City preview · NASHVILLE

Nashville: wood type for posters, numbers for chords

At Hatch, one designer handles a poster from layout to shipping. Musicians at RCA Studio B helped refine number charts that work when a singer changes key. Centennial Park added a Taylor Swift reading bench in 2023. At Newroz, the bakery window supplies thin wraps and the thicker bread Kurdish residents eat for breakfast.

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Hatch Show Print · Editorial illustration, not a historical photo

Music at work, a park bench and a neighborhood bakery

Wood type, number charts, a Taylor Swift bench and Kurdish breakfast bread

Four complete stories and their public sources are shown here; the rest of the collection is in the app.

01 · Hatch Show Print

One poster, one designer

The designer packs the finished poster, too.

A designer chooses old type, adds hand-carved images and lays out a concert poster. At Hatch, the same person handles both design and printing, right through to packing and shipping. The wooden letters still come out of their cabinets to be inked and pressed onto paper. When the shop moved into the Country Music Hall of Fame building, the work of making music posters by hand moved with it.

Source: hatchshowprint.com

02 · Historic RCA Studio B

A new key, the same chart

The key changes; the chart stays.

If a singer wants a higher key, how does the band follow? The Nashville Number System records a chord sequence with numbers and symbols, so players can keep the same relationships when the key changes. Neil Matthews and Charlie McCoy were among those who refined the system at RCA Studio B. It also lets musicians work out their parts during a session without waiting for a note-by-note score.

Source: countrymusichalloffame.org

03 · Taylor Swift Bench

A song left a bench in the park

A park named in song dedicated a reading bench.

Taylor Swift mentions Centennial Park in invisible string. When her Eras Tour came to Nashville in 2023, the city dedicated a reading bench in the park's sunken garden. A commemorative plaque invites people to read in the park and welcomes the singer home.

Source: conservancyonline.com

04 · Newroz Marketسوبر ماركت

Bread beside the lunch counter

Thin wraps and thick breakfast breads share this window.

At the back of Newroz, the food counter stands beside the bakery window. Thin flatbreads made here wrap meat and vegetables, and customers also buy them by the bag. Thicker, leavened Barbari bread, often scattered with seeds, is nearby. Kurdish residents told a visiting reporter they eat this bread for breakfast with eggs, tahini or yogurt-and-cucumber sauce.

Source: thenashvillian.com

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