Hey guys (checking back to see if any women are here) Had a chance to use my much beloved number system in front of a fair-sized audience last night. Here's the scenario.

I was gonna do three songs solo, but saw Trevor Mills, a fine (very) young bass player gettin' ready to leave the stage. I know that trevor studied theory (near Boston) and asked him to play with me, even though I planned on doing some old time country stuff, and he's a jazz guy. My initial instructions (for Dick Justice's "Black Dog Blues") were Key of D, circle of fives, start on the 6th. He nailed the B7, E7, A7, D pattern like we'd been playing it for years.

Next song: John Prine's "Hello in there". Instructions: Key of G. 1,4,5, look for the 2 off the top (it's a 2minor, but since he didn't know the song I doubted that he'd play a scale so just "2" sufficed) and the flat 7 in the chorus. I'd forgotten the "3 minor" so when it came up, I just whispered "3" and he nailed it. There's a Major Seventh during every verse so I emphasised the F# note in my G chord, and he picked it up by the second verse and played the note as part of a G scale.

Third song: Improvised Swing Blues. Instructions: "12 bar in E", use diminisheds, stay with the 5 for the 9th and 10th bars.

The end result is that the audience certainly wouldn't have known we'd never played together before, and the "rehearsal period" was no longer than 10 seconds for each song. I'm not good with math myself and it took me a while to learn this "shorthand", so i sympathize with my students who find it just a jumble at first, but boy, does it pay off.

Rick