My wife has been teaching me to read music and I'm beginning to see a lot of uses for this information. I already know how to use the Nashville numbering system to transpose the chords of a song into another key. So I was wondering could you use this system and apply it to the notes of a melody to change the key?
Tim Madsen
Nobody cares how much you know,
until they know how much you care.
"What you keep to yourself you lose, what you give away you keep forever." -Axel Munthe
Yeah, if you give the melody notes numbers (scale degrees) instead of note names, you just play the same scale degrees for the new key. Make sense?
Original key is C - C(1) D(2) E(3) F(4) G(5) A(6) B(7)
New key is A - A(1) B(2) C#(3) D(4) E(5) F#(6) G#(7)
In classical music, rock and jazz, Roman numerals are used for the chords:
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - viidim
Upper case for major chords and lower case for minors.
Arabic numerals are used for the notes:
1_2_34_5_6_78
Under the Nashville system, Arabic numerals are used for both chords and notes, which can cause confusion. I've also seen beginners use Roman numerals for both, also confusing.
Anyway, the short answer is yes, you can use numerals to transpose melodies as well as chords.
Only trouble is, or can be, that showing octave is hard with simple numerals. That's what standard notation is for.
--
Helgi Briem
hbriem AT gmail DOT com
Thanks guys, hopefully some day I'll be able to read standard notation well enough and know the guitar fret board well enough to just play from sheet music. That is if I live that long, at my age that's not a sure thing.
Tim Madsen
Nobody cares how much you know,
until they know how much you care.
"What you keep to yourself you lose, what you give away you keep forever." -Axel Munthe
