Capo Capo Theory Theor y and Usage By Eric Schlange The capo is a marvelous invention. It’s a little clamp that pushes down (in most cases) all of the strings on the guitar at a certain fret, acting like a unmoving barre chord finger. Capos have several uses: •
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Easily raise the pitch you’re playing on guitar. If I have a chord sheet in the key of G, but the song is too low for me to sing, I might slap a capo on the 3rd fret in order to raise the pitch into my best vocal range. Give variety to the sound when more than one guitar is playing. If I’m playing a song without a capo in the key of E, it may sound better to have a second acoustic guitar playing in C with a capo on the 4th fret. The pitches we’ll be playing will match, but the sound, or timbre of the strings will be varied, giving the duet a more colorful sound. Allow you to play chords that work nicely on guitar, even though the song is in a difficult key (Eb, anyone?). While some musicians may see this as “cheating,” the truth is that acoustic guitars sound best when open strings are ringing free, and some chords simply do not allow for the ringing of open strings. More advanced players often use “partial capoing” or a “cut capo” where a speciallymade capo is used to press down only a few of the strings, in effect placing the guitar in an alternate tuning. Partial capoing is outside of the scope of this lesson, but you might want to check it out.
Ap pl yi ng th e Capo Cap o Your capo should be clamped on just behind the fret you’re capoing, not in the middle of the fret space. If you place it in the middle, it will usually press the strings down too far, resulting in toosharp notes. Transposi ng Using a Capo To use a capo effectively, you must understand how it works to change the pitch of the song you’re playing. Basically, a capo acts like your index finger in a barre chord. Another way to look at it is that the capo is a “moveable nut” (the nut is the white piece of bone or plastic just down the neck from your first fret). To transpose using a capo, you just need to know the arrangement of the 12 notes used in Western music (note: if you don’t have sequence memorized, do it now—it’s essential to any musician).
C
C#/Db C#/Db
D
D#/Eb D#/Eb E
F
F#/Gb
G
G#/Ab G#/Ab
A
A#/Bb
B
Basically, you’ve got A-G, with accidentals (sharps # and flats b) between all the notes accept E-F and B-C. The different in pitch between one note and the note next to it is called a “half step ” or “semitone.” The different in pitch between one note and a note two notes away would be a “whole step ” or “tone.” Let’s make sure we understand this… The distance between C and C# is a half step. The distance between C and D is a whole step. The distance between E and F is a half step.
The distance between C and E is 2 steps. The distance between C and D# is 1-1/2 steps. Frets are spaced on your guitar in half-step intervals. So if you were to start on any string, on any fret, and just begin playing the notes up the neck on that string, you would have started somewhere in the 12-note series above, and you would be playing sequencially through it. Once you get to the end of the 12 note sequence, the next note will take you back to the beginning, just an “octave” higher (same note, such as a “C,” but a higher pitch).
If you place your capo on the first fret, and play your chords relative to the capo, you have simply raised the pitch of all the chords by one-half step. Playing capoed on the second fret will raise the pitch one whole step, etc, etc. So if you place your capo on the 2nd fret and play a C chord, you’re actually playing a D. (D is a whole step up from C). To make sure you understand, take a look at this simple chart and see if they make sense. Capo Fret Positi on 1 2 3 4 5
Chord You Play E D B C G
Actu al Chord Produc ed F E D E C
So, if a song’s chord chart is written “in the key of E” but you capo on the third fret, you’re really playing in the key of G. Cool, eh?
