New Poll. How many keys do you *actually* play in?

[Tom]

So yeah, in looking over my songs, they are all in the first 4 keys (G, C, D, F or relative minor).

How about you, gentle forum accordionists?

Are you a remarkable jazzer playing in 18 or 20 keys, or a hobbyist playing in 2? And I don’t mean “how many keys *can* you play in, I mean how many keys do you *actually* play in on a regular basis? No judgement here, curiosity only….

 

[Wheezer]

I’m a hack hobbyist, but I participate in a couple of different jam bands.

Generally speaking…

• The “string centric” groups that play Gypsy Jazz tend to favor the sharp keys of G, D, A, along with C, and F.
• The “horn centric” groups that play mostly standards and jazz tend to favor the flat keys of Ab, Eb, Bb, F, as well as C and G.

I suspect that this is because the string players have open strings in the sharp keys and the horn players have to add 2 or 3 sharps to transpose to concert key. (Adding 3 sharps to concert Ab is probably easier for most than adding 3 sharps to A.)

 

[Rosie C]

So yeah, in looking over my songs, they are all in the first 4 keys (G, C, D, F or relative minor).

How about you, gentle forum accordionists?

Are you a remarkable jazzer playing in 18 or 20 keys, or a hobbyist playing in 2? And I don’t mean “how many keys *can* you play in, I mean how many keys do you *actually* play in on a regular basis? No judgement here, curiosity only….

I have a song I wrote myself that's in Bb because of my vocal range, but otherwise I play in the same four keys as you - and not in F very often.
Some friends have an Oktoberfest brass group, if I get a place in that things will change quickly with Eb and Ab being required.

@Wheezer once we had a piece in an original key of B major (5 sharps), we couldn't really get our heads around what the alto clarinet (+3 sharps) would play!

 

[noelekal]

Eb, Bb, F, C, G, D, A, and E cover most of the keys of tunes in my repertoire. There may be a few that stray into Ab during key changes within the tune.

I'm not remarkable.

 

[losthobos]

Eb, Bb, F, C most of the time....G,D,A others....most often the people I'm playing alongside call the shots...as mentioned above strings vs horns...
However if alone I favour one key....
And I urge you to play either the scale or the My Baby Just Cares for Me descending bass line in every key and then decide what is the IDEAL key to be playing the accordion in...
Answers on a postcard please....

 

[Alan Sharkis]

An awful lot of material in fake books is in E-flat. When my band was together, we used fake books so, I went along with it. When we played klezmer, a lot of it was in D minor, not a troublesome key by itself, but with many accidentals in some tunes to bring them into one of three or four klezmer modes.

My personal preferences, however, are all over the key signature range.

 

[vivdunstan]

I play regularly in all of major and minor F, C, G, D, A, E, B and major but not minor F#. I usually play on a 72 bass accordion so don’t fancy F# minor which tends to need the next chord up, which needs a huge leap from me down to the bottom of my bass keyboard! I also play B flat major, but prefer not to play major or minor keys below that. I’m definitely happier with sharps than flats. And Bm is my favourite key, closely followed by Dm.

 

[Ventura]

old Wedding Band guys like me play in any and every key

hell we have individual songs that essentially shift keys 6 times or more
like Hummingbird or Connemara

if you string a medley together for the Nursing Home of Harvest Moon,
Charleston, 5' two, Moonlight Bay, well if you don't change keys for
each one you will put them all to sleep or worse ! Death by KEY OF C !

Singers who "sit in" might need you to shift out of your comfort zone
keys for them, well whattaya gonna do then ?

even Johnny Cash changed keys like 5 or 8 times on
"I Walk the Line" depending on how many choruses he
felt like doing on any given day

if you limit yourselves you won't ever feel comfy with
Chestnuts Roasting or Misty because what you are really
saying is those black keys scare heck out of you and weird
chords use lots of black keys

lots of songs sound best in the original key, but you have to
modulate to something else for the Vocals like with Mussiden
or you want your Trumpet player in his best tone zone for
once through "It's been a Long Long Time" but then the band
artfully moves it down for Kitty Kalen to sing it like the angel she is..

