A# as a Nashville Chart Sees It

Count off in A# and the seven numbers name A#, C, D, D#, F, G, A — in that order, every time, on a page that never mentions A# anywhere.

Three of those need a mark and four do not. A bare number is a MAJOR chord, so 2-, 3-, 6-, 7- are what a chart writes when it wants the chord the key would have supplied anyway; a bare 2 means the writer wanted something else and meant it.

A mandolin player reads a number and the two and the four — the chop lands on the backbeat whatever the digit is, so the chart tells this player where to put a chord, never when. The digit decides which four courses get stopped; the count-off already decided when, and no mark on the page argues with it.