Steve Stine Guitar Podcast

Changing Keys Without Changing Your Mindset: The Power of Using a Capo

• Steve Stine

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Ever found yourself perfecting a song in one key, only to discover it's completely wrong for your vocalist? That's where the humble capo enters as your musical superhero.

This deep dive into capo technique goes far beyond the basics, unraveling the mathematical relationships between fret positions and key changes. We explore how this small device transforms your playing while preserving muscle memory and chord shapes. When you've mastered that beautiful fingerpicking pattern in G but need to play in A-flat, your capo becomes the bridge between what you've practiced and what you need to perform.

Communication becomes particularly interesting when working with different instrumentalists. While guitarists might casually mention "playing in G with capo 2," pianists and horn players need translation into their musical language. Understanding these nuances prevents confusion during rehearsals and performances.

The distinction between "cheater tool" and "essential equipment" becomes clear as we discuss the unique tonal qualities of open positions versus barre chords. Some melodic passages simply cannot be replicated in different positions, making the capo indispensable for preserving a song's character while accommodating vocal ranges or other instrumental limitations.

Whether you're playing in a church band with last-minute key changes or collaborating with singers of varied ranges, mastering capo mathematics elevates your versatility without requiring you to reinvent your technique for every new musical situation. Ready to transform your approach to transposition and unlock new possibilities on your six-string journey?

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Steve:

All right, now that you know how to use a capo, what we want to do is talk a little bit about the mathematics of using the capo. Okay, so, for instance, if you knew a song that was in the key of G and you were playing G and C and D and a singer comes in and they're going to sing this song with you and you've learned how to play this in the key of G, but as soon as you start playing, you recognize that maybe this key doesn't work for this singer, for whatever reason. You know, maybe the singer has a bit higher voice, or whatever it might be. So that's obviously the perfect opportunity to start using a capo. You can still maintain all of the open chord, tonality, you can still maintain all your thoughts on how you're actually playing this song, how you practice it, all that kind of stuff. Everything can be the same. You're just going to add the capo and start changing the key. So I have a couple of different capos here. This is kind of a typical capo that you would see. Okay, just something like that where you squeeze and right, it opens and closes. And then there are other capos there's, you know, fancier capos that have, you know, like a little, you know, trigger. If you will, that work a little bit better sometimes, because with a capo, sometimes what happens is the capo might pull the strings a little bit and you'll recognize whether that is or is not happening on your guitar, depending on which capo you have and what you hear. So anyway, what I'm going to use, I'm just going to use the traditional old school capo here, okay. So let's say I put this on the first fret, okay. So now what would happen is everything that I was doing would now be one fret higher, which means if I was playing in the key of G, playing G, c and D visually I'm still seeing G and C and D, but the audio right, what's actually happening with the pitches would be one fret higher, which you want to know your chromatic scale, because that would be very helpful to you to know the math conversion here. So now, all of a sudden, instead of playing G, I'd have to play it one fret higher, which means I'm now playing in the key of G, sharp, or more commonly called the key of A flat.

Steve:

Okay, now it can be confusing when you're talking to other musicians, because you're still thinking G, c and D, and if you're with a bunch of guitar players, you use terminology like oh, let's play in the key of G, but just capo the first fret. Okay, that makes sense. G, c, d, capo, first fret. That's the language that we use. But if you were playing with some other instruments, if you were playing with a saxophone player and a piano player and whatever, they're not going to understand that language unless they play guitar. So you've got to tell them what you're actually doing. So you, as a guitar player, are thinking G, c and D, but you've got a capo at the first fret. So you're actually playing G sharp, c sharp and D sharp, which, again, commonly we might call these things A flat, d flat and E flat. Now, if that terminology screws you up at all, you want to learn what those things are, understanding your chromatic scale, all 12 notes and then understanding that if you say C sharp, it has an alternate name which is D flat or G sharp has A flat, and again, you could learn all of that, but it's important to understand that. So now you know we're getting closer, so we start playing the song again.

Steve:

Okay, so for us as guitar players, nothing's really changing other than the fact that we have the capo on the guitar. We're still visually thinking about the G, the C and the D. We're still working on it the same way we did it when we were practicing at home, but maybe it's still a little too low, so now we've got to move it up. So we move it up to the second fret. Again. Nothing is changing for me in terms of my visualization. Obviously, the sound is changing, but the way I'm thinking about the song is still staying the same. Now this G would be two frets higher, which means G is actually A, c is actually D and D is actually E.

Steve:

And you can see where that can get confusing. That's why when you're working in the guitar world, people will just say oh, it's in the key of G, second capo, second fret. So we've got it cleared, because if I say A, then it's like well, why it doesn't look like A to me, right? So that's where the confusion happens. So you always have to remember who are you talking to. Are you talking to other guitar players that understand capo 2? We're still playing G, right, g, c and D, but capo 2. Or are we talking to other musicians where we'd have to define this?

Steve:

Now you can see where, in this case, g has become A, c has become D and D has become E, because we're two frets higher. So then the question arises well, why not just play A, d and E then? And the answer is well, you could, okay. What will change, though, is the tone will change a little bit, because when you were here, of course, you were playing like that D chord had a real high sound to it, right, so it kind of sounds like it's moving up. When I play in the key of with these chords, you see, now it's the same chords, but it sounds a little bit different because we're going from A up here to D and then down to this low E sound.

Steve:

The other thing that's significant about this is that it's changed in your mind. Like, if you've been practicing and you've been thinking about G, c and D, well, now you've gotta convert this in your mind to A, d and E, and that's okay. Again, if you have time, there's nothing wrong with that, right? But if it's on the fly, and maybe that would confuse you, well, hey, that's a perfect reason that you'd want to use a capo. Okay, so if I put that capo back on, here's another instance.

Steve:

Let's say I was doing something where the melody is doing something where I'm going. Well, let me just show you this. So that's what it sounded like, right, that's what the song was. That I was learning how to play, so, even though I could put this in A. That I was learning how to play. So, even though I could put this in A, I can't do that picking melody if I change this.

Steve:

So that'd be a prime example of why a capo would be beneficial. You see, when I was growing up, capos were considered these cheater things and I suppose in some way, they are like if you don't learn your bar chords or something like that, but a capo isn't always gonna be be the answer, because you're still going to wind up having to play bar chords at some point in your life, so it's worth learning them. But I think a capo is really, really important for exactly what we're talking about now to keep the consistency of what it is that you're doing. Because if what I want to play is is that if I take the capo off and play it as A, d and E, I can't get that same thing happening, the only way I can really do that is by playing the chord shapes that I'm playing now and then just moving this up and down relative to, again, whatever the limitation might be. Now, limitations might consist of knowledge, right, limitations might consist of knowledge, right, you only know certain chords, or you don't know your bar chords, or other musicians that you're playing with can't do this or this, this. So physical limitations, skill limitations, right, knowledge limitations.

Steve:

The second thing would be limitations of the instrument itself, and you think about a voice. That's a prime example. You know everybody can't sing everything in every key, like. Usually, the voice has more limitations. The guitar has less of those limitations if we learn enough about it. But there are other instruments as well that might have certain limitations, and so that's where all of this conversation winds up, coming in to play.

Steve:

So for me, you know, if I wind up playing, for instance, a prime example of when I might use a capo would be in the church band setting. So I play in church once in a while and I'll learn songs. I learn the parts, the specific parts of things. And then if I get to church and we need to change the key or something like that, that's fine. And as long as I can, still whatever the song might need, I could still do that. Otherwise, if I switch chords and I'm playing it in different chord voicings and all that kind of stuff, I might not be able to do that anymore. Now, that's okay, unless it's really pertinent to the song. Then I might want to use that capo, right? Or if, for some reason, it just makes more sense in my head to stay using the shapes of G, c and D or whatever, it might be right, then I'll use a cable for that, okay.

Steve:

So sometimes it's because of limitations, sometimes it's because you don't want to alter what you're thinking in your head, and sometimes because you really do need to keep it consistent to have that same tonality to be able to do the same execution of things. Okay. So if you think about it tonality to be able to do the same execution of things Okay. So if you think about it, what you need to be able to do is use the chromatic scale and then readjust. Now, if you know your theory, which I would strongly recommend if you know your basic chord theory right 1, 4, 5 being major, 2, 3, 6 being minor, like if you know that, okay. So if you're in the key of G, for instance, you know G, c and D would be the 1, 4, and 5. And if you don't know that, again you can learn that it's something that's fairly straightforward. But G, c and D would be the 1, 4, 5.

Steve:

So, if you think about it, if I needed to redo this let's say, for instance, I need to go the other direction, I need to go down right, the key that's working isn't functioning and I'm not going to move up, I need to do something else. Well then I need to convert this and I need to think okay, so GCD is my 145. Okay, so, as long as I've got a 145 available. So if I wanted to move down, I'd be on F sharp. So if I wanted to move down, I'd be on F sharp, okay, which isn't going to work. Obviously, if I move down again, it's going to be F, which might work, but it'd put me in bar chords. So let's just say I was moving down one fret to F sharp, okay, so that's not going to work.

Steve:

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to choose F sharp somewhere else. So I might take D, d, sharp, e, f, f sharp. D, d, sharp, e, f, f sharp. You see what I did. So G. We want to move down a half step. So G becomes F sharp.

Steve:

Well, I can't play that down there, so I'm going to find something else. I could try C, but then I'm going to go C, d, e, f sharp. I'm going to be way up here, which is okay, but of course the further up you go, the smaller the frets get. So maybe a better choice would be moving E or D E F sharp up here. Now, of course I could have moved E to F sharp, but let's say we're trying to stay away from the bar chords for whatever reason. Maybe we want more of that open chord kind of sound. So D E, f sharp, d E, f sharp, okay, so I'm going to put this on here. And now I've got F sharp.

Steve:

Now again it's a D shape in my head. So if I think about it, one, four, five, it'd be D, g, a. So there I go. So I'm ready to go. So I'm ready to go, right, or whatever it is, I'm playing. Whatever it is I want to play, I've mathematically figured out where I need to go. Okay, it's just now.

Steve:

I have to be aware that even though my brain is thinking D and G and A, in reality, of course, because the capo is here. That's not the case. It's actually going to be F sharp B and C sharp right. So it takes a little bit to get used to. But that's what I want you to understand about the capo is why you would use a capo when it's good to use a capo. And in reality, as guitar players, sometimes we want to retain that thought that we've got on how we're playing something or we really do need to keep it for a particular reason of the picking that we're using. And if we were to switch those shapes entirely, we wouldn't have the availability of being able to do that thing anymore. So just something for you to think about a little bit.

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