A 9sus4 on Fiddle, and the Number That Writes It

A 9sus4 spells A – B – D – E – G. That much is fixed. What is not fixed is what it is CALLED: hand the same chord to a chart in A and it is written 1; hand it to a chart in A# and the identical chord is written 7, on a page nobody had to rewrite.

A answers to the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and the 7 depending on what got called: it is a plain number in 7 of the twelve keys and needs an accidental in the other 5.

A fiddler reads a number as a set of notes to be inside rather than a chord to land on — the one reader on the floor who plays a line across the chart instead of a grip underneath it. One note at a time means the number is never played whole — it is outlined, and which of its tones gets outlined first is a decision made in the bar, not on the page.

Every position below is drawn for GDAE, 4 strings, open positions first and movable ones after them, and each one plays back — because the fastest way to check that a number was read right is to hear it.