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I mean, It can be used creatively or as a crutch.
It does nothing for me in a jazz sense, but this is church right? Just play what they want. Nobody ever kept a church gig because they were creative.
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11-05-2023 05:51 PM
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Capo on the first fret is the worst.
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I've decided to mess with some capo stuff now that I know I will easily spot the guitar player's in the audience when I do because there will be smoke coming from their ears.
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The Dave Rawlings trick was pretty awesome in that video.
How about some partial capo?
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Exactly! But when non-guitarists write charts for guitarists and indicate the use of a capo, it can be maddening:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I recently did a performance where I accompanied a singer. Her vocal coach had written out lead sheets. One song only had 3 chords - Cm, Bb, and Ab. OK, obviously a piece of cake. But she annotated, "Capo 3rd fret," at the top of the chart. So clearly, she was indicating that you should capo at the 3rd fret and play like it was open Am, G, and F, but she still wrote the chords as Cm, Bb, and Ab. Needlessly confusing, and of course, a capo was pretty much superfluous in this instance!
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In those simple tunes, I usually prefer cowboy chords for the lines and fills they open up. Thus I likely would have considered a capo and wouldn’t have minded the suggestion. Originally Posted by Tom Karol
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Norah Jones' 'Don't Know Why' - capo 6th fret - tension is terrible for fingerstyle up there ( as played by her guitarist on this tune, Adam Levy). Once forced to play this in public and it had to be 'authentic'. Otherwise, mostly for truss rod adjustments - clamping at first fret. Instantly recognizable as a folkie if sporting one of these contraptions. Originally Posted by BBGuitar
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Clarence Gatemouth Brown.
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Kirk, I guess I didn't explain myself well. I had the option to use or not use a capo, and I actually did use a capo for the very reason you stated. It's just that I had to transpose what was written becuase of the capo being at the 3rd fret: Cm became Am, Bb became G, and Ab became F. It was easy, but it seemed silly. I felt that if the author wanted the performer to use a capo - and I had no problem with that - she should have transposed the chords to the virtual key created by the use of the capo rather than leaving them in concert. Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
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That is ever the capo dilemma for sure. When I use a capo, say on the 2nd fret, in order to play an arrangement involving ringing open strings while I move considerably up the neck to play triads or something, there’s a good argument for me mentally retaining the absolute notes of the fretboard, and there’s also good argument for thinking of those notes in relation to the open chord world that they relate to spatially, and which have proven useful without a capo. Hey it’s a D shape I’m relating to, so I’m thinking of this note up the neck as an F#, but it’s actually a G# in pitch (and in the lead sheet?) The capo introduces this problem, which manifests itself in various ways. Originally Posted by Tom Karol
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I played 90% of my gig last night with a capo on. But it was a solo acoustic blues gig, not a jazz gig. Open strings and alternating bass on every tune are key, so the capo is a godsend. But more than that, I have a bad shoulder at the moment, shortening the neck length by an inch or two means I can play for a length of time that otherwise I wouldn't have been able to. I love capos, but, I agree, not for jazz. This morning I have a Gypsy jazz session and there won't be a capo in sight. Luckily, my GJ guitar is a 12 fret, so my shoulder can cope.
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Key change at about 2:00: Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
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We all know the answer to this. Bluegrass and other styles need open strings to get the right sound. B is quite popular with bluegrass players and it's generally played in G, capo 4.
Jazz playing needs free rein and thorough knowledge of the neck. You can't possibly play decent jazz if you're hindered by a capo. Although it's probably been done :-)
But I've never seen a stand-up bass player of any style use a capo!
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Back in the days of business cards and answering machines, I got a call for a gig, asking if I could read music in the key of C.... I told the guy I could, he said "Great! Bring a capo" with no further explanation.
I guess I was expecting some kind of folk music gig, but he had an society/dance band with all the guitar charts transposed to C with instructions on where to capo. He somehow also expected me to play traditional sounding rhythm guitar, with the capo cutting of at least half of the neck... I gave up on the capo really quickly and did my best to just transpose on the fly, it was a long night...
PK
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You just never really know what you're in for, right? Originally Posted by paulkogut
So a question...and this can go for anybody here...
I've messed with a capo when playing solo acoustic to keep some open strings in key, nice sound. My problem with the capo is that when I'm playing close to it, it feels natural to think "in terms of the capo," i.e., playing in Bb out of G position with a capo III, I'm thinking of the chords as in "G."
But as soon as I work my way up and away from the capo a bit, thinking in terms of it doesn't make sense to me.
So anybody who uses one--and plays up the neck...how do you think about things? Is there a spot where you transition? Or is it best always to think actual pitches?
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I obviously don't use a capo for jazz tunes. But bluegrass, yes. When you go up the neck you just have to know where the shapes are.
Usually the capo's on a familiar fret, like 2nd or 5th. If you're in A but playing G on capo 2 then you just have to know Bm = 9th. Nothing you can do. Familiarity and practice is the answer.
They're all pretty simple tunes anyway and solos are usually shape and major and blues scale-based. Also, a lot is licks. Licks are a feature of that kind of playing.
Here's Tony Rice. That first solo at 1.35, at the end he plays D7 at the 7th (using the E open string) then over a G shape at the 9/10th. But if you've got the capo on the 2nd, the 7th looks like the 5th and G looks like the 8th. He also messes it up just a bit on this one but usually doesn't :-)
Last edited by ragman1; 11-07-2023 at 12:14 PM.
