The Key of F# — Banjo

F# major harmonises to F# – G#m – A#m – B – C# – D#m – F°; F# minor to F#m – G#° – A – Bm – C#m – D – E. Most of the country repertoire in this key lives on three of those chords — the tonic, the subdominant and the dominant — plus the relative minor when a song wants one darker turn.

The banjo chair carries a three-finger roll behind the singer — a steady stream of picked notes through the chord, filling the eighths a two-feel leaves empty. The left hand holds the shape below and the right hand never strums it: thumb, index and middle pick through its strings one at a time, which is why a banjo chord reads as motion rather than as a block.

Learn the tonic-subdominant-dominant grammar in F# until your hand goes there without asking, then add the relative minor, and most of the repertoire in this key is already playable.