Using a Capo (Guitar Lesson BC-163) Guitar for beginners Stage 6

This is Stage 6, Lesson 3 of Justin's Beginner Guitar Course.

This video shows you how to use a capo and what they are used for.

The Justinguitar Beginners Guitar Course, a series of over 100 lessons on guitar for beginners. Text support is on the web site and also in a proper old skool paper book which can be ordered from the web site of your local music store :)

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

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Have fun :)

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How are you doing? Justin here.

Welcome to BC-163,

where we're going to be discussing
the use of one of these things:

Which is a capo.

Now, a really really useful little trick
for beginners, using a capo.

Now, I use this brand of capo
called a Kyser capo,

and they don't give them to me
or anything,

I don't have any endorsement,
I just think they're really good.

And, you can easily get replacement rubber bits
as well when they wear out,

which for some for some of the capos,
you can't.

There's also a very excellent capo
made by G7 in the UK,

I think their capos are great,

I've got one of those
that I use quite regularly.

The other commonly used one is Schubb,

although I don't recommend that
for beginners,

because it's a little bit fiddly
to get it set up.

Whereas this one, very useful!
So what does it do?

If you haven't seen a capo before,
you might find it a little surprising.

What it does is clamps on the neck,
we looked earlier at the barre chord F,

where I said that first finger covers all of the strings.

So, you can think of the capo
as being a "barre chord machine,"

or a little device that helps you with a barre chord.

So, what I first of all want to do
is talk about putting the capo on.

Now, most of them have some sort of lever
to separate the capo,

I usually put it on the top,
because I find it easiest to access it to move it,

but some people prefer
to put the lever on the bottom, like that.

To be honest, it doesn't really make any difference
what so ever,

it 's just a personal preference,

it doesn't make any difference
to the sound or anything.

But, I prefer to put it
with the mechanism over the top, like that.

Now, one thing that is very important
with a capo

is the positioning of the capo
within a fret.

So before I talk anymore,
let's go to a quick close up,

and I'll make sure
you get the position of the capo nice.

So here hopefully you can see

that the capo is positioned
very close to the fret.

Now this is important

because if you put the capo too far back
away from the fret,

You tend to get a lot of buzzing noises,

if you put it too close to the middle,

sometimes the capo will pull the strings
a little bit too close to the wood

and pulls it out of tune.

So, by far the best place for a capo
is just before the fret without touching it.

Now, from the front there,

it's probably looking now
like it's on top of the fret,

it is just before,

but the rubber is beveled inwards a little bit.

So that is a really good position for the capo,

the thing that you need to remember with a capo is
that the capo is replacing the nut of the guitar.

So if you put a capo on,
you can now play an E chord,

(my capo is on the fifth fret
just in case you want to capo along with me)

You can see here now
that if I'm playing an E chord,

the first fret is now the sixth fret,
if you like,

and I can actually play.

This is my old E chord there,

and I can play any chord,
any open chord,

C chord, G chord, D, D7, B7, F, C "old school",

there's loads of different ways
that you can do these different chords here.

The thing that you have to remember
with a capo is

that it's changing the pitch
of the whole chord.

And we've talked about tones and semi-tones before,
and the note circle,

so that's all that you have to remember

is that it's moving the chord up,
one semitone at a time for every fret.

So if we take the capo off,

I'm going to use an E chord
for this example

With no capo, you get an E chord.

Now if I put the capo on the first fret
and play an E chord,

it's one semitone higher,
so it's now an F chord.

If I put the capo one more semitone up,
one more fret up,

it's now on the second fret,
it's now an F# chord.

If I move it up one more semitone to the third fret,
my E chord becomes a G chord.

Does it sound like a G?

Let's test that and play an open G chord.

Sounds pretty close to me.

There's a G open chord,

Here's capo at the third fret,

playing an E shape:

Sounds almost the same.

This is why capos are cool,

because it gives you alternative ways
of playing the same chords.

It's also really good for if you're trying to do a song
that's too low or too high,

if you're sitting there playing:

and it's too low,
I'm just singing any random song,

Then you can just go
"let's whack that up a little bit"

Put the capo up at the fifth fret:

And you can start singing
a little bit higher,

and it helps you sort out your vocal.

This is a really good thing about capoes,

particularly if a girl is trying to sing a song
that was originally sung by a guy.

Generally, girls will put the capo
around the fourth to seventh fret,

so let's say the average is the fifth fret.

It's about how different,
how lower a man's voice is

compared to how a woman's voice would sit
in the register or the key.

So, the capo is a very good idea for girls
singing songs originally by guys.

But generally,
it can be really useful technique

especially if you're going to sing and play guitar,
you probably want a capo.

The other time is, lot of times people will use capos
to record their original songs.

So you'll find that if you try to play a song without a capo
it becomes really difficult

and with a capo it becomes really easy.

So, this is a little bit about capoes:

Best thing to do with a capo:
experiment with it a little bit.

So, if you haven't got one already,
go out and get yourself a capo,

the Kyser ones, like I said,
are really good,

they're a little more expensive
than some other capos,

but I don't think I've ever broken one
or worn one out, I've only ever lost them.

Which unfortunately
I seem to loose them all the time,

I think the sock monster steals them,