Numbered Chord System – Accidentals

Sometimes a chord appears in a song that doesn’t fall neatly into the selection of 7 notes of the original key. Things never stay too simple, do they?

To help explain how we’re going to number these kinds of chords, I’ll use the Chris Tomlin song “Holy is the Lord” which uses a couple of accidentals.

Chris Tomlin: Holy is the Lord (Key of A)

Remember, here is the chord selection you’d expect to see in A Major:

Chord	I	ii	iii or I/III	IV	V	vi or IV/VI	V/VII
Key of A	A	Bm	C#m or A/C#	D	E	F#m or D/F#	E/G#

Accidental Example 1: Minor/Major change

The verse is straightforward so we won’t bother with that, but the pre-chorus is of interest. Here’s the chord chart for the section where the lyrics are “And together we sing, everyone sing”:

B

D

B

D

B Major to D Major. Whaaat? B Major should be B Minor right? Well, there’s no should about it. There are no unbreakable rules in songwriting, just commonalities.

To display this change as numbered chords is simple – remember we use lower case for minor chords and upper case for major ones. Therefore the chord chart for the pre-chorus would look like this:

II

IV

II

IV

Got it? Good.

Accidental Example 2: Totally “out there” chords

Now, the bridge (“It’s rising up all around…”) is one freaky chord sequence. Here it is:

A

E/G#

G

D/F#

Oh man that is messed up! That G Major is not allowed in there, right? Well, it’s there and you’ve got to deal with it.

Here’s the thing – a G is neither the 6th nor the 7th note of the scale of A Major. It’s in between. We’re going to call it a flat 7th (b7). You could just as easily call it a sharp 6th (#6) but we don’t do that, so don’t go there. It’s a flat 7th (b7). Got that? Therefore we’ll display it in a numbered sequence like this:

I

V / VII

bVII

IV / VI

Voilà!

Numbered Chord System – Inversions

Quite often, chords are played as inversions. Those chords are displayed as “slash chords”.

Example: G/B

When you see the chord G/B, it is an instruction to play the chord of G, but to make sure that the lowest note that underpins the chord is a B (where it would normally be a G).

Using the Key of G as an example again, here are the three places that inversions frequently pop up:

• G/B is often used instead of Bm
• C/E is sometimes used instead of Em
• D/F# is almost exclusively used instead of F#m^7b5 (the chord which would otherwise have to be used in the 7th position and is a bit too jazzy and blue for most situations).

So I know that sounds confusing, but it needn’t be. All it means is that the 7 notes of the scale are played as an almost invariable sequence of major chords, minor chords and inversions. Here is how that looks using the keys of G & D.

Example: Chord sequences using the Keys of G & D

Chord	I	ii	iii or I/III	IV	V	vi or IV/VI	V/VII
Key of G	G	Am	Bm or G/B	C	D	Em or C/E	D/F#
Key of D	D	Em	F#m or D/F#	G	A	Bm or G/B	A/C#

That’s 99% of songs right there. Next post I’ll cover accidentals – the very rare occasions when a chord falls outside of this selection.

Numbered Chord System – The Basics

There was a time when I didn’t know this stuff and I wish someone had taught me, so I make no apologies for making this really simple. This post is just to outline the basic principles, and I’ll follow with how to get the theory to become useful in practice.

In every major scale there are 7 unique notes. They ascend from a starting note which defines the key. Except on very rare occasions (which I’ll deal with in a later post) all songs are set in one key and use chords that are based upon those 7 notes, to which we assign numbers to in a simple, obvious sequence.

Example: The Keys of G & D

Chord Number	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
Key of G	G	A	B	C	D	E	F#
Key of D	D	E	F#	G	A	B	C#

So that we know when to play each chord as major or minor, chord charts show major chords are in uppercase, and minor chords in lower case. Each cell of the table below indicates a whole bar of time, for example 4 beats when the time signature is 4/4.

I

V

vi

IV

This chord sequence, if played in the key of G, would translate as 1 bar of G, 1 bar of D, 1 bar of E minor and 1 bar of C. If in the key of D, it would translate as D, A, Bm, G. That one chord sequence alone will sound incredibly familiar to you as forming the basis of many, many songs. Try it out!

Converting Worship Leadsheets to show only Numbered Chords

Every time I lead worship, I bring folders for the band that contain leadsheets (lyrics with chords written above them) for every song in our repertoire. Personally I only use them for the lyrics, which I am awful at memorising, because the chord sequences come naturally to me. Generally speaking, though, the band would be pretty lost without the chords.

This year I’m going to try and release band members from being tied to leadsheets by teaching them to hear the very limited range of intervals that you find across worship songs, so they can then navigate their way through those songs in any key and purely by ear. They’ll also be able to work out and follow any random chord sequences I play without me having to call out chord names.

I’m beginning that process by converting all leadsheets to contain charts with chord numbers in place of chord names. Therefore C – F – Am – G will become I – IV – vi – V.

Confused? You won’t be… not once I’ve finished explaining in the next few posts.

A Response to “Why I Love Church Even Though I Am An Atheist”

This blog post is written as a response to this excellent piece “Why I Love Church Even Though I Am An Atheist” by Tess Wynn.

Tess, I loved your blog post. It is so gratifying to me personally that you find our church such a welcoming place where you experience celebration of life and community, because that’s exactly the type of environment I believe church should be. I admire you so much; there are a lot of Christians who have dismissed us as an expression of church for all sorts of reasons without even visiting us, and yet you have come with an open mind and with no animosity. I would rather see 10 atheists like you come through our doors than a hundred suspicious Christians.

Your post is also a refreshing contrast to the “Why I hate religion but love Jesus” theme that has recently gone viral on Christian blogs, Twitter and FB profiles. While I understand where that point of view is coming from (because I DO love Jesus), I think it can only arise out of an absence of the experience of church that you have described.

I’d love to know what you think about the prayer ministry and subsequent testimonies of healing that you must have witnessed at our gatherings. There are people jumping around who could barely walk, and I myself leave my asthma inhaler at home these days, a year and a half since what I call a miraculous healing.

Keep coming. Bring your friends. Oh, and do you think you’ll ever fill in that Wisconsin outline tattoo with any topographical features?