Hi there. Hey a capo is a great tool when used properly. In this video, you'll learn
everything you need to know to use this clever tool confidently and to get the
most bang out of it.
Hi there, I'm Tomas Michaud of Real Guitar Success. If you're new here go
ahead and subscribe to my channel so I can send you some more guitar lessons
and help you build confidence, connect with others and have fun. Using a capo is
a valuable skill for anyone learning guitar fortunately it's not difficult
though there are a few things that you'll need to know to make the most use
out of this simple but powerful tool. There are many different ways to use a
capo. However most of the time we use a capo to adjust the pitch of the song up
or down to better suit the singer either yourself or someone else. By learning to
use the capo in this way, you'll actually be learning the skills that you need to
use it in many other ways as well. It's kind of a three-fer that's a that's
a twofer but you get the idea. In this video we'll start off with some of the
basics of using a capo then we'll go more into depth on raising and lowering
the pitch of a song using a capo. I'm gonna give you a brief music theory
lesson on keys as well if you don't know what that means don't worry you're in
the right place. Then finally I'll give you some jam tracks that you can
practice along with and it'll be a lot more fun. The capo is kind of like a
movable guitar knot so when you make a chord the notes on the chord where your
fingers hit the guitar neck are being sounded by where your fingers hit
near the fret in other words when I make a G chord my third finger is on the 3rd
fret or just before the third fret and that's where it makes a notes out if I
let go it's a different pitch. So in a chord all the notes where my fingers are
on the guitar neck are caused by where my fingers are being placed but the open
strings
are the note is being caused by where the nut is. The nut is this little white
thing on the guitar just between the machine head and the rest of the
guitar neck. So a way to think of a capo is that you're moving the nut of the
guitar neck. So for example if I play a G chord and I move it up two frets it doesn't
sound right. The notes that I'm pressing down went up two frets but all the open
strings stayed the same so by putting a capo on that second fret because I moved
up two frets, now the chord will sound right. It sounds like a chord that's
moved up two steps. Now I want to distinguish between what
we'll call a chord form and the chord itself or the way the chord sounds. A
chord form is a fingering of a chord. For example, this is a G chord form and
without the capo it's also a G sounding chord but I can move that same G chord
form up two frets, put the capo on that second fret like we did before and even
though it's the same form it's not a G chord sound anymore. By moving up two
frets I've gone from G to G sharp that's one fret, the second fret is A it now
actually sounds like an A chord even though I'm using a G chord form. So
here's another example. I'm going to play a C chord. This is a C chord form and
it's also the cute C chord sound without the capo. Now when I put the capo on the
2nd fret again and move it up the whole form up two frets
it's a C chord form but this doesn't sound like a C chord
anymore. By moving up two frets C C sharp D it's now a D chord and the same applies
as you move the capo up and down. The sound of the chord is different but you
can still use the same chord forms. Normally when we talk about chords we're
just talking about the sound of the chords but when we're talking about
using a capo we need to distinguish the form of a chord, the basic fingering, and
the sound because it'll be different as you move up and down. Now Ive mention the
word pitch already. When we say we're raising the pitch we're making the note
higher. When we say we're lowering the pitch we're making the note lower. For
example, if I have a note and I want to raise the pitch I would go up the neck
to make the note higher. I'm raising the pitch and in reverse if I want to
lower it I'll go back down the neck. Sometimes we want to raise the pitch or
lower the pitch of an entire song to better suit someone singing along with the
song. It's common in that case to say we're changing the key of the song.
There's a relationship between pitch and key
but they're not exactly the same thing. The main thing to know right now is that
we'll be using the idea of changing the key to either raise or lower the pitch.
As an example, I'm gonna use a song ___5:10 ___ that starts with the G chord
and then it goes to a C chord, a D chord and then back to the G chord. Now we could
say that this song is in the key of G. If I wanted to raise the pitch of the song
I can put the capo on the first fret and then play the exact same chord forms
everything up one fret. Now I've raised the pitch of the song by one fret when
fret is equal to one half step in music. Now the song is actually in the key of G
sharp. G sharp is one half step away from G so if I want to raise it a little
farther I could go up another fret. Now from the
original I've gone up two frets which is two half steps or one whole step. I've
gone from G to G sharp to A now. Even though I'm playing a G chord form
it sounds like an A chord. The C, the chord would actually be d one step away from C
and this chord which was a D chord in the previous key now sounds like E one
whole step up. Does that make sense? So this is an easy way to raise the
pitch of a song if it's a little low for the singer but what about if the song is
already too high and you want to make it lower so now here's where things get
interesting. The idea of what we're gonna do is we're gonna switch the chords
around so that it's in a much lower key preferably lower than we actually need it.
Then we're gonna put the capo on the guitar with the new chords and raise it
up little by little until it's just where we want it. This is where a music
theory lesson could come in handy. A simple definition of the key of a song
is the chord or note where it feels like you're at home. The tonic chord we call
it home chord. So taking the key of G as an example the G note or the G chord
would feel like home. Now you're probably going to use the G scale much of the
time and you're gonna use chords that fit with the key of G but the idea is that as
you go through the song when you get to that G chord or the G note and the
melody it feels like home so that's the key of G. So in this case we're gonna
start with the key of G, follow along. We still got the same three chords. The G
chord which is the home chord right tonic or home chord, a C chord and the D
chord. And we're gonna jump down to a lower key, the key of D. So one way to do
this or to figure it out is to go backwards on the musical alphabet and
count. Let me just give a quick review of the musical alphabet.
It starts with A, B, C , D , E , F, G, H no hahaha got you! There's no H. It ends in G and
then you start over, A, B, C , D , E , F, G, A, B, C , D , E , F, G and so on. So we'll start with the G
chord and we're gonna count backwards to D G F E D G F E E. We're going back three
notes. Now all the other chords will do the same thing. Will take the C chord now
we'll go back three notes. C is the first note and I'm going back B. What comes
before B? A G so now in place of the C chord we're gonna play a G chord
so if we got a D chord a G chord. Now that last one originally we were playing
a D chord right but we're going to go back three notes. Start with D what comes
before D, C very good B, oh you're faster than me
and A so we're gonna end up with A.
Now what we've ended up with in the key of D
we're starting with a D chord, we'll go to a G chord and an A chord and that's
the key of D.
We could say we just changed the key or transpose the song to the key of D.
Transpose is just a fancy word for we changed the key so that's cool.
Oh ha, you now know how to transpose a song. If it is too low for our voice now what
we'll do is put the capo on starting with the first fret and check it out and
see if it's right. By putting on the first fret I just raised the song that's
now in D to D sharp that's one half step up, D sharp.
Okay and if that's still too low, I would keep going up another half step
from D sharp to E another half step. Now this song is in E and see I'm still
playing the D chord form, the G chord form, the A chord form but it sounds in
the key of D. It's one full step above the D without the cable.
But what if in fact the song wasn't low enough to start with going down to D
Well, one of the things I could do is to transpose or change the key down even
lower. In this case, let's go ahead and change it to the key of A which is quite
a bit lower and just for practice let's go ahead and count out those notes as
well. Okay remember your musical alphabet again A, B, C, D, E, F, G - A, B, C, D, E, F, G and so on okay now
so on. Okay , now we're go from the key of G to the key of A. We could start G going
backwards because we're going down G, F E D C B A. But one of the things that is
really helpful is sometimes you can just do the same thing by going up and it's
easier. In this case, A is just one step above G and because the whole musical
alphabets in a cycle it's the same thing. Going up one step to A is the same as
going back to A. So in case of G I'll just go up one step G to A. Now the new
first chord will be A. That one was pretty easy huh. Now in place of the C
chord, remember we're doing G C and D. In places of the C chord we're gonna go up
one step to D now that second chord will be a D chord.
We've got A D and what's the final chord? So in the original progression of the song
it was the D chord and we're gonna go up one step D to E. Well yeah but will
play like this with a D chord so now we've got A, its the first chord, D, E
and then we'll go back to A that'll be the new song. We can say that we
transpose the song to the key of A now and that's quite a bit lower. What you
could do now is put the cable on the first fret and start raising it up to
see where you want it. Now on the first fret I've raised the whole
key up by half a step so is now a sharp.
If I go one more fret it's going to be A sharp to B is the next half step. Now
the song if I play it'll be B. It will sound like B even though I'm using the same
chord forms. If I go one more half step it'll be B sharp.
Nooo! There's only remember a half step between B and C so it goes to C from
there. Now Ive just raise the song up to C and I only have the capo on the third
fret. It's one thing to understand something intellectually like this but
it's another to be able to actually use it. Here are three exercises that you can
use to play along with and kind of integrate this understanding by playing
and listening it'll make more sense and it'll be much more usable. Okay for this
first exercise, we're gonna start off so let's just play the basic song in the
original key of G. We'll start off with a G chord going to just strum four times
along with me
then we will go to the C chord
to the D chord and back to the G.
Now just for fun, call this the one chord. Don't worry what it means for now, you
may already know then call the C chord the four chord. It sounds funny. It should be
two, no, four and then the D chord the 5 chord. So this is the one four five
one okay. Just for fun - one chord, four chord, five chord, one chord. Now we're going to
put the capo on and raise this whole thing up to the key of A. First fret
would be G, the G sharp one step half step and then one full step would be
from G to A that would be the second fret so now when I play the G chord
it's gonna sound like A. The C chord form sounds like D and the D chord form
sounds like E. We're still gonna call the one chord, four chord, five words and one
chord. Now let's play along with a backing
track in the key of A. The backing track is actually playing chords A D and E
but we're gonna play this, let's do it 2 3 4 or
change, D form back to G form.
Say this out loud with me just repeat one chord to the four chord the C form
five chord D and back to the one chord G. For the second exercise, we're going
play the same chord form set G form the C form and the D form but we're going to
move the capo up to the fifth fret that's gonna put it in the key of C.
Follow along with me. We start with G, one one step would be A
up another step
two frets would be B and then we need a half step to get to C that's the fifth
fret so let's put the capo on there. Now when you play a G chord it's actually
gonna sound like a C chord. Let's try it out with the backing track as well. I
have a backing track in the key of C and we're gonna play the same forms and
you'll see it works - three or four times each to the C form to the D form and the G
that's a C chord. C, this is where I'm actually sounding and this is gonna be
something like an F and then G it's a G believe it or not.
You can all say one just for fun .. four
five and back to the line. Okay for exercise
number three we're going to change the chords around and we're going to change
them to the A version. Now remember we did this, the new chords will be an A
chord the D chord and E chord. One chord will be A, the four chord would be D and the
five chord will be E. So we're going to put the capo on the third fret and raise
this up to the key of A up one step or two frets would be B and the
half-step would be C on the third fret that will make it in the key of C so now
we're going to play the a form and that will be a C chord this is another way to
play in the key of C one of the neat things about this is if you have a hard
time with the F chord you see now you playing the F chord without actually
having to do the difficult fingering, let's try this with the backing track.
This is also in the key of C, one two three four
D chord form, D form , E form and to the A form which is actually a C right now.
Let's do the number thing one, chord, four chord, five chord and the one chord. Hey,
you're pretty good! So that's it for the exercises. I created a couple of jam
tracks that you can download , no charge, to practice along with. It's a great way
to train your ears to hear these chord changes as well as to integrate these
ideas and it's a lot of fun. Thank you for joining me in this video. Hope you
enjoyed it. I got a quick question for you.
How advanced are you on the capo? Is this a brand new thing for you or have you
been using a capo for a while. Let me know. Leave a comment down below this
video and if you haven't already please go ahead and subscribe. I look forward to
seeing you again soon. Bye!