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The players I'm familiar with in the folk and folk-rooted worlds don't seem to think about the fretboard the way jazz players do--if there's anything systemic/theoretical going on, it's CAGED-based grips and partial chord shapes on the DGBE string set. Capos allow us to accommodate singers' preferred keys and to maintain familiar patterns.
I did have a playing partner who never used a capo even on fingerstyle tunes--not for any aesthetic reason, but because it was harder, and he enjoyed the technical challenge.* (This is the same guy who would come home from playing a rock gig at 2:00 a.m. and listen to tunes and play until dawn. Music really was his life.)
* Though I have to say that my conventional fingerpicking approach sounded more idiomatic. But Dan could cut loose with a solo that worked fine--and that I could never match.
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Exactly. I have gotten quite good at “transposing” with a capo on the fly in the “roots/Americana” style. Very handy when playing with two guitar players so you are in different ranges. I’ll capo as high as the 10th fret on certain tunes. You can get almost get a mandolin vibe up there. Originally Posted by Tim Clark
A good capo helps. I like Elliot’s capos but they are expensive. Seems like quite a few companies offer less expensive Elliot style capos now.
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Shubb is my favorite as I don't need a quick release function. Seems to affect tuning the least and only $20. Originally Posted by alltunes
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Me too. Mine's about 40 years old. Well used and still in one piece :-) Originally Posted by Tim Clark
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When playing open chords I think in “capo key” but if I do a solo and venture away from open position I will think in actual key. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Also got pretty good at reading a guitar players left hand and converting to capo on the fly. It takes practice!
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About sixteen years ago I was subbing in a rock band for some gigs, and one of the tunes was Honky Tonk in the original key of F. The first couple of times, I just played it through, but it really did a job on my left hand. I have fairly severe tendinitis, and playing stuff like this is not good for it. If I’d been a member of the band, I'd lobby for playing it in E, which I'm sure would thrill the horn player, but since I was just filling in that isn't really wan’t option. I was certain that their regular guitarist just played a shuffle rhythm on this, rather than Billy Butler's actual riff, because when I played it at rehearsal, everyone said "Whoa--that's great." The sax player later confirmed this for me.
Before one gig I had a brilliant idea--use a capo at the first fret. I’ve owned a cheap elastic capo for years that I keep in my guitar tool box to use for restringing, but I’d never used one on a gig. I tried it quickly at home, and found that a few of the strings went slightly out of tune, but other than that it seemed workable. All I had to do between songs was get the capo in place, retune, and remember to play the F riff in the right position. What could go wrong?
I told the singer to give me a bit of time to get ready between songs. I was able to get the capo on without shooting it across the dance?floor like a rubber band. I had my pedal set up for muted tuning; it showed the tuning was way off. I started tuning frantically, but the more I tuned, the worse things seemed to get. The singer had run out of patter and everyone was looking at me. I hoped I had it close enough, and kicked off the tune, only to hear a horrible cacophony ensue when the rest of the band joined in. I told the horn player to pick it up, hit the tuner again, ripped off the capo, and even more frantically retuned, getting it back just in time to limp through my solo.
I had no idea what had caused the problem, other than thinking maybe the Bigsby had had a tiff with the capo. The gig got better after that, and I soon put it out of my mind. I was too tired when I got home to check anything out. After spending my usual morning working out at the fitness center, I was standing at my locker getting dressed when the answer hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks and I gave myself a well-deserved senior-moment dope slap.
In the heat of the gig trying to get the capo on and checking the tuning before the singer exhausted his bit of of shtick, and simply?out of years of habit, I had retuned the guitar strings to EADGBE instead of FBbEbAbCF! What an idjut! Of course, dropping the tension a half-step with a Bigsby-equipped guitar is asking for trouble in any case, and kicking the tune off in E when I thought I was in F really made for some "interesting" tonalities. At the following gig I managed to use the capo correctly but after I was done with those gigs I realized that the modeling pedal I was using had a pitch shifter—could have skipped the whole drama.
Around the same time frame I played with a swing choir. The leader/keyboardist, who wrote all the arrangements, decided, for reasons I’ve never understood, to book a popular local bluegrass group to play a couple of concerts with us, and for us to join with them on several songs, another really bad idea. When he gave me my chart the first one had the chords in Ab crossed out, replaced by chords in G and with the notation “Capo on first fret.” The other charts were similar. I said to him “Why are my charts written like this?” to which he replied “The bluegrass band wanted them this way,” to which I replied “Have I ever asked you do this for me?” When he said “No” I asked him to reprint my charts with the original chords, and to refrain from doing that to my charts again. Luckily, he never repeated the bluegrass experiment.
Danny W.
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I guess one has to ask oneself, "How far away from the capo am I going to use chords which feature "open" strings?" Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I have never used one, but you are basically asking how far away from the capo might one transition from treating the guitar as a transposing instrument to a non-transposing instrument (octave transposing)... that is assuming you are thinking of the region adjacent to the capo as transposing. If one is playing chords adjacent to the capo (transposing) and melody lines further up the neck (concert, non-transposing), one might be able to manage that by shifting perspective.
However, that shift may break down with the idea that one of the really nice things to do with the capo is use open (capo'd) strings as part of chords fingered further up the neck - that is, if you are worried about confusion of note names for chords, it is the open-strings chords themselves (their placement distance fretted above the capo) that would be subject to the transition, and the confusion would be when far enough up the neck to call a chord's fretted notes by their concert pitch names, but call a chord's open (capo'd) strings by their "virtual nut" transposed names.
Hope that makes sense...
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