BASS
WHY NUMBERS MATTER | Gary Lunn
Well, it’ s 2026. It’ s time to get on my NNS ship and sail into your lives! I’ m talking about the Nashville Number System once again. First off, for those of you who have mastered this wonderful blessing from Nashville, I salute you. For those of you who think I’ m fanatical, I humbly beg you to reconsider.
So let me ask you a question. How many of you are uncomfortable with transposing? How many of you have trouble seeing things in one key and playing them in another? For me, it’ s very difficult. It always has been.:(
Enter the Nashville Number System.:) Simple songs are a breeze! Let’ s say, what if the first eight measures are 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 1, 1 in the key of G? No problem. I know all of my major scales on the bass, so I simply realize that 1 = G, 4 = C, and 5 = D. That means that 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 5 means four beats of G, another four beats of G, four beats of C, another four beats of C, four beats of D, another four beats of D, four beats of G, and another four beats of G. Easy-peezy!
Now comes the miraculous part. You’ re having a guest singer for a particular service, and at rehearsal, they say,“ Can we lower this a step, please?” For a brief instant, you feel a tinge of panic, which is quickly replaced by you saying to yourself,“ I’ m going to change what“ 1” is( which is the key of the song) right now.” You write yourself a note on top of the chart indicating that the key is now F. The drummer counts off the song, and you begin to read the same chart with no transposition, and totally on the fly! Instantly, 1 is F, 4 is Bb, and 5 is C. You move your hand to your favorite position on the neck for that key, and you’ re off to the races. Suddenly you’ re playing the same song in“ F” as if you’ ve done it all of your life!
Surely you can see this. It saves you so much brain power and second-guessing. Trust me, if you practice this method to a point where it comes naturally, you will love it! It’ s a little more difficult for keyboard players to learn because the piano is not a position-based instrument, but still, it’ s worth the effort for the transposition factor alone.
Of course, there are songs with many other chords in them besides 1, 4, and 5. Many pop songs and worship songs these days have typical chord progressions like 1,4,6,5( C, F, A, G in the key of C) or 6,4,1,5( A, F, C, G) or 1,6,5,4( C, A, G, F), etc., and they repeat … FOREVER! Remember, it’ s okay. You have ONE JOB! Do it with excellence!
So here’ s another scenario: I’ m trying to sight-read a chart that I’ ve never played, and it’ s a last-second suggestion during the performance or service. As I try and read the chart, I don’ t know how many beats each chord change gets. For a bass player, this is a nightmare, especially if you don’ t know the song or are not even familiar with it. This is probably my biggest, long-standing gripe with“ Church Charts” regardless of whether they’ re written in letters OR numbers!
Hopefully during rehearsal, as the band plays the song, you can begin counting and marking your chart as fast as possible. As you know, the typical“ Church Chart” will have one chord over the lyric with no indication of how many beats you actually play each chord. For example, if a song has an“ A” chord and a“ D” chord over the first line, I need to know exactly how many measures I am supposed to play those two chords. It might be one bar apiece, or it might be two. So, let’ s say it’ s two bars of“ A” and two bars of“ D,” and my chart looks like A D over the lyrics.
The easiest way to fix this is to insert an extra letter for every measure played but not represented. Now my chart will look like A A D D. This shows me that I play two bars of“ A” and two bars of“ D.” Each letter represents one bar( 4 beats for each chord in 4 / 4 time, etc.) This is one of the easier chart fixes.
When there is more than one chord within a measure, we refer to it as“ split bar.” Since“ Church Charts” rarely show you how many beats each one of these chords is to be played, you have to fix this. First, draw parentheses around the first“ G” and“ C” to indicate that they both are played within one measure( 2 beats per chord). That’ s all you have to do. But, if the“ G” is to be played for three beats and the“ C” for one beat, draw three hash marks(///) under the“ G” and a single hash mark(/) under the“ C.” Now you have three beats of“ G” and one beat of“ C” clearly indicated( sometimes called a“ three and one split” beat-wise). Sometimes the opposite of this can happen, and you just indicate it by the number of hash marks beneath each chord pertaining to how many beats they are played. There are more specific variations to this( 1 / 8 note, 1 / 16 note, etc.), but at least you now know how to mark it on your chart so that you WILL play it correctly.
May God richly bless the work of your hands!
Gary Lunn Gary is a session player / producer / writer in Nashville, TN. Contact him at garylunn @ me. com for scheduling or ANY questions. Really! garylunn @ me. com
106 October 2026 Subscribe for Free...