How Do You Know if You Need a Capo
When I was learning guitar, I was always told that using a capo is "for cheats and wimps" and stuff like that. The fact is if I would have started out using a capo, I would be a improve guitarist for it now.
I would take learned more songs quicker; I would accept jammed more, joined more bands sooner and got bitten by the guitar bug much sooner.
All of that would have led to more skills, more confidence and much more want to practise during the 'struggle years'.
Below is a list of 8 very skillful reasons why you can and should own a capo. This goes for guitarists who are make new to the instrument or players like myself who have played for over 16 years.
Yes, I still use and love using a capo at the right time.
#i Using a capo allows you to play more than songs with fewer chords
One of the greatest pros, for many guitarists, especially beginners (or those who are mainly singers and desire to back-trail their singing), is the fact that using a capo allows you to play more than songs with less chords.
If you can learn just 5 chords, be able to change back and forth between them, you can play 1000s of songs when you use our trusty sometime friend—the capo.
Yep, what a winner. The unproblematic chords of 1000, D, C, Em, Am will open upward new avenues to your guitar playing that might not accept even so been discovered. Download your free mini eBook here to larn those 5 along with a few others.
Expect at this niggling list of songs.
- Foo Fighters – Times Like These (no capo)
- Ben Eastward. Male monarch – Stand By Me (capo 2)
- UB40 – Ruby, Carmine Wine (capo 6)
- Elvis Presley – Don't Be Savage (capo 7)
If you lot wanted to acquire those songs in a unproblematic audio-visual strum-along manner, and yous were not using a capo, you would demand to learn a lot more chords than merely Yard, D, C, Em, Am.
In fact, y'all would demand to use a diverseness of barre chords and different chord shapes.
Ouch! For a beginner, that'due south a lot of work for but being able to play some simple (but awesome sounding) strum-forth songs.
We have all seen those chord books titled something like 'Learn 60,000 chords' or something like. For about guitarists and especially for beginners these books are garbage.
#two Using a capo allows you lot to play things that would otherwise be impossible
If you lot accept ever listened in detail to The Smiths, yous'll know that Johnny Marr loves to play some really cool chord voicings. These chord voicings frequently aren't possible to play without using a capo.
Some people recollect, wrongly, that a capo is a cheat'southward tool. I'd like them to say that to Mr Johnny Marr. He would probably smack his guitar around their heads, or maybe he is too cool to do that and he would simply laugh.
Anyway, if you want to learn how using a capo can be used as a creative tool to create songs, cheque out The Smiths and songs such as 'Big Mouth Strikes Once again'.
Without using a capo, that song and many other of The Smiths songs wouldn't exist possible to play.
It's non simply The Smiths though. Songs such as 'Fast Car' by Tracy Chapman and 'Scarborough Fair' by Simon and Garfunkel (both of which are in my Fingerpicking Classics class) would exist incommunicable to play in the original primal without using a capo and those capo songs are just the tip of the iceberg.
#three Using a capo helps songwriting and composition
Every now and then a pupil of mine volition tell me how much they really want to acquire how to write songs, or even just write one actually cool song and tape it.
I'm a large believer that every musician should write and record at least one vocal in their lifetime and ideally write and record at to the lowest degree i every year or so. Information technology'due south such a liberating and wonderful affair to practise.
Anyway, they often tell me they have no idea where to outset. At that place are loads of different techniques yous tin can use to write a vocal, merely one I love to utilise with students is where you adapt a song you lot already know to a signal it is no longer recognisable to the original, but is unique sounding to you lot. Ane of the ways to do this is to utilize a capo.
Y'all tin take any song you lot know how to play, let's say 'Allow It Be' by The Beatles.
I teach information technology using M, D, Em, C with a capo on fret v. Now if you motion the capo to fret one, information technology will sound different.
If you were to then change the strum pattern information technology would audio even more unlike.
Change other aspects of the slice and it volition become even more different. The beginning step was changing the capo position.
It tin make things sound drastically different and is a really cool tool for songwriting.
You lot tin even have your favourite chord progression and play it with a capo upwards in different positions for a similar result.
To meet how using a capo tin exist a actually cool songwriting tool, cheque out this footling video I fabricated a while back.
#4 Changes the key to adjust a singer
Imagine a funny little scenario. You are jamming with a singer and this singer's name is James Blunt. Let's say that charming twit who is well-loved and well-hated in equal measures is your jam buddy and he turns effectually and says to you:
"Hey, man, let's coverYou Are The First, My Last, My Everything"
Well, you think:
"Dear James, your vocalism is very high pitched and love Barry'south was the contrary end of the spectrum. He had a deep, rich and very low pitch. How the hell are you lot going to sing that with your loftier pitched voice of yours?"
"The answer, my erstwhile deary", James says, "is to put the capo on and play the song exactly like before."
