Full transcript of “3 Important Reasons To Use A Capo As A Guitar Player”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 hey Steve here and today we're going to be talking about the [Music] Capo and the reasons why we would use a capo and uh how we would use the Capo so the first thing I want to do is is explain to you what a capo is now first of all the Capo is a device that you can use to clamp on your guitar and basically what you're doing is you're taking the nut of your guitar and you're simply moving it up using this Capo okay so for instance if I want play a G chord my G chord would be located right here there'd be a space in between so let's say for instance I was playing along with you know somebody and we wanted to do a song and the song used a G chord let's say the song was just G for the entire song and that person was
0:47 trying to sing along but the the pitch was too low that g was too low what I could do is I could then take this cable put it on the guitar I'm going to clamp it on kind of right next to the the bar there that that or the Fret fret wire there and now what I would do is that wouldn't work anymore I would move that up so there's still one space in between and I could move that anywhere I want you see so what I'm essentially doing here is I'm shrinking the guitar I'm still maintaining the shape of that G chord but as I move up of course the pitch is changing so when it was here I was playing a g if I clamp it on the first fret and move up a fret even though it looks like a g in my eyes
1:32 it's no longer the pitch of G okay it would be one Higher which we would call G sharp or a flat if you know your theory and if you don't it's okay but that's what it would be if I move up again now this G shape that we're looking at here would sound like a doesn't look like a anymore but that's the pitch that we would be playing so if a piano player heard that and wanted to match that they'd have to play an A if I move up again they'd have to play a sharp or B flat if I move up again they'd have to play a B so what we're essentially essentially doing here is we're shrinking the guitar neck every time we move that Capo up these become useless and the pitches keep going higher and higher we keep changing Keys now why would we do that well there's a
2:19 couple of different reasons one reason is exactly what I was just alluding to let's say we had a song that was using uh g c and d right so we're we're going to be playing for a wedding and I've got a G chord and a c chord and a d chord so I learned this song for this wedding okay I'm going to be playing guitar for this wedding so I'm [Music] playing and that's how the song goes and I've learned the song so I show up for the wedding and the singer is going to be somebody in the wedding party that's flying in from you know North Carolina I have no idea so they come in and they've learned the song but they didn't let me
3:04 know that they can't sing it in G they have to sing it in a different key something that fits their voice better you see or maybe we show up and they don't know what key they're singing it in but we start trying to practice this thing and realize that the the key of G that the song is in isn't working for their voice these are all real things that happen in real time uh when you do performances and so what's great about a is very quickly then because you've learned this song a certain way instead of trying to revamp the way you're thinking of it in your head it's wedding day you don't want to make any mistakes you want to maintain the same cordal structure g c and d but you have to find a key that they can sing in so that's when you start doing okay well let's try this how does that feel no it's still
3:50 too low for my voice okay well let's move up a little bit further how about [Music] this and they say oh yeah that that works great that that fits my voice okay well now we've solved the problem so we can still play GC and D in our mind the way that we've memorized this whatever is going on there and they can sing it in a key that is comfortable for them and again this is a real thing that happens another reason why we do this is because on the guitar open chords have a distinct sound again if I go back to this [Music] G and play that it sounds different than if I was to play it as a bar [Music]
4:37 chord now the pitches are all fine that's that's perfectly fine but there's something about that openness of an open chord using those strings I'm not pressing on open strings if you will that really gives it kind of a slap kind of sound when I play bar chords don't have that bar chords tend to be a little bit more stuffy now again I'm not saying you can play it any way you want I'm just telling you that that's why people will use a capo is because we want to have that open chord sound but we need to play it in a different key that doesn't function well with the open chords right so if we were playing in the key of for instance again a flat then we'd have to play these as bar
5:23 [Music] chords or I could again this takes a little while to get used to the the the theory of it but if I moved up here now my G [Music] sharp I'd still be able to maintain that open chord sound using a capo now the argument used to be and I certainly believed that argument when I was younger was well people only use C CES because they don't know their bar chords or something like that so it's it's a cheater and in fact that might be true like there are people that will use this because they don't know their bar chords and things like that and again that's okay if I'm teaching a beginner guitar class and we've learned you know GC and
6:08 D but we want to play some other songs I will absolutely teach them how to use a capo not because I don't want them to learn how to play bar chords or whatever the case may be it's because I want them to have fun like I want them to be motivated to play and if using a capo and moving it up you know if I put it here and I play [Music] [Applause] [Music] right and we can play freef Fallen or something like that which is done with a capo by the way and it's not like Tom Petty can't couldn't play guitar you know whatever the case may be but my point is we can use that a because we want to maintain that open chord sound B because we don't know other chords or trying to
6:53 teach somebody how to play and they want to play a song that uses chords that they don't know yet so instead of saying well you know someday you'll be able to play whatever which sometimes is the case but with a capo sometimes you can just go okay well let's put the Capo here play the chords that you know and now you can play this song right so we've got moving the Capo to maintain the cordal structure that you've memorized but yet play along with maybe a vocalist that needs to change the key or another uh you know musician that needs to change the key for a certain reason that's a valid reason number two uh because we like the sound of those open cords as opposed to a bar chord or something like that it's a great reason number three uh because we don't know other chords and these are the chords that we know at this point but we still want to be able to play Signs these are all
7:40 valid reasons for using a capo and all you have to remember is the Capo again is really like the nut you're just moving it up as you go but you also need to know that every time you change even though visually it looks like the same chord it is not the same chord because we can tell obviously that the pitch changes when we move it so you have to be aware that there's the guitar way of thinking and then there's the real world the guitar way of thinking is it's a G chord no matter where I go because it looks like a g and that's not true it's only G when it's here and you're tuned standard your guitar is tuned the proper way um if any of those things change then it's no longer even though it looks a certain way it's no longer that so that's why
8:26 it's nice to learn some of your music theory what I would suggest for you is for instance if you learn the notes on your six string okay and you think okay this is a G chord because this note right here is G if I move up one and Capo then it would be G sharp and then it would be a and a sharp and so on but then youve got all the other chords as well so another thing that you can start memorizing is some of your theory if you start learning some basic Theory like if I'm in the key of G what's my first chord what's my second chord what's my third chord fourth chord fifth chord and so on you can actually learn some really great shortcuts with learning that kind of theory where you go oh so g c and d is actually a really common chord progression so if I put a capable on here it's still that really common chord progression but now I'm in the key of
9:12 you know B flat in this case or AARP whatever you want to call it most people would call it B flat but that's another step that you could go on from here to start understanding a little bit about what you're doing and how it actually works thank you for watching this video if you're enjoying this video and you'd like to support the channel channel so we can continue to bring you more free content please take a moment to subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications and let me know what you think in the comments below also if you'd like more in-depth training and courses go to guitarzoom.com and get started for free today
