PLAYING SOLO's IN DIFFERENT KEYS

           I had a guy not so long ago, left a  comment on one of my videos, and  He said He would like

for me to do a video on playing in the key of B. Well I plan to do that some time soon but I wanted to

write this first so you will know how I reference or look at playing  in different keys .

My hope is that it will help you make it easier with not making it so technical

This a drawn out story , but I promise it will make sense at the end.

I , like a lot of you, starting playing guitar first and after about a year  

I realized I wanted to play Bluegrass( cause that is where all the money is)

little joke there.HA HA

Anyway I started playing Bluegrass guitar, And the  first chords  I learned on the guitar where most

 likely G C and  D . you can play a thousand songs with those three chords. Now in bluegrass,in most

cases when you want to play in the key of A you just capo  your guitar on the 2 fret and play your

G,C and D chords which in turn makes those chords A,D and E now.  Now when playing the mandolin

most folks frown on playing it with a capo. So here's where your reference comes in.  In order for

 you to play a song, that you know in the key of A that you learned  in the key of G, you need to

 move everything up 2 frets. You might already know, but the Key of A is one of the easier Keys to

play in on the mandolin. But never the less  here is a couple little tips for changing your song from the Key

 of G to A. NOW educated  music folks  call dat dare transposing   LOL. You did'nt think I kowed

that. LOL.  Anyhow  Here is a couple tips. The notes that you play open, in the key of G you need to

 note on the 2nd fret.  and the notes you play on the 5th fret ,you might be able to play open on the

next string down  rather than the 7th fret , depending on the song of coarse

Now Reverse all that . Let's  just say that You want to play a song in the key of G that  you Learned

in the key of A.  SoYou need to move everything back down 2 frets which Like the tips before, you

 need to reverse. Every note  you play on the 2nd fret  in the key of A needs to be  a open note in the

key of G  and your open notes in the key of A  need to be played on the 5th fret in the key of G.


With all that said  changing from the Key of A to B , your moving  all your notes up 2 frets , all open

notes in the key of A need to be played on the 2nd fret in the key of B.  I could go back and forth like

 this forever from key to key.  Hopefully your getting this. So I'm just going to give you a Few

Referenes  to get you in the right places and end this up    
From G to A  up 2frets
. From G to B up 4 frets
 From G to C up 5 frets

From A to G down 2 frets
 From A toB up 2 frets
 From A to C up 3 frets

From B to C up 1 fret
From C to D up 2 frets
From D to E up 2 frets
 From E to F up 1 frets

Now thats not all of them but I think if you play around with this you will get what I'm saying.

If you hav'nt already read my post on The notes from A to G. put these 2 together and practice for

 awhile and you will be transposing like a big dog in No time flat. HA HA

Dan