Capo

I’ve had quite few discussions recently with some different worship team members about the acoustic guitar player’s best friend – the Capo.

Most of you are familiar with these clever little devices which resemble a very large peg of sorts which is used to shorten the strings and hence raise the pitch of the guitar by whatever number of semitones you choose.

The advantage of using a capo is that it enables you to use open string chord shapes in whichever key you need to play in. Most guitarists can probably remember the first time they strummed an open E or G chord and that awesome resonant sound. Barre chords can certainly be used on acoustic but they just don’t sound as good.

Capo Basics

The capo should be applied in your chosen position reasonably close to the next fret (like in the picture above) so that if your pick each string openly there should be a nice in tune note with no buzz.

If you are buying a capo I prefer the Kyser capo (above) or the Jim Dunlop capo (next pic below) or similar which have the advantage of being able to change position very quickly.

Most capo beginners will write out a different chord chart with the names of the open chords they are playing, relative to the capo, however your aim should be to be able to play from the original music and transpose the chord shapes in your head.

Mastering the Capo

It takes a little bit of practice but mastering the capo is pretty easy. All it needs is knowledge of simple open chord shapes that almost all guitarists should already know; and a good familiarity with ther notes along the length of the lowest 3 strings.

Starting on the 6th E string the main chord shapes you need to know are your basic open E and G chord shapes, remembering the position of the root notes for these shapes. The root note (E) of the E chord is the open string, and the root note of the G chord is the 3rd fret. Thus for example if you have your capo on the 4th fret, the E chord shape will be G# and the G chord shape will be B, which is the note on the 3rd fret relative to the capo (ie 7th fret). You can also use the minor shapes as well – eg Em chord shape with Capo on the 4th fret will give you a G#m chord. So 6th string, remember your E major (and E minor) chord shapes, and the G chord shape.

on the 5th (A) string the two shapes you need to remember are the open A chord shape (root note open) and the C chord shape (root note 3rd fret). Thus if your capo is on the 4th fret the open A chord shape will be C# (and Am shape becomes C#m) and the C chord shape will give you an E chord.

Finally on the 4th (D) string there is only one important shape you need to remember – the open D chord shape, which has it’s root note on the open 4th string. Along with this you can play the Dm chord shape (or D7 or Dsus4 etc etc). For example if we leave our capo at the 4th fret the D shape will give us an F# chord, or Dm shape gives the F#m chord.

Putting it simply, and rearranging things a little, the 5 main chord shapes to remember are C A G E D. C and A are on the 5th string, G and E on the 6th, and D on the 4th. If you know the notes on the fretboard along these 3 strings then you will be able to use these shapes to play open chords in just about any key.

And remember you can play the minor and 7th and sus and other variations of these chord shapes (eg Am, A7, Asus2, Asus4 etc with Capo on the 4th fret becom C#m C#7, C#sus etc)

Finally to complete your chord arsenal I’d suggest adding a couple of barre chord shapes as well. Remember the F barre chord with it’s root note on the 6th string, 1st fret. Bb barre chord with it’s root note on the 5th string, 1st fret, and the Bm barre chord with it’s root on the 5th string, 2nd fret. If you add these chords in as well you can play just about anything.

Let’s try another example. Put your capo on the 3rd fret and work out what the CAGED chord shapes will give you…

• 6th string – E shape = G chord; G shape = Bb chord
• 5th string – A shape = C chord; C shape = Eb chord
• 4th string – D shape = F chord
• and adding in the others we have F shape = Ab chord; Bm shape = Dm chord

As you can see from this, this is a good place to be if you are playing songs in the key of Bb or F.

Or another position I commonly use is the capo on the 2nd fret, which gives you good chord for the keys of D and A. Let’s look at some of the main chords in these keys you might use :

• 6th string – Em shape = F#m chord; G shape = A chord; F shape = G chord
• 5th string – Am shape = Bm chord; C shape = D chord; Bm shape = C#m chord; A shape = B chord
• 4th string – D shape = E chord

As you can see this gives you most of the main chords you will need to play songs in the D, A, and E keys.

Play around with this. Put the capo on each fret and try the CAGED shapes and see what chords they provide you with.

Once you get good at this, and familiar with the notes in each position, you will begin to get a feel for where to put the capo depending on what key the song is in. Here’s some positions I cxommonly use for various keys :

• 2nd fret – keys D, A, E
• 3rd fret – keys F, Bb (and C if you want)
• 4th fret – keys E, B, F#
• 5th fret – keys C, G, F (nice alternate high positions for these regular open keys)

These would be the main ones I commonly use (especially capo at 2 and 4), so if you get familiar with all the chords in these positions you will be well placed to play songs in the most common keys we use. This really is a blessing for key centres like B where hardly any of the chords offer you an open shape without a capo.

All it needs is a bit of practice and hopefully the understanding will just click into place for you. I rarely play acoustic guitar without a capo now, and am actually using it more often on my electric guitar now too. And for mandolin playing the capo has been a godsend too, but that’s a whole other story. Finally, once you get good with a regular 6 string capo, you could try a ‘cut capo’ which only covers 3 strings (like in this picture), leaving the other 3 strings open, creating new shapes and really nice alternate chord voicings (especially in the key of E I think) – but work on mastering the regular capo first.

So good luck, give it a try, and please ask me if you have any questions.

Paul

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