there is no instrument better suited to playing in all keys than the Accordion,
because your Left Hand doesn't care.. thats right.. your left Hand
ALREADY KNOWS HOW TO PLAY IN EVERY KEY.. so you only need to figure out
what to do with the other 5 fingers.. how hard can that be ?

even just play the melody with one finger then start guessing for
2 fingers and maybe 3.. so you hit a few bad ones, so what, you will hit them
right the 3rd time through

of course, i am

" Just Sayin' "

 

[debra]

Well... I play in all 15 keys (C with no sharps or flats, when 1 to 7 sharps and 1 to 7 flats). But the more sharps or flats the rarer it is to find music in that key, and when you do many people just transpose it to an easier key.
A nice example is Humoresque nr. 7 by Dvorak. Originally this is in G flat major, with 6 flats. But even my own arrangement is transposed up to G, because otherwise no ensemble would ever play it.

 

[Siegmund]

My printed music is concentrated on C, G, D, and A (C in the fake books and old sheet music intended for piano accordion, the sharp keys in the more fiddle-tune oriented parts), though I have seen everything from Ab to E at least once each.

But for my simpler tunes, I regularly practice transposing them on sight to the other three keys with the same CBA fingering (D major tunes into B, F, or Ab), and in the learning phase, sometimes do this deliberately to help my fingers learn the bass part, by causing a difficult leap to land on a marked bass button.

For performing alone, it comes down to what key it sounds best in. My bass reeds have the octave leap between Eb and E, and music that crosses the leap at the wrong time sounds bad, or just shrill if it uses the high reeds too much (I dislike C minor on this accordion, since G7 to Cm moves from 3 low notes to the screeching Eb.)

And in the crazy-key department... my arrangement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata both requires me to choose a key where the fifths and minor sixths in the bass sound good, and requires me to fit that big 4-octave arpeggio at the end within the range of my right hand keyboard... so I play it in Bb minor instead of C# minor

 

[OuijaBoard]

I limped through some of the "Black-Key-heavy" stuff in Palmer-Hughes, but have used PA very little in F#/Gb M/m, C#/Db M/m, not even much in Ab/G# Mm. Maybe for some of the French/Paris cafe type stuff. I do try to practice scales and chords in those keys just for personal growth, roll eyes, roll eyes. But this is where CBA is so great--even if you don't play it "isomorphically" to finger the same in all keys, ergonomics-wise it's equally comfortable in all keys. No black-key slipping and sliding.

In the Irish and Scottish trad world, the reels are sometimes played at 100 mph. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but that's the way it is in that crowd. Black-key-heavy keys are not fun at 100mph, at least on PA. CBA is different.

I recall Jimmy Keane, a giant of Irish trad on PA, saying in a workshop that he had a flat-key PA. I've always wondered what this means, or whether he meant he had switchable reed sets for that purpose.

 

[Siegmund]

Black-key-heavy keys are not fun at 100mph, at least on PA.

I wonder if this points up a difference between PA and piano mechanisms, or a difference in the ergonomics of playing them, or just between how accordionists and pianists are taught. Pianists will tell you the black keys are easier to work with than the white, and some pianist-composers like Louis Moreau Gottschalk deliberately wrote most of their flashy showpieces in the five-black-keys keys.

 

[Rosie C]

Pianists will tell you the black keys are easier to work with than the white, and some pianist-composers like Louis Moreau Gottschalk deliberately wrote most of their flashy showpieces in the five-black-keys keys.

My former piano teacher had a theory that children should start with B major, as it suits the shape of the hand better.

if you limit yourselves you won't ever feel comfy with
Chestnuts Roasting or Misty because what you are really
saying is those black keys scare heck out of you and weird
chords use lots of black keys

This is true. I play mostly folk music in G and D and for only 4 months I don't think I'm doing too badly. I thought I would try my hand at a few Christmas tunes - different keys, different bass rhythms. I was awful :-(

 

[JerryPH]

Like Paul, I have no real problems playing in any key as written.

