Things You'll Need:
- Guitar
- Pick
- Amp & cable if electric guitar
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Step 1
To get started you need a guitar. Taylor, Takamine, and Fender are a few of my favorites. You will also need a guitar pick. If you are playing with an electric guitar you will need an amp and a guitar cable.
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Step 2
One of the first things you need to know is a little bit about music theory. The major scale is whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step,half step. Starting in the key of E that would be E, F sharp, G sharp, A, B C sharp, D sharp, then back to E.
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Step 3
Now you assign numbers to each of the steps. So, 1 is E, 2 is F sharp, 3 is G sharp, 4 is A, 5 is B, 6 is c sharp, and the 7 is D sharp. The 1 chord is the key that you are playing in. Most songs today are written in 1,3,5 progressions. 99% of all ZZ Top songs that they wrote were 1,4,5 progressions.
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Step 4
A good excercise is to play each number for four beats in each key in order then practice modulating with the 4/5 chord (in the key of E that is the A/B chord) to the next key.
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Step 5
Once you get a good grip at playing in the Nashville number system and modulating from key to key you can start working on writing your own songs. After all that is what playing guitar is all about. I hope this has helped you out, I know it helped me out quite a bit. Using the Nashville number system makes you a very marketable and diverse guitar player.
