Keys U Like/Dislike

Dave Seddon · Post by **Dave Seddon** » 21 Oct 2006 1:29 pm

I've been through the procedure to look for this subject, couldn't find any threads on it so here goes. (Could be our spelling is different in the UK.) Anyhow do you have a favourite key and do you have a key you hate to play in. I don't really know why but I hate playing in E, my favourite key is F.
Cheers Dave.

Fred Justice · Post by **Fred Justice** » 21 Oct 2006 1:53 pm

Hi Dave, I prefer to play in the flat's myself, F, B flat and E flat are my favorite's I guess.

------------------
Fred Justice,
Justice Custom Cases & Cabinets,
Fred's Music, www.fredjusticemusic.com

Terry Edwards · Post by **Terry Edwards** » 21 Oct 2006 2:21 pm

Key West is nice!

Terry

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 21 Oct 2006 3:00 pm

I like "F" the best! You have the full range of the steel available without dealing with the out of tune open strings. And the steel has a nice full tone at the first fret and hammer ons are available.

Greg

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 21 Oct 2006 3:41 pm

Whatever key the singer is in is usually what I prefer...

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 21 Oct 2006 4:42 pm

I've found that if you're talking steel guitar instrumentals......the key you select will either limit your special affects or signature sounds or will enable you to expand upon them. Like in C6th tuning, you've got little open string things you can toss in here and there in the E chord; A chord; C Chord, etc., etc. Hammer ons are easy in the D Chord...
When it comes to vocals, one surely needs to know the guitar well enough to be able to play in any given key at any given time that the vocalist might dictate. Not much choice here.......
What's this talk about flats and sharps?
What you play in one key, is an identical PATTERN in any other key you play along the neck. No biggee! Who thinks flats and sharps when playing steel guitar anyway?
Don't you just play what fits?

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 21 Oct 2006 6:50 pm

What you play in one key, is an identical PATTERN in any other key you play along the neck. No biggee!

Agreed Ray, But in the flat keys you will tend to play a little on the 'dull' side of pitch rather than 'Bright' because of the tendencies of the rest of the instrumentation's temper. I Think !

------------------

Darrell Owens · Post by **Darrell Owens** » 21 Oct 2006 7:23 pm

Jim,
Sure. Anyone can play in the same key with the singer and the rest of the band, but try playing one fret below them.

Terry Edwards · Post by **Terry Edwards** » 21 Oct 2006 7:34 pm

One of my alltime favorite stories on this forum was about Tommy White kicking of a song in the wrong key live on the GOO due to a miscommunication. If I recall the story correctly, Vince Gill said to Tommy backstage: "what's a half step amoung friends!"

DeWitt Scott · Post by **DeWitt Scott** » 21 Oct 2006 7:44 pm

One of the pro steel players told me one time that the most popular keys that we normally play in, E, A etc have overtones. The flat keys and their enharmonic sharp keys don't have those overtones. Personally I rarely change the key of instrumentals that they were originally played in. Like a lot of other players I depend on the pro player to select the best keys to record in so I can't critize their choice of keys. I find the keys of F - Bb - Eb work really well for a nice mellow tone for my C6th Frypan tuning. The string gauges for this tuning can vary greatly. Did you know that some players recommend that strings for a short scale guitar is different from the long scale guitar? I've tried string gauges sent to me by both Ray Montee and Wayne Tanner and the size of the gauges would surprise you! Obviously, they are gauges that Jerry Byrd used in the early years of his career. I liked them but when I have my son, DeWitt, change the strings for me I fail to let him know about those gauges and he puts the same gauges that are on the C6 pedal steel guitar. So, the way it turns out I ignore the different gauges between the short and long scale and the thinner strings and stay with those gauges. Of course, it's personal and works fine for me. Scotty
[This message was edited by DeWitt Scott on 21 October 2006 at 08:46 PM.]

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 21 Oct 2006 8:24 pm

Most disliked key= jail key

Jerry L Miller · Post by **Jerry L Miller** » 21 Oct 2006 8:25 pm

i like to play every thing i know in every key. this lets you know youre guitar better. and when a singer says Bd you know every fret and string group and pedal and lever movement. i love Bd
jerry

Ted Solesky · Post by **Ted Solesky** » 22 Oct 2006 12:32 am

Guys, I tune to Eb open, so, E is the 1st fret to me. When I had a Fender 1000, like most of the guys, I was popping the thin G# string. I heard that Jimmy Day and Buddy Emmons tuned back. So, I tried it and got used to it. Later, I got a ZB and kept it in Eb etc. I get to play some nice open string licks in G and D and E. I don't recommend anyone doing this but, like I said, I got used to it.

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 22 Oct 2006 1:25 am

I play certain things in the keys of E and A where I use the open strings a lot. I can do things in these keys that can't be done in other keys.

I find that my mind stops working when I get into flat keys and I have trouble visualising things I can easily so in sharp keys. There are two classical pieces I play that are in Db, but the ony way I can play them is to think C#.

------------------
Warning: I have a Telecaster and I'm not afraid to use it.
-----------
My web site

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 22 Oct 2006 2:41 am

G is the easiest so far.

Bob Stone · Post by **Bob Stone** » 22 Oct 2006 7:10 am

I have had a lot of fun playing in the keys one might normally shy away from. Turns that there is some really cool stuff that can be done in E-flat and the relative minor when playing reso in high-bass G tuning.

