitar has been.
Memphis Minnie had finally found an axe fit for a Queen. She was among the first blues guitarists to go electric, and the New Yorker fueled her already-upward trajectory. She recorded over 200 songs in her 25-year career, cementing her and the National New Yorker’s place in musical history.
Our National New Yorker was made in 1939 and shows perfect play wear as far as we’re concerned. Sure, there’s buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but structurally, this guitar is in great shape. It’s easy to imagine this guitar was lovingly wiped down each time it was put back in the case.
There’s magic in this guitar, y’all. Every time we pick it up, we can feel Memphis Minnie’s spirit enter the room. This guitar sounds fearless. It’s a survivor. This is a guitar that could inspire you to run away and join the circus, transcend genre and gender, and leave your own mark on music history. As a guitar store, watching guitars pass from musician to musician gives us a beautiful physical reminder of how history moves through generations. We can’t wait to see who joins this guitar’s remarkable legacy.
SOURCES: blackpast.org, nps.gov, worldmusic.net, historylink.org, Memphis Music Hall of Fame, “Memphis Minnie’s ‘Scientific Sound’: Afro-Sonic Modernity and the Jukebox Era of the Blues” from American Quarterly, “The History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments” by Stephen Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL.
In our third installment with Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover, the master luthier shows PG's John Bohlinger how his team of builders assemble and construct guitars like a chef preparing food pairings. Hoover explains that the finer details like binding, headstock size and shape, internal bracing, and adhesives are critical players in shaping an instrument's sound. Finally, Richard explains how SCGC uses every inch of wood for making acoustic guitars or outside ventures like surfboards and art.
Featuring torrefied solid Sitka Spruce tops, mahogany neck, back, and sides, and Fishman Presys VT EQ System, these guitars are designed to deliver quality tone and playability at an affordable price point.
Cort Guitars, acclaimed for creating instruments that exceed in value and quality, introduces the Essence Series. This stunning set of acoustic guitars is designed for musicians looking for the quintessential classic acoustic guitar with fabulous tone all at an exceptional price point. The Essence Series features two distinct body shapes: The Grand Auditorium and the OM Cutaway. Whatever the flavor, the Essence Series has the style to suit.
The Essence-GA-4 is the perfect Grand Auditorium acoustic. Wider than a dreadnought, the Essence-GA-4 features a deep body with a narrower waist and a width of 1 ¾” (45mm) at the nut. The result is an instrument that is ideal for any number of playing styles: Picking… strumming… the Essence GA-4 is completely up for the task.
The Essence-OM-4 features a shallower body creating a closer connection to the player allowing for ease of use on stage. With its 1 11/16’th (43mm) nut width, this Orchestra Model is great for fingerpickers or singer/guitarists looking for better body contact for an overall better playing experience.
Both acoustics are topped with a torrefied solid Sitka Spruce top using Cort’s ATV process. The ATV process or “Aged to Vintage”, “ages” the Spruce top to give it the big and open tone of older, highly-sought-after acoustics. To further enhance those vintage tones, the tops bracing is also made of torrefied spruce. The mahogany neck, back, and sides create a warm, robust midrange and bright highs. A rosewood fingerboard and bridge add for a more balanced sound and sustain. The result is amazing tone at first strum. 18:1 Vintage Open Gear Tuners on the mahogany headstock offer precise tuning with vintage styling. The herringbone rosette & purfling accentuates the aesthetics of these instruments adding to their appeal. Both acoustics come in two choices of finish. Natural Semi-Gloss allows the Sitka spruce’s natural beauty to shine through and classic Black Top Semi-Gloss.
A Fishman® Presys VT EQ System is installed inside the body versus other systems that cut into the body to be installed. This means the instrument keeps its natural resonance and acoustic flair. The Presys VT EQ System keeps it simple with only Volume and Tone controls resulting in a true, crisp acoustic sound. Lastly, Elixir® Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze Light .012-.053 Acoustic Strings round out these acoustics. This Number 1 acoustic guitar string delivers consistent performance and extended tone life with phosphor bronze sparkle and warmth. The Essence Series takes all these elements, combines them, and exceeds in playability, looks, and affordability.
Street Price: $449.00
For more information, please visit cortguitars.com.