Right now I am in the middle of working through some Czech folk music and it seems that just speaking generally, they like their flats... lol. It varies from F to D-flat depending on the song with the majority in the B-E-A flats more than anything else. For example, Cervena Sukynka (Blue Skirt waltz) is in that B-E-A flat range and when I was in a band, it was mostly E-A-D flat because for the main singer that is where their range existed.

For me, sharps or flats feel interchangeable it's just about hitting the right note and not so much about the key signature... C-sharp or D-flat, its no big change in thought process. (there's a joke in there, hint-hint!)... lol

 

[OuijaBoard]

I wonder if this points up a difference between PA and piano mechanisms, or a difference in the ergonomics of playing them, or just between how accordionists and pianists are taught. Pianists will tell you the black keys are easier to work with than the white, and some pianist-composers like Louis Moreau Gottschalk deliberately wrote most of their flashy showpieces in the five-black-keys keys.

I don't know. I'm going to theorize that outside the classical and art-jazz genres, or genres using equally complex arrangements for standards or film music, there's not a heckuva lot of use of the "black-key" key. Unless you're a pro transposing for a vocalist or something. But that's not normally at 130 on the metronome. But in Western traditional, folk, or pre-bebop jazz genres . . . Can't speak for the Egyptian baladi players or the Serbian/Bulgarian PA monsters--not sure what keys they favor.

Certainly Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang, the late Slava Richter, and countless other incredible pianists play "black-key" compositions of unreal complexity at frightening speeds on piano without a second thought. All I know is that in Irish and many Western folk/traditional/world traditions you don't really see reels afoot on PA at 130 on the metronome in keys like C#/Db. Even Eb. The French musette masters certainly played/play at lightning speed in lots of different keys. I do think a lot of old musette music was played in "white-key" keys--I believe "G/em" and "F/dbm" were big, though that wouldn't have been the case at all times. However, originally that was CBA.

There was recent discussion on another thread of PA player Karen Tweed's rendition of the usually quite fast musette waltz "Indifference" on a 34 or 37 key PA. On Google Images, sheet music for that waltz appears in a few different keys, including e minor, the key she's using. Musette PA player Dan Newton of Cafe Accordion Orchestra is doing it in the first link below, in d-minor on his 34 or 37-key. I see sheet music in C# minor, but don't see PA examples on YT in that key, though I didn't do a comprehensive survey, of course.

A quick perusal of a few impressive PA players doing this musette waltz rapidly hasn't yielded many in "black-key-heavy" keys, including people playing it with much more complexity, doing jazz improvisation and stuff, such as the gent in the second link below--another e minor rendition.

d minor:
e minor with jazz imrov:

 

[Thomas N]

All keys.....but I tend to really enjoy songs the have E major, to A minor to D minor...And I tend to dislike B flat and E flat.

 

[EuroFolker]

Not to derail the thread, but in your opinions do different keys have a different "emotional charge"?

If the relative chord progressions etc. are exactly the same in 2 different keys, will they evoke the same, or slightly different mood?

 

[McSqueeze]

When I accompany myself or others singing I play in the key that best suits their voice, which could be any key.

 

[OuijaBoard]

Not to derail the thread, but in your opinions do different keys have a different "emotional charge"?

If the relative chord progressions etc. are exactly the same in 2 different keys, will they evoke the same, or slightly different mood?

Totally subjective, but to me, yes, they do. Thinking of melody here rather than chords. Not the same as, but somewhat analagous to, the phenomenon of "synesthesia," in which different notes evoke different colors. Playing or listening to Irish tunes "flat" in C, in which the conventional D, G, A tunes/relative minors are played a whole step down, evoke a different emotional response for me than in the conventional tuning. Same with "Eb" playing or recordings, in which Irish tunes are rendered a semitone sharper than the conventional pitch. I'm not alone, I've heard it discussed in interviews on trad podcasts or radio programs.

 

[Caps]

E flat, B flat, F, C G, D, A normally but sometimes I cheat by using the transpose on the FR4X if my wife says to play higher or lower. More than three sharps or flats messes with my mind. I'm a hobbyist and only play at home or local community center or occasional nursing home.