Your favourite uncommon key.

Tannin · July 2022

Everybody plays stuff in the common, easy keys, especially on acoustic where most players are more likely to use a lot of open strings. There won't be many of us here who don't play many things in keys like:

E
A
C and Am
G and Em
D

Take those keys as read. What are your favourite *other* keys to play in?

thecolourbox · July 2022

I'm from a piano background where certain keys definitely do have a different resonance and sound, so when I write on piano then I like using Bb Minor, Eb major and F#/Gb minor. Some of those are easier than others without a capo on guitar!

On guitar without capo I like F major and minor, and Bb Minor as they give a very different sound than just playing E or A with a capo on first fret

octatonic · July 2022

Bb and Eb.

They aren't uncommon in any music with horn or woodwind players though.
Many guitarists are bewildered by them though.

ICBM · July 2022

B, major or minor.

When I was at a fairly formative part of my learning curve I spent quite a lot of time in a band with a female lead vocalist whose natural range centred around there - she usually wrote songs in "G" capo'd at the 4th fret or "Am" capo'd at the second, so I got very used to playing in those keys, in most cases specifically without a capo so I was forced into not duplicating her parts, which sounded much better.

But as a result of that and her occasional tendency to change the key - ie move her capo! - after the event, I pretty quickly learned to transpose and base a lot of my playing around barre and half-barre shapes, so I can now play in most keys tolerably easily.

earwighoney · July 2022

Open tunings and partial capos make it enjoyable and fairly easy to play in different keys.

Danny1969 · July 2022

C#m is my fave, also like B minor and B major.
F, Bb and Eb are my least favourite, which is a bummer for a guitarist in a Kate Bush tribute band.
I don't tend to use bar chords or a capo, it's all thumb over the neck and as many open strings as possible

viz · July 2022

Looking back over my shoulder is in F minor, that’s pretty odd. And Fm7 is quite a stretch.

I love playing in Bb and Eb, they cause you to play nice and light up the neck, or use inversions. Really cool.

EvansDrD · July 2022

+1 for Bb and Eb

boogieman · July 2022

Danny1969 said:

C#m is my fave, also like B minor and B major.
F, Bb and Eb are my least favourite, which is a bummer for a guitarist in a Kate Bush tribute band.
I don't tend to use bar chords or a capo, it's all thumb over the neck and as many open strings as possible

I learnt All Along the Watchtower in C#m because I copied a video of someone playing it that way, not realising they’d also got the guitar tuned down a half step. It sounds weird to me played any other way now. I also like the way the part chords in C#m sound against the open strings.

Danny1969 · July 2022

boogieman said:

Danny1969 said:

C#m is my fave, also like B minor and B major.
F, Bb and Eb are my least favourite, which is a bummer for a guitarist in a Kate Bush tribute band.
I don't tend to use bar chords or a capo, it's all thumb over the neck and as many open strings as possible

I learnt All Along the Watchtower in C#m because I copied a video of someone playing it that way, not realising they’d also got the guitar tuned down a half step. It sounds weird to me played any other way now. I also like the way the part chords in C#m sound against the open strings.

It is in C#m originally, it's just the guitar is tuned down a half step. So if you play along in concert pitch you would need to move down to Cm ... but Hendrix played it in C#m position wise, same as Brightside was played in D, SCOM was played in D, Panama was played in E and so on.

When I work a song out I ignore the absolute pitch and just listen for open strings and familiar chord voicing's, then I can hear what's going on. The amount of people who couldn't figure out Brightside was amazing but I could hear the open E string adding the 2 / 9 so straight away you could tell he was playing it in D

C#m is the relative minor of Emaj so all the open strings are fair game except the G string, it's a great key for open inversions.

@viz What I don't like about Bb and Eb is the lack of open strings and available harmonics. These are the things that give you time to move position without any gaps, they essentially buy you time as a solo guitarist. For solo'ing over backing any key is cool but again, it's easier for country, Rockabilly and rock if you can use open strings as pedals, drones etc and some harmonics as seasoning

viz · July 2022

Danny1969 said

@viz What I don't like about Bb and Eb is the lack of open strings and available harmonics. These are the things that give you time to move position without any gaps, they essentially buy you time as a solo guitarist. For solo'ing over backing any key is cool but again, it's easier for country, Rockabilly and rock if you can use open strings as pedals, drones etc and some harmonics as seasoning

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, they're not as easy as E, A, D, G, C

I just mean the silver lining is that at least they make you work to find usable alternatives! - which sometimes sound interesting and cool.

Roland · July 2022

octatonic said:

Bb and Eb.

and their relative minors.

KevS · July 2022

I've wrote a lot in D Minor / F of course the saddest of all Keys...
G Minor / B Flat is good too..
That is when using open strings though..

If using movable chords surely it's all as easy as each other...
You just need to know the Chord form and where the roots are..
You don't even have to play the roots a lot of the time..
the Bass player often can have that covered..

You can even imply a 12 Bar Blues with 3 single chromatic notes next to each other on a single string...
Major Third in the middle that's the tonic...Flat 7s on each side the 4 and the 5....
It also inverts when you move it a Tritone..
Flat 7 is the Tonic with Two Major Thirds on each side..

Tannin · July 2022

C#m for me too. Also B major and B harmonic minor (I don't think I'd ever played anything much in B natural minor until I read @ICBM's post yesterday, picked up a guitar, and went down a whole new rabbit hole! Fun.

Gm is a big key for me. I use it a lot, but morphing into G major and back so often that I get dizzy. One of my favourite things with it is te old bass player's trick of playing the major 3 on the way up and the minor 3 on the way back down (There is probably a proper name for this.)

Throw in F# and that's about it for me. I see no point in using keys like G# where the instrument has nothing much in the way of open strings to add richness and variety to the sound. If you are just going to play up the neck, you might as well play electric.

blueskiwi · August 2022

Playing in harmonica-led blues bands we end up playing in F quite a lot. I think possibly due to the physics of that instrument I believe F is just a particularly good sounding key for them.

The obvious thing to do would be to capo up and pretend it's in E on the guitar but I quite like doing it without - a lot of the open string notes are actually usable when soloing down by the nut, you've got a 3, 6, 9, b5 and maj 7.

Eb would be the worst one for me, but can't recall anyone ever calling for anything in that key in years (not counting the SRV and Hendrix tunes that result from down-tuned guitars).

Ab also quite uncommon though I do one song in that key with my band, partly just adjusted for vocal range, and also to make a change from G which I use too much...

Favourite uncommon key would be F though.

greejn · August 2022

ICBM said:

B, major or minor.

When I was at a fairly formative part of my learning curve I spent quite a lot of time in a band with a female lead vocalist whose natural range centred around there - she usually wrote songs in "G" capo'd at the 4th fret or "Am" capo'd at the second, so I got very used to playing in those keys, in most cases specifically without a capo so I was forced into not duplicating her parts, which sounded much better.

But as a result of that and her occasional tendency to change the key - ie move her capo! - after the event, I pretty quickly learned to transpose and base a lot of my playing around barre and half-barre shapes, so I can now play in most keys tolerably easily.

Another vote for B, open string chords can be great.

Mellish · August 2022

Another C#m

fastonebaz · August 2022

Hm is my favourite. Very uncommon indeed

Tannin · August 2022

^ That would be Bb if we are going to speak English then.

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Your favourite uncommon key.

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