How To Use A 'Capo'

Hi guys, welcome to this bonus lesson where I'm talking you through exactly what a capo is or a capo if you're an American, and why I really recommend that you should get one, especially if you're doing this beginner's course. There are 3 reasons why I really think you should buy a capo. You can play loads more songs if you have one of these. We can play higher up the neck, which opens up an awful lot of things, as I'll explain. And it can make your guitar and probably will make your guitar easier to play because it physically holds the strings down onto the fretboard. So what does this do, as I say, it holds your strings down and if I place it at the 2nd fret. This now becomes the end of your guitar, so the two chords that we've covered, the E and the A, are played like this and like this. And on that A we can see we have this one fret gap, which used to be here. But if I place it for example in this second fret area. They're the open strings, 1st fret, 2nd fret, 3rd fret. Everything is now played proportionate to that capo, and our chords therefore sound higher. That's an Echord with the Karo second fret than they did before. They sound lower and if we put it really high, as I've said before. We can use it creatively. And kind of make your guitar sound like a mandolin. It uh sounds very nice and as I say that's physically holding the strings down so that the strings are closer to the fretboard and especially when we get really high, so approaching the 12th fretted double dot or any of the higher dots, you can see even if I take the capo off on this guitar, those strings are much further away from the fretboard. Than they are when I have the capo on like that, and you'll have no doubt guessed it this time or found that millimetres make a real difference. If we can get your strings closer to the fretboard, that is gonna be a definite thing that will help you, so long as they're not so close that nothing rings out. Now a capo is very much a songs tool, and when you come across a code sheet or any video lesson. Uh, if that song requires a capo, you will be told that it needs a capo at the 2nd fret, at the 5th fret, etc. You're always told in the song sheet, and then the standard open chords that you would play, uh, are just written as normal, and you say you have to put a capo at the 5th fret, you would just play. The E major, and the A major. Exactly as you otherwise would, but it's proportionate to that capo. The frets do get a little bit closer together here, which up to a point, up to around 3rd or 5th fret, makes things easier, and higher than that makes it much harder. So if you've got any songs that are telling you to put your capo up at say 10th fret or around the double dot, and you're trying to make your E an A shape, it is harder to play when you go that high up the neck. We're kind of getting into lead guitar territory when you're right up there, so we. want to be keeping and choosing songs with a capo around 3rd or 5th fret or or without one, there will be some, but it's around half of the songs that I teach at every level of this beginner's course. Uh, half do have a capo and half don't. So you straight away, you'd be cutting your choices in half if you didn't have one of these. Now this type is called a trigger type capo, and I'd really recommend that you get this specific type, the trigger type, because it's the easiest to place on and. Removed from your guitar nice and quick, so it's not going to slow you down. There are even these on eBay for as little as $3 so maybe 2 pounds or €3 and even those should work absolutely fine on the guitar that you have. One thing I will point out, if you have an acoustic guitar that looks exactly like this one, so it's not a classical style, or an electric guitar, you want to get one with a slight curve because your fret board will be slightly curved. Curved OK, so there's a very slight curve uh if you can notice that on the camera, and classical style ones, so the nylon stringed guitars are perfectly straight. So you can usually tell on the photos and they're pretty accurate whether there's a slight curve or it's exactly straight, and a straight one only works on nylon string guitars. Any steel string guitar will have a slight curve to the fretboard this way, basically, and that is mirrored. In this type where we have that slight curve, as I say, it's a well worth the investment, even if you just spend, you know, uh buy one off eBay for $3 and it ends up being the wrong one. You've only wasted $3 it's, they're not a lot of money, and I'd really recommend just get one, just try one. If you do see them in your local guitar shop or anywhere else online, they may be substantially more money and. They might not be that much better, frankly, in my experience, they're pretty much the same thing. You can spend up to $25 or $30 on on capos, and they're not really gonna enable you to do anything else. It's only when you need that super, super reliability, because you're gigging and you're maybe getting paid to play, that you really need to be spending that much money on a capo. In the early days, it's not important. Make sure you have one, make sure you use it on the songs that you choose, uh, that have the capo at that fret, and that's all we need to be doing for now. One final note on action, which is the height of the strings off the fretboard. If the height of the thickest string on your guitar is more than 5 millimetres at around the double dot, so where these two dots are on my guitar in the middle. Then that action is far too high and you probably want to get your guitar set up. Now a setup can cost anywhere from around $40 to even $100 and what they'll do is lower the strings to make your guitar easier to play. Now no matter how much or little money you've spent on your. Guitar, it can need a setup. Sometimes they don't, but usually they kind of do. And if you've really invested, you know, your time and effort into learning guitar, just be aware that if you, if your strings are noticeably higher than maybe other guitars that you've tried, or as I say, higher than 5 millimetres. Then you, it's far harder to play initially a capo will make it a lot easier, but you do want to look into taking your guitar into a physical shop and getting your guitar set up to improve the action, which is the height of the strings against the uh against the fretboard.