WHATS A CAPO HOW TO

Note that an in-between note can be “spelled” as either a sharp or a flat….more on this later, but basically which one you choose depends on the other notes that surround it. You may already know that there are twelve notes used in music: the letters A through G, plus a series of in-between notes called sharps and flats. Very convenient until you realize you may have no idea what chord you’re actually playing! So it helps to understand how transposition works on the guitar. That means that we are changing the key of the song, but without having to change the shape of the chords we use. First of all, understand that when we clip on a capo we are “transposing”. This article is an introduction to how we learn to do this. (You hear this effect on studio recordings all the time). Three guitars with capos in different places can play the same chord in three different ways, creating a sound that is much fuller and richer than a single guitar or multiple guitars played in the same place. This is also the reason why you sometimes see artists onstage backed by multiple acoustic guitarists. Listen to the Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun” for a definitive example. Try putting a capo on the seventh fret and strum a D shape…you’ll notice that the sound has a character of its own up there.

This brings out different sounds that might remind you of other instruments with a shorter scale length, like a ukelele or mandolin. So by adding the capo we change the “scale length” of the guitar….”scale” in the sense of measurement, not the musical kind. Remember that the moment you clip on that capo you have fundamentally changed the sound of your instrument, because the entire string no longer vibrates.

WHATS A CAPO HOW TO

You probably already know how to use a capo to change the pitch of a song to match a singer’s range.īut did you know that you can use the capo to find new ways to “voice” a chord, or even create a signature guitar part?

Whats a capo