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what's the most difficult key

#21
Russell L said:
On another note (pun intended), at least on bass and guitar you can think in patterns, and just move around without having to always think of all the note names. That is, changing key doesn't always look different, other than being on another fret. .
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Until open strings involved, and the left hand (fretting hand) position demands us to move to the left side of first/lowest/root note to go to higher notes instead of move to the right side as usual :)

Also the wider fret space and wider neck near the open strings stretch my fingers harder. And I found it harder to keep strictly alternate my plucking fingers in the right order in that position.
 
#22
Russell L said:
On another note (pun intended), at least on bass and guitar you can think in patterns, and just move around without having to always think of all the note names. That is, changing key doesn't always look different, other than being on another fret. I don't know how keyboard players do it when there are so many black notes to play. Every key looks and feels different on keyboard. I can play piano, but the fewer sharps and flats the better, for me.
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+1
I completely agree with you. I have a 5 string and rarely use open strings anymore. So I know the root key and use the patterns to fill in the rest.

For the OP, B is the hardest for me.
 
#23
Johnny StingRay said:
I hate playing in D major my five string. It either sounds too deep and if I switch up an octave, it sounds too high. For some reason I'm not comfortable playing halfway up and down. Eb, no problem. E, no problem. Even Db isn't too bad. For some reason, playing in D just never sounds right to me.
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I know what you mean about D, especially if playing it on the A string, but I like alternating between the D on E, and the second octave on B, but the low D sounds fantastic for flavor, to me. Playing the low D on the Phish song Free is perfect for that low low tone. Ironically, I don't like drop tuning, probably because it makes me think too much about figuring out where the other notes in the scale are, relative to the root.

ETA: I LOVE playing in B! Probably my favorite key, that or B mixolydian for stuff in E. The pattern for Dorian is hard on my fingers/hand, but somehow fun to play.
 
#25
M.Wrenn said:
Agreed, playing in any key is the same difficulty but reading tricky keys, like Cb, can definitely be really difficult
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I'll agree, though you could argue that the keys rooted on open strings may be trivially easier to play as the root and 4th are open. It is surely a good practice to avoid depending on that, though.

When I have to sight read tricky keys, which seems to happen more when I play big band gigs, I must look like a moron with all of the needless position changes I make trying to play accidental notes where I shouldn't be playing them.
 
#29
WJGreer said:
I'll agree, though you could argue that the keys rooted on open strings may be trivially easier to play as the root and 4th are open. It is surely a good practice to avoid depending on that, though.

When I have to sight read tricky keys, which seems to happen more when I play big band gigs, I must look like a moron with all of the needless position changes I make trying to play accidental notes where I shouldn't be playing them.
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That's true, although I'm not really a fan of playing open strings unless it's absolutely necessary, I feel like fretted notes have more weight and color to them, so it's pretty much all the same to me.

Haha, I do the same thing. When you think about it though, not many people would know that all the position changes were a bad thing, so I think we're ok on that count... :hiding:
 
#33
Festus said:
I heard that Charlie Parker used to clear the stage of rubbish players by playing in B.

Imagine someone walking onstage and playing a full on slap filled funk fest in F! (He may be a cunning git who re-tuned to F to get over the so called 'problem')
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Slight hijack - I read a Stanley Clarke interview once where he took shots at all of the other emerging slap players of his generation. He said he was the only guy playing slap over changes, and not in E.

There's plenty of E on his early solo records, though.
 
#35
WJGreer said:
Slight hijack - I read a Stanley Clarke interview once where he took shots at all of the other emerging slap players of his generation. He said he was the only guy playing slap over changes, and not in E.

There's plenty of E on his early solo records, though.
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He also said once that it was a relief to leave Return To Forever because Chick Corea would write in C#. That's why his solo stuf is in E and I would if I were in his shoes too!
 
#36
AlvarHanso said:
ETA: I LOVE playing in B! Probably my favorite key, that or B mixolydian for stuff in E. The pattern for Dorian is hard on my fingers/hand, but somehow fun to play.
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Yes, using the 5th mixolydian is a nice way for a bass player to solo. We end up using the 5th as home base, not the root. Since it's natural for most of us to play one-string-up-two-frets-up and one-string-up-one-fret-down intervals, we get more 9ths and 6ths into our licks that way.
 

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