THE NASHVILLE NUMBER SYSTEM includes a collection of handwritten number charts for the songs on the CD, String Of Pearls. Each song is charted by hand from the CD by:

• Charlie McCoy (Hee-Haw)
• David Briggs (Session Keyboardist/Arranger)
• Eddie Bayers (Session drummer)
• Jimmy Capps (Studio guitarist, Grand Ole Opry Staff Band)
• Brent Rowan (Studio guitarist/Producer)
• Lura Foster (Charts for TV shows: Nashville Now, Music City Tonight, Primetime Country)
• John Hobbs (Session Keyboardist)
• Mike Chapman (Session Bassist)
• Biff Watson (Session Guitarist)
• Chris Farren (Producer/Guitarist)
• Tony Harrell (Session Keyboardist/Studio Owner)

Each of these musicians wrote 5 number charts in his or her style from the String Of Pearls cd. For example, the song, String Of Pearls, has charts written by: Charlie McCoy, Brent Rowan, John Hobbs, Jimmy Capps and Biff Watson. The song, Waylon, has charts written by Tony Harrell, Lura Foster, Chris Farren, Biff Watson and Eddie Bayers. The idea is that you’ll be able to compare, side by side, some of the different styles of notation and symbols you can use to chart the same piece of music. So, as you listen to a song on the CD, you can flip between different charts written of the same song. These different charts represent the kinds of numbering techniques that you are liable to run into in almost all of the major recording and television studios, clubs, showcases, rehearsal halls, and other situations where music is performed in Nashville.

"I'd say 95% of the time we use Number System charts. The one really great advantage of the Number System is the ease of transposition--if a singer comes in and the song is in F and he or she says, 'No, I want to do this in Eb', you'd have a problem with a regular chart. You'd have to rewrite the whole thing. Whereas with the Number Chart, you just say, 'Eb? Okay!'"
--Brent Mason from Country Guitar Magazine

”Once, Vicki Carr came and looked over my shoulder and said, ’You guys aren’t in the music business, you’re in the numbers business.”
“That was the only way we’d work with the Monkee’s because the guy hadn’t written the song. He came out after about an hour or so of us sitting around. He strummed the guitar and we wrote down the chords, and then later on he wrote the words. It was not the way we usually made music.”
--Harold Bradley - Interview