Nashville's most visible music is on Broadway, and it is not where the good music is. The distinction is the single most useful thing to understand about the city.
The listening rooms
Small venues where the audience stays quiet while songwriters perform their own material — often in the round, with three or four writers trading songs and explaining where they came from.
This is where Nashville's craft is actually on display, and it is the opposite of the honky-tonk experience.
The Bluebird Cafe is the famous one and is small enough that it books out; there is a reservation system and a same-day queue.
Others across the city run songwriter nights on a regular schedule, and they are easier to get into and frequently just as good.
Broadway
Several floors of live music in every building, free to walk into, bands playing for tips.
Worth doing once for the spectacle. The bands are competent cover acts playing over a loud crowd, and drink prices reflect the location.
Most visitors find one evening is enough.
The Ryman
A former tabernacle that housed the Grand Ole Opry for over thirty years, with acoustics regarded as among the best of any venue in the country.
Daytime tours run. Seeing a show there is considerably better, and the schedule covers far more than country.
The Opry itself now performs at the Opry House outside town, returning to the Ryman for winter seasons.
The museums
The Country Music Hall of Fame — genuinely good, and it takes the history seriously.
RCA Studio B, where Elvis and Dolly Parton recorded, tickets sold through the Hall of Fame.
The National Museum of African American Music, downtown.
The Parthenon in Centennial Park — a full-scale replica, which is exactly as odd as it sounds.
The neighbourhoods
East Nashville, across the river — bars, restaurants, record shops, and where people who live in the city spend their evenings.
12South — walkable, with shops and coffee.
Germantown — the restaurant district, and the farmers' market.
The Gulch, redeveloped and central.
Eating
Hot chicken is the local dish and the heat levels are not a joke — the hottest tiers at the established places are genuinely punishing. Start lower than you think.
Meat-and-three — a plate of one meat and three vegetable sides, at cafeteria-style places, and the cheapest good lunch in the city.
Practical
Downtown is walkable; everything else needs a car or a ride-hail.
Weekends downtown are dominated by party groups, which is worth knowing before booking a Saturday.
Spring and autumn are the seasons — summer is hot and humid.