The word capo is short for capotasto, which means principal fret in Italian.
A capo is used to shorten the vibrating length of a guitar’s strings. When fitted across a fret, the device stops
The word capo is short for capotasto, which means principal fret in Italian.
A capo is used to shorten the vibrating length of a guitar’s strings. When fitted across a fret, the device stops the strings at that point, essentially creating a new nut and raising the pitch of the open strings (which are still denoted as “0” in TAB). This makes it particularly easy to transpose a progression of open chords—you simply move the shapes up the neck relative to the capo location.
For this reason, the capo gets a bad rap from some players, who see it as a way to avoid any real physical/mental effort when performing on the guitar. But as you’ll see in this lesson, the capo is an invaluable tool in the arsenal of a thoughtful player.
Capos comes strap-on, screw-on and clamp-on varieties. They are most commonly used to take a basic open-chord progression, like the C–G–Am–Em–F–C–Dm–G change in FIGURE 1A, and place everything in a different spot on the neck.
FIGURE 1A
FIGURE 1B shows the same progression played with a 2nd-fret capo, causing everything to sound a whole step, or major 2nd, higher (D–A–Bm–F#m–G–D–Em–A).
FIGURE 1B
This sort of transposition might be done to place a song’s original chord voicings in a key that suits that vocalist’s range. Without the capo, barre chords would be the only other option—and a duller one, sound wise on the acoustic at that.
Song in flat keys (e.g. F, Bb, Eb, Ab, etc.) usually require barre shapes, like those shown in FIGURE 2A’s Eb–Bb–Cm–Ab progression.
FIGURE 2A
FIGURE 2B shows how, with a 3rd-fret capo, these same chords can be played at pitch using