Ton o’ Links And A New Post Tomorrow!
Why, Mr. Metheny….?
Last week’s Bonus Round was a bit of a repeat, but I did have a purpose. The question was “A crazy songwriter covers Paul Simon?” The answer is Willie Nelson (who wrote “Crazy”, the Patsy Cline hit that was the subject of the Nashville notation chart in the post) acoustically covered Paul Simon’s song “American Tune”, which was the 9th song in the setlist from the famous “Concert in Central Park” (subtitle clue) and also appears on a couple of Paul Simon’s albums. Yes, I am aware (for my “special” readers), that Willie Nelson also covered “Still Crazy After All These Years”, which was the 8th song in the Central Park setlist. Nice try. I want to talk about “American Tune”!! It was the subject of a previous Bonus Round, but I wanted to highlight something about it today. It’s always been my favorite Paul Simon solo song, in part because of the hauntingly beautiful melody. In researching the song, I learned Mr. Simon’s inspiration for the melody was a hymn, which was based on a German poem, later set to music, and after that, the music was harmonized for choral and orchestral performance by none other than JS Bach, and in the centuries since has been the inspiration for many songs, most in the church hymnal genre, but also by Mr. Simon. If you’re familiar with “American Tune”, you can clearly hear the influence in this lovely rendition of the hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”:
Mr. Simon clearly listens widely to all sorts of music for inspiration, as every songwriter should.
Today, we’ll preview the Nashville notation process a bit, with some overview, while saving a walkthrough of the process for tomorrow’s post.
First, a little more research for today’s post yielded this as background “The Number System was originally developed by a Nashville vocal group called the Jordanaires; at the time, the Jordanaires were regularly working three or four sessions per day, recording three or four songs per session. They weren’t being given sheet music — only lyrics — and wouldn’t have time to work out and then memorize their harmony parts for 12–15 songs per day, so they came up with the idea of using numbers based on the key of the song…” Credit: The Nashville Number System Demystified By Dave Martin on Sep 30, 2021
I’ve included a link to the article below.
Color me a bit skeptical that was the actual origin, I suspect something like this had been around in different forms for awhile, but my skepticism aside, good for the “Jordanaires” for making it a “system”.
And it is systematic in nature, but in a very fluid sort of way. The “Crazy” chart from last week is a bit of a hybrid, using the Nashville notation system together with traditional musical score notation all mashed together. That speaks to the versatile and adaptable nature of how it works - to be useful, a Nashville notation chart can be as simple or as complex as it needs to be within the group using it. For our purposes, we’re going to stay as simple as a small group of musicians, rehearsing for performance of relatively simple songs, would require.
Let me digress for just a moment with all this.
What I am calling the Nashville Notation system is also known as the Nashville Numbering system. You’ll see that in some of the links below. I’ve learned from, and played music with, a variety of people. They all bring useful and sometimes unique concepts to music, and may use a variety of correct, but different terms (like Nashville Numbering vs Nashville Notation). I tend (somewhat unfairly, I admit) to mentally divide them into a couple of broad groups, which I’ve arbitrarily named “Berklee peeps” and “Classic peeps”. Berklee is a college of music in Boston with some branch campuses in other cities. It’s known as a jazz/contemporary music college. The folks I’ve learned from who are Berklee peeps (whether they attended Berklee or not - though some of them did) tend to be more improvisational in nature, probably due to the nature of jazz and contemporary music. “Classic peeps”, whether they attended a classical music/Fine Arts program at a university or not, tend to have a little more rules based approach. You’re going to rehearse, jam, and play with all types of people as you continue your journey, some who defy categories like the ones above. My advice: listen to and learn from everyone, help those who can use (and especially those who ask for) your help, and be respectful and polite to all.
Okay, on with today’s post. First, at the top of the page is a link to a .PDF file I named Nashville Format. It’s not a “fill in the blanks” template, nor is it a complete list of every section you might encounter in a particular song. For example, I didn’t include a section for a “pre-chorus”, though many songs have them. Instead, I tried to make it versatile enough to account for some of the most common sections you’ll find in the most common song genres you’ll likely play in (blues, pop, rock, country, Christian praise [which is mostly based musically, though not lyrically, in the other genres listed]).
The format chart above is also not “the” format, it’s “a” format a lot of folks familiar with Nashville notation would most likely be able to recognize and decipher. In your band, or the folks you jam with, definitely negotiate a common format, and if you find the one above useful, modify it to fit your needs.
If you get a chance to look at the format chart, and you can print it (remember it’s a “format”, not a template), it may be helpful as a reference for tomorrow’s post.
For today, a ton o’ links, on a variety of subjects:
“Bandcamp” - online merch store
“Make More Money” tips (this one will end up with you on an email list - beware - seems kinda interesting though)
Bonus Round: If you know why, this isn’t the correct acoustic guitar song by a jazz legend answer for you….
See You Tomorrow!!
Cheers, and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