In six-string C6th some pretty interesting things can be done in D-flat. JB liked that key and I can see why.

When I play a new tune in these and other rather uncommon keys I always seem to learn a lot.

Smiley Roberts · Post by **Smiley Roberts** » 22 Oct 2006 10:39 am

For some unknown reason,I have a "mental block"(so,what else is new??) in the key of "B natural". I,either,slip up to "C" or down to "Bb". I like the good ol' "Country" keys,i.e. "C"(my fav),"A","F","G",etc.

Another thing that irritates me. Why do female singers have to sing in "Ab","C#",etc.? Can't they go up or down a "half-a-notch"?? Male singers can,why can't they??

------------------
<pre> ~ ~
©¿© It don't mean a thang,
mm if it ain't got that twang.</pre>

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 22 Oct 2006 3:03 pm

As Ray said, the patterns are the same no matter what key. But this is moreso in E9 tuning, using pedals. If you use C6 tuning then to jump to the dominant and subdominant is up the fretboard if you're playing down the neck, and down the fretboard if you're playing up the neck.

The keys I don't like playing in are those on the open strings, E in E9 tuning, or C in C6 tuning. (In my case I tune the E9 neck to D#9, which cuts down on string breakage, so I don't like playing in D#.)

A lot of keyboard blues players like to play in D#/Eb because in that key the blues scale is all the black keys.[This message was edited by Alan F. Brookes on 22 October 2006 at 04:04 PM.]

Don Barnhardt · Post by **Don Barnhardt** » 22 Oct 2006 3:07 pm

I like to play at the fifth fret so I just play whatever key happens to be there.

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 22 Oct 2006 3:30 pm

I'll of course play in any key called for, but I tend to be most intuitive in keys that have up to four flats or five sharps in the key signature. So I'm most comfortable in C to A flat or C to B. After that I have to start reacquainting my eyes to different sight positions.

I recall a great Buddy Emmons key thing many of us witnessed: Back at ISGC, early 90's sometime, Buddy had the Swing Band there with Pennington. Ray came up to sing a tune, gave it an intro speech, then Buddy kicked it off in the wrong key for Ray. They stopped after a couple bars, and Buddy got on the mike and said "oh, I'm sorry. Did you want it in YOUR key?"

Big E's timing was perfect and the laughter was deafening!

One of those great moments at Scotty's.

------------------
Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

[This message was edited by Herb Steiner on 22 October 2006 at 04:31 PM.]

Jerry Hayes R.I.P. · Post by **Jerry Hayes R.I.P.** » 23 Oct 2006 5:55 am

I was playing lead guitar in one band in the early seventies which had a featured female vocalist (Joanne Rinard) I hope she doesn't see this! She loved to sing in C#, Ab, etc. and never seemed to do anything in major keys. At that time we had the late great Art Sanchez on steel. So Artie had this idea that we'd just change her keys without her knowing we did it. When she'd say a tune's name and key Art, the bass player and I would use the hand signals (like key of D, two fingers pointing up for the key signature of two sharps) and do a C# tune in D, an Ab tune in A and so forth. We changed a lot of her songs to either a half tone up or down and for almost a year she never knew it. I know he reads the Forum so he'll see this but our old singing drummer (Monte Paul) did the same thing and we gave him the same treatment and he never even suspected! Sorry Monte...............JH in Va.

------------------
Don't matter who's in Austin (or anywhere else) Ralph Mooney is still the king!!!

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 23 Oct 2006 6:10 am

Pretty much any key is fine, but I especially like the key of F. As Greg C. said above, the key of F offers the full range of the neck (on E9). It's handy for speedpicking runs that start on fret 20 and go all the way down to fret 1. Same thing for chords and chord patterns. It's nice to have that big fat F chord on fret 1. Just my opinion

------------------
My Site - Instruction [This message was edited by Doug Beaumier on 23 October 2006 at 07:11 AM.]

Dave Seddon · Post by **Dave Seddon** » 23 Oct 2006 9:45 am

I have to say Doug I'm not really a "Speed Picker" but I think there is something about the key of "F" that has a fullness and rich sound about it. Dave.

Ted Solesky · Post by **Ted Solesky** » 23 Oct 2006 10:01 am

Another quick note about pickin around the 4th fret. I may be wrong but I thought I read an article where Lloyd Green played some instrumentals in G# or A# to avoid the dead spots (7th & 12th frets) and sort of confused the piano player because he had to pick in awkward positions. When the fret boards were more solid, I learned about the 'slide under the strings cable' from Buddy Emmons when I saw him with ET, which allowed you to play open string licks almost anywhere on the neck. The trick was to get it to put enough pressure under the strings to ring properly. When the singer sang in E, I slide the cable under the first fret and that moved my dead spot to the 13th fret which is not used hardly in the key of E.

Gary Shepherd · Post by **Gary Shepherd** » 23 Oct 2006 10:03 am

In thinking about a post above, tuning to Eb9, um, cool.

And one could make a fretboard template with the frets and position markers all moved one half-step. G (for example) could still be on the 3rd fret with the template.

I may try this some time just for fun. But I suppose it would affect the tuning of my pulls wouldn't it?

------------------
Gary Shepherd

Carter D-10

www.16tracks.com