I only know 1 Key, and I'm okay with it.

[Chubby85]

I used to play speed metal band, that used mainly one key, and it worked remarkably! Now that I play mainly acoustic country music, every gig (so many the last 4 years), has ONLY used the key of G🤷🏼 Anyone else only know one and are cool with it.. ?

[Bob Womack]

In one of her concert videos Amy Grant announced a particular song as being an older one of hers. She said you could tell it was one of those early songs because, when she got started, she wrote all her songs in D.

I find G to be a great key for fingerstyle if you don't want to work in multiple tunings. You can give your concerts variety by capoing up two or three frets on some songs to change the tonality and voice of the guitar a bit.

But I do play in several.

Bob

[Llewlyn]

Arg.... it really kills my ears (and my brain) to listen to a gig all played in the same key. Something to do with relaxing always to the same note. After having played a couple of tunes in the key of G major, it is time for a song in B flat!

Ll.

[ewalling]

Hey, it worked for Joseph Spence, who only played in the key of D in dropped-D tuning. When asked about all the other keys, he apparently replied that he got tired of them! Something like that.

[DetroitDave]

Originally Posted by Llewlyn

After having played a couple of tunes in the key of G major, it is time for a song in B flat!

Ll.

Of all ones to choose - why Bb? Is the age of the concert band finally coming back to replace rock & country?

[L20A]

Buy a capo and you are gold!

[Llewlyn]

Originally Posted by DetroitDave

Of all ones to choose - why Bb? Is the age of the concert band finally coming back to replace rock & country?

It's a common key (in jazz) with enough distance from G major.

Ll.

[ascotia]

When I finally decided to educate myself out of the hobbyist's void (approximately 5 years ago), I couldn't have even told you what a 'key' is. At that point I had been playing for approximately 14 years. I was pretty good at guitar but I knew nothing about music.

If you know one key, it's really, really easy to know all of the keys even if you don't immediately know their names.

I-ii-iii-IV-IV-vi-vii°

Every key has 7 chords that 'fit', and they're derived from the major scale formula. Upper case Roman numerals above represent major chords, lower case represent minor chords (° represents a diminished chord, similar to minor).



Minor keys follow the same exact pattern, but they start on the sixth chord (vi)

vi-vii°-I-ii-iii-IV-V

If you know your barre chords, play a major/minor chord with the root note at the respective position on the fretboard. You can move that 6-note shape anywhere on the fretboard, and voila, you're playing in any key of your choosing.

It doesn't matter if you're playing in C Major, G major, Eb Major, or even minor keys (if you understand the relative minor's relation to the the parent major key). The pattern of major/minor is always the same no matter what the root chord is, and changing key is astonishingly simple if you can learn to look at your fretboard with specific patterns in mind.

Moral of the story, don't limit yourself to one key. Try to maintain the inspiration to better understand your instrument, even if it takes 14 years to get over the first initial hump

[ascotia]

Man, this thread got moved out of the GD forum, thought I may be able to help some folks with my little mini lesson

[frankmcr]

1) There's a lifetime's worth of great tunes in G.

2) Irving Berlin could only play in the key of C#. He used a transposing piano to arrange his songs.

[Dove 37]

Originally Posted by Llewlyn

Arg.... it really kills my ears (and my brain) to listen to a gig all played in the same key. Something to do with relaxing always to the same note. After having played a couple of tunes in the key of G major, it is time for a song in B flat!

Ll.

G. Capo 3

Bb.

[Denny B]

"Thank God for capos, or all these songs would be in G..."

John Prine

[Mandobart]

For most rock, folk, blues, bluegrass, pop, country, regardless of key you (typically) only use the I, IV, V and vi chords. In G that would be G, C, D and Em. To expand your knowledge to include another key only requires two more chords. For example C uses C, F, G and Am. Only added the F and Am. Or key of D - D, G, A, Bm.

Minor keys are typically easier, using just the i, iv and V. Am - Am, Dm, E. Em - Em, Am, B. And so on.

It's harder, IMO, to stay ignorant of additional keys than it is just to learn them.

[JayBee1404]

Originally Posted by Llewlyn

It's a common key (in jazz) with enough distance from G major.

Ll.

Isn’t the reason being that brass and woodwind instruments are commonly ‘tuned’ to Bb - i.e. if no valves/keys are pressed they play Bb? Might be wrong, but I’m sure I learned that in music lessons back in my schooldays 60 years ago…

[stanron]

Originally Posted by JayBee1404

Isn’t the reason being that brass and woodwind instruments are commonly ‘tuned’ to Bb - i.e. if no valves/keys are pressed they play Bb? Might be wrong, but I’m sure I learned that in music lessons back in my schooldays 60 years ago…

It's even loopier than that. A Bb brass instrument reads a C note and plays it and we all hear Bb. They play an F and we all hear an Eb. They play in the easier keys of C and F and we have to play in Bb and Eb to accompany them.

As to the original point, we all play music to give and/or receive pleasure. If you are doing that it's all good.