Casey Henry
This post kind of parallels our playing in C discussion of the last couple of weeks. Students never ask about playing in the key of D until it comes up in a jam and they realize they don’t know how to do it. There are three or four ways you can play in the key of D. The easiest is to capo at the seventh fret and play your regular G breaks. But it sounds very tinky way up there on the neck.
Option #2 is the second easiest, and that is to capo at the second fret and play out of C position. Now, you’ll need to have learned how to play in C position for this to work, but it’s a great option once you’ve crossed that hurdle.
Option #3 is to play out of open D position. This requires no retuning, except for your fifth string (which goes to an A note—the seventh fret spike). But playing out of D position is a whole level harder than playing out of C. I remember when I was trying to learn how to do it, the first break I attempted was “I Saw the Light.” I took my C position break and moved it up two frets, imagining that my fingers were the capo at the second fret. I just literally moved every single note up two frets. It worked (kinda) but it was very hard.
I was listening to a lot of the Del McCoury Band at the time and the banjo player Rob is particularly good at playing out of D. One time at a festival I asked him if he had any tips for learning to do it better and his answer was, in effect, just do it a lot and play around with it. It wasn’t a terribly helpful answer but it was accurate. By the time you get good enough to be playing in D, you’re also good enough to figure out how to do it by yourself. I was kinda bummed that there were no shortcuts.
Option #4 is almost not an option at all, but I’ll throw it in just for the heck of it. You can play in D tuning (like the tune “Reuben”). Almost nobody does this as a way to play normal, everyday tunes in D. Except Keith Little. He does it, and it’s awesome. Because you’re in a different tuning, all the chord shapes are different, even if many of the rolls are the same. It’s (almost) like learning a whole new instrument, so I wouldn’t recommend it.
For the most part, I’d say stick with option #1 until you have several years—like ten—of playing under your belt. It’ll get you by and won’t make your brain explode.