Yep, using a capo is a wonderful tool for irresolute keys to suit a singer'due south vocalism. If you lot are taking a song that is in totally the incorrect cardinal for a singer, you can put a capo on to make it higher, or if there is already a capo on, move it higher or even move information technology lower if the vocal is too high for the singer.
When women play and sing songs originally sung past men, they sometimes like using a capo as, by and large, females accept college pitched voices than males, but as Geddy Lee from Rush will attest to this isn't always the case, but that's another story.
#5 Using a capo makes playing the chords easier
Using a capo volition near ever brand the chords experience a little easier which will allow you to play more songs and have more fun which will encourage you to practice more than. All of which will make you a amend player.
Endeavor it now. Play a C chord with no capo. Now play a C chord with a capo on fret four.
Feels easier? Unless you take uncommonly large fingers and/or a guitar with a cervix that is too small-scale for you lot, you volition probably find using a capo that petty bit easier.
Of grade, some folks will moan, and say:
"Why should yous brand learning guitar easier? It's better to acquire it the tough manner, like a real man".
I've spoke earlier almost these misguided fools who similar to make learning guitar harder than it needs to be.
Also, because the chord feels easier to play they are oft easier to change to and from. The frets are only that little bit closer together which makes playing the chord easier and as your fingers don't have to travel every bit far makes the irresolute of chords easier as well.
I'm a fan of making the instrument easier and more fun. I hope y'all are too. Ok, glad nosotros cleared that up.
#6 Using a capo leaves your fingers feeling less sore
One of the perks of playing things higher upward the cervix of the guitar is that for most guitarists information technology feels a little easier on the fingers.
The amount of pressure level needed to fret a annotation at the 6th fret for case rather than the 1st fret is ordinarily noticeably less.
Using a capo anywhere higher up the 1st fret unremarkably means the student volition stop needing to printing equally hard and because they don't have to stretch their fingers a lot when playing chords they are more than relaxed.
Beingness more relaxed is a very good thing equally it ways a student can focus on using the 'Minimum Pressure level Required' technique which I discuss a lot in Ninja Chord Changes.
Using the smallest amount of force per unit area required to fret a note cleanly will permit you to play for longer and with less soreness.
Keep that in heed especially if you suffer with sore fingers after a practice session.
#vii Using a capo creates a unlike tone
Play a G Major chord with no capo. Have a good mind to the audio.
Now, put a capo on at fret 5 and play a D Major chord.
Have a heed to the two.
Both chords y'all have merely played are in fact Grand Major chords. If you are wondering why, and so you may need to sympathize some of the music theory behind what happens when using a capo.
Basically, playing a capo changes everything. The chord shape yous play becomes a different chord when a capo is involved.
The point here, though, is not the theory behind information technology all (that'southward for a future post), but it is the tone that both of these different ways of playing G major gives you.
Play them both again and really listen.
They sound similar but 1 is deeper and bassier and the other is thinner and janglier. It's a thing of stance which one sounds best (depends on the situation).
When a student plays a song such as 'Brown Eyed Girl' which is mainly a:
K, C, M, D
I oft show them how you tin can play it past putting a capo on fret 7 and play the shapes of:
C, F, C, G
Those chords with a capo on fret 7 sound the aforementioned, merely with a different tone.
Try it if y'all don't believe me!
The two tones complement each other really nicely and create a unlike flavour which is handy for when two guitars are playing the aforementioned parts.
#viii Using a capo gives your left hand a residual
Recently, me and Dale, the other guy in my new acoustic project were jamming out some songs, and one song we did was The Jam'due south 'That's Entertainment'. I decided to play it without a capo and go through the whole song only playing it with barre chords.
Playing the song with barre chords was no problem, but after a couple of minutes into the song I was thinking to myself, my left mitt is actually starting to become a little tired as nosotros had been jamming for almost xc minutes already.
Playing it without using a capo meant I had to play nothing but barre chords throughout the vocal and so my left paw couldn't rest. I realised how rarely this does happen in the songs I play. Ordinarily a lot of barre chord songs will have moments where your fretting hand volition accept a sabbatical. Not this ane.
The songs we were jamming prior to this ane were all tiring on my fretting paw, so I could have done with a sabbatical. Putting the capo on and playing it that way would have allowed me that breather.
If you play long sessions and want to give your fretting mitt a rest, learn my lesson and start using a capo. You don't get extra marks for making things tougher.
Give your fretting mitt the occasional interruption when it needs information technology.
There you accept information technology.
eight different reasons why using a capo can be a very proficient thing for your guitar playing. Don't let anyone tell you they are for "wimps" or "wusses". They are probably simply wishing they used one when starting out.
Exit a comment beneath and let me know what your favourite song to play with a capo is. In that location are many I'chiliad certain.
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