Hey, how you doing? Justin here.
Today, we're gonna talk all about Capos or Caypos.
The pronunciation changes depending on what part of the world you live in.
I tend to call them a Capo. I know Americans call them Caypos.
Doesn't really make any difference. It's the same thing.
And perhaps you've heard people talk about them.
So, commonly they look like this,
and they just literally clamp onto the guitar neck,
pressing down all of the strings,
and it lets you use the same chord grips,
that you might have learned in open position, further up the neck.
And they sound higher. So if I play like a regular E chord...
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here, at the open position.
If I put my Capo on at the 5th fret, and play the same chord.
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It sounds quite a bit higher.
Now let me talk about the different types of Capo, first of all, just very quickly.
This first Capo that I'm showing you here, is called a Kyser. It's a brand of Capo.
It doesn't really matter, to be honest. This is a brand I've used for a long time.
Probably 20 years or more. This Capo might even be that old.
They do last a real long time.
You can get a replacement rubber, if the rubber wears out.
Not that it's happened on mine. They seem to press a really good amount.
You got to be careful with Capos. If they press too hard on the strings,
they can make all the strings go out of tune a bit.
You want one that's got a nice amount of pressure,
and I've found these Capos to be particularly good ones for that.
They're pretty easy to get on and off.
They've got these big handles where you can push it to open and close the capo.
Actually putting it on is pretty simple.
You just push the handles together, pop it down and let it go,
and you're on there. Nice, big handle makes it easy to move.
Now, that's a pretty common type of Capo, I really like it. I dig the brand.
Lately, I've changed to using this type of Capos,
made by a company called G7th.
I really like the fact that it's small, and it doesn't have the big handles.
The big handles might seem useful for putting it on and off initally,
but really, you just put it on and squeeze it...
and you're done. That's it.
To release, there's a button at the top
that you squeeze, then you take it off.
So it's a very, very nice design.
A lot smaller, so it's a lot less gonna get in the way there.
If you just look at the...
If I put the Kyser next to it, you can see this is a lot bulkier.
There's a lot more real estate, air real estate taken up there.
So, yeah..
I'd probably recommend... they're a touch more expensive,
but these are gonna last you a really long time,
as long as you don't lose it,
you'll probably find the Capo lasts you for a good 20/30 years or something.
You don't have to scrimp on your first Capo, I don't think.
It's a good idea to get a good one.
First, I wanna talk about the placement of the Capo,
cos that's pretty important.
When you put the Capo on, you need to put it just before a fret.
So if I want it on the 5th fret, there's the 5th fret here.
You wanna put it just behind the metal. Not on top of the metal,
but just behind it.
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You should get it nice and clear. If you put it too far back,
you get this sort of thing going on...
so you see it's clamped, even if I press really hard,
it's still not there. I have to move it further up.
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Okay, so it's kind of working half way,
but you'll generally get it a lot better,
just like with the thing I talked about with finger placement,
and how important it is to get your finger just before the fret.
The same rule applies to the Capo, so you wanna get the...
♪
Just behind the fret there, is the correct placement of the Capo,
and that makes a pretty big difference.
Now let's talk about why you might wanna use a Capo.
So the first reason is,
that you can play songs you wouldn't normally be able to play,
by using a Capo and simple chords.
A really good example for this is, "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits.
Now, the actual chords in the song, is using E, A and B.
I'm playing them all as barre chords.
You know already E, A, but you probably don't know B.
It's pretty much only available as a barre chord,
which is a more advanced type of chord.
Now, if we use a capo, we can play the same chord sounds,
but using simpler chord shapes.
So, if I put here my Capo at the 7th fret,
I can play an A chord...
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sounds like an E chord.
So...
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If I play that, and then an E chord...
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it's exactly the same, so the beginning of that song...
♪E chord, ba da da da da A chord, da da B chord♪
♪Da da da da da, A to the B♪
♪da da da da da da♪
You're like, "Ah, I'd love to play that song, but I can't play a B chord".
By putting a Capo on the 7th fret, we can now go,
♪A chord, na na, ba da da da da D chord♪
And the D chord now sounds like an A.
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E chord sounds like a B.
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♪Da da da ba da da da da da, da na♪
♪Ba da da da da da da, da da da na♪
And you'd now be able to play along,
with the original recording of the song, using just your A, D and E chords.
Being able to use a Capo to use simple chords to play more difficult songs,
makes it a really great thing for beginners to be able to do,
particularly if you wanna play along with the original recordings,
which is a great thing to do.
If you're using my app, where the guitaraoke kind of play-along stuff,
we've changed the keys of the songs,
so you can play with the open chords without having to use a Capo.
But you can, there's a Capo option in the app, as well.
And the reason for that, is the next point of discussion,
which is to change the key of the song, so it might suit your voice.
So, let's say that you got a song here. I'm gonna make one up now.
So, you got an E chord and it goes,
♪La la la la la la la la la laaa, la la la la la la la la la laaa♪
And you're like, "Oh, I can't hit that low note".
So you might try putting a Capo on. Still play the same chord.
♪La la la la la la la la la laaa, la la la♪
I still can't quite get it. It's still too low.
Let's try it here at the 5th fret.
♪
♪La la la la la la la la la laaa, la la la la, oh now I've got it♪
And I've found it works for my voice.
Now this is particularly useful if you're a guy singer singing a song
that was originally sung by a girl,
or a girl singer who wants to sing a song originally sung by a guy.
Generally speaking, it's around the 4th to 7th fret, for a girl going to a guy.
And perhaps a little higher than that, between 5th and 9th fret...6th.
I mean it really depends on your voice and the range of your voice,
but just as a very rough guide,
if you're a girl singer trying to play a song that was originally sung by a guy,
you wanna put the Capo up, roughly 4 or 5 frets as a starting point.
But, again, I kinda feel like I'm going into dangerous ground,
by giving you specific frets, but that's not a bad starting point, anyway.
Now, one of the things you'll find is, it does end up being trial and error.
So, you wanna play the song, learn the song in open position,
get used to the chords. When you go to sing it, you go,
"This isn't really working for me. Let's see if I can find a better place for it",
and then you might just put the Capo somewhere at the 3rd fret,
and play the song again, and try and sing it, and go,
"Well, no it still feels a bit higher or lower",
and then you try moving it somewhere else.
As you progress more and you get comfortable
with the idea of Capos and singing.
So, singing might be a whole new thing, as well,
but the more experience you get with all that stuff,
you know roughly where the range is,
the kind of keys that suit your voice well.
The Capo for a beginner is a really, really great tool.
Particularly for playing along with original recordings,
and if you sing, being able to change the key of songs to fit your own voice.
Both those reasons are fantastic excuses to buy a Capo.
So you might see around on internet guitar forums,
people saying that Capos are only for beginners, and that's just not true.
People saying that, don't really understand how to use a Capo.
Sure, a beginner can use it as a tool to play a song,
that's got harder chords in it that they can't play.
That's a great tool. That's a handy, useful, wonderful thing about Capos.
The idea of changing the key of the song, isn't just for beginners.
Even the best musicians, and the biggest name singer/songwriters,
like Neil Young, uses a Capo all the time. He's a fantastic guitar player.
He doesn't have to use a Capo to get away with playing a song.
He's writing his own songs. He can do them how he likes.
He uses a Capo to make the chords
that he feels comfortable playing, suit his voice.
And that's a really, really great little thing.
There's even more advanced ideas that you can get into with Capos,
funny tunings, and definitely don't feel like it's only a beginner thing,
is what I'm trying to get out to you here.
They're a fantastic tool.
If you get into it, you'll use it for your whole guitar playing life.