Originally Posted By: MarioD

a lot of those songs were not in guitar friendly key signatures, i.e. a lot of Eb, Bb and Ab. I got a great education playing with those old timers in that wedding band.


One really interesting period of time was when I played with the church "band". To call it a band was a misnomer. It was more of an orchestra due to the large number of instruments that you would normally find in an orchestra. Since most of them were the "flat" instruments... trumpets and such things.... lots of the sheet music was geared towards them.

As such, and due to the music minister's "bizarre*" likes in music....(* you had to be there) we often played in the "flat keys". As Charlie pointed out, Bb, Eb, and Ab. It was, to say the least, an education in "sight reading of the chords". The sheet music always had chords written on it. If there was a chord on it I didn't know, I'd look it up and add it to the vast repertoire of chords in my head.

When the other guitarist was reaching for his capo, I was playing the chords as indicated. Some of that stuff was pretty challenging to play since the chords were rarely the straight up open chords 90% of guitar players use. It all ended rather rudely and abruptly... but that's a story for another day and another thread.

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