By Allen Hopgood
A capo is a great creative tool for guitar players. It helps you to play songs i n different keys while using mostly open chords – thus eliminating the need for barre chords. Which is great, if you’re still getting open chords under your fingers.
A question that comes up regularly from students is, “I understand what a capo is and what it does, but I don’t know what fret I should place it on for this particular song?” To place the capo on the right fret is easy when you know some notes on your guitar fret board.
We’ll start with some simple open chords that you know: G, D, Em and C. Pay attention to the note on the 3rd fret of string 6 for the G chord; the open 4th string note of the D chord; the open 6th string note for the Em chord and the note on the 5th string at the 3rd fret of the C chord. All of these notes are the root notes of the chord. With the G and C chords also notice how many frets these root notes are away from the nut of the guitar. You’ll notice that these 2 notes are both a distance of 3 frets away from the open string note.
These root notes are important for navigating your way around the fingerboard with the capo and placing it on the right fret so you can play the song in the right key. Another key piece of information is that the capo acts as the nut of the guitar as you place it on different frets.
So when you place the capo on a fret all you have to do is play these chord shapes as if you are playing them as you have learnt them – keeping them the same distance from the nut (which is the capo). Does that make sense? If you’re still a little confused read that section again until it becomes clear.
So how do you know what fret to place the capo on? First you need to know the key of the song you are playing. To do this an understanding of the notes on your guitar will help you greatly – especially the notes on strings 6, 5 and 4. See diagram below. Studying this diagram will allow you to place the capo on the correct fret for the key of the song is just one of them.
Let’s assume the song you want to play has the chords B flat, F, Gm and E flat – Now apart from the F chord these chords are difficult to fret in the open string area. You may also find them difficult at this stage to play them as barre chords. With the capo this problem is non-existent.
To play a B flat chord you need to locate the root note. You can find one on string 6 at the sixth string. (to get a flattened note or chord you simply lower the natural note by 1 fret). Since your first chord is B flat you can use the open G chord here and it will sound like a B flat chord if you count back 3 frets from the 6th fret and place the capo on fret 3. Remember, this acts like the nut of your guitar.
With your capo on fret 3, play the G chord shape followed by the D chord shape, the Em shape and the C shape. These open chord shapes will sound like B flat, F, Gm and E flat. These are the chords for the song you want to play using the open chord shapes that you already know.
The more you become familiar with the notes on the fret board and the more you use your capo the easier it gets. For now if you put the capo on fret 4 and use the same four shapes as previously what chords are you actually playing? Did you get B, F sharp, G sharp minor and E?
What are the chords if your capo is on fret 1, 2 or 5? You can now do this with any open chord you know – Dm, F, A, E, G7 etc. Make sure you know where the root note of the chord is and its distance from the nut (or open string note), so you can keep it the same distance when you place your capo on any given fret.
Knowing how to use the capo correctly will open up the amount of songs you can play without barre chords for the majority of the songs. You can also use a capo when you’re playing along with a friend while they play the open string chords. This will give you both a separate and distinct voice so it doesn’t sound like one loud guitar.
The author Allen Hopgood runs a fun and exciting guitar teaching school on the Gold Coast, of Queensland Australia. When he is not teaching you can usually find him relaxing to some post-rock band or his musical upbringing of classic Australian rock.