In her review of Chas Williams' book "The Nashville Number System": www.GuitarSite.com/newsletters/990809/8.shtml Alice Franceschini writes:

...Yes, I am impressed with this book but I did find a flaw. On page 7 is a table called the Major Scales and Number Substitution Table. Basic music theory does not support the existence of a Cb Fb B# E#. Basic music theory states that whole notes will stay whole going up or down the scale.

Half notes are both a sharp and a flat note. This chart misleading allows one to think that B and Cb are the same thing. But basic music theory supports Bb while it does not support Cb. So this chart is more of an understanding and is not completely supported by music theory. ... I'm sorry to say so, but this passage highlights Ms. Franceschini's musical ignorance and makes me discount her review of the book.

The first difficulty is that she seems to refer to pitches that have no accidental attached as "whole notes" and to pitches containing accidentals as "half notes". "Whole notes" and "half notes" are terms of duration, not of pitch. Clearly she has mixed up "whole note" with "whole step" aka "Major 2nd", and similarly has confused "half note" with "half step" aka "Minor 2nd".

One of the fundamental characteristics of music that enables the Nashville Number system to work is that scales are composed of intervals, and that those intervals are constant across all keys. For example, the C Major scale, in pitch names, is C D E F G A B C, or in intervals with respect to the tonic, M2 M3 P4 P5 M6 M7 P8.

The Gb Major scale, in terms of pitches, is Gb Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F Gb, or in intervals with respect to the tonic, M2 M3 P4 P5 M6 M7 P8; note that the intervals are exactly the same as for C Major, it's just that the starting point is at a different place.

If you wrote the Gb Major scale without using the Cb, it would be misspelled: Gb Ab Bb B Db Eb F Gb, and the intervals wrt the root would be M2 M3 A3 P5 M6 M7 P8 - there's no 4th in this scale! So here's a case where standard music theory does indeed support the existance of a Cb. Similar examples are possible to demonstrate the existance of Fb, B#, and E#.

She writes, "This chart misleading allows one to think that B and Cb are the same thing." Of course they're the same thing, at least in the tempered scale used in most Western music since the time of Bach. They're called enharmonic equivalents, and they're no different from F# and Gb being the same pitch.

Then she states "basic music theory states that whole notes will stay whole going up or down the scale", meaning, I suppose, that pitches in a scale are the same going up or down the scale. Recall that the melodic minor scale is different going up and down: A B C D E F# G# A is the ascending melodic minor scale starting on A, while A G F E D C B A is the descending melodic minor scale starting on A.

It seems likely that the book in question is a valid and useful work. Unfortunately, Ms. Franceschini's review leaves me convinced that she is not equipped to produce a valid review of the book.

Best wishes,
Dennis O'Neill
dennis.c.o'neill@cpmx.saic.com

Original article:
www.GuitarSite.com/newsletters/990809/8.shtml

"The Nashville Number System" provides an interesting and easy to follow explanation of the Notation/chord Number System used by Nashville session musicians and other players through out the world as this universal tool becomes more and more popular. More info: www.projam.com/instruction/chaswilliams.htm

The book's author, Chas Williams, also has a Website:
www.nashville.net/~troppo/nns.htm
Chas Williams "The Nashville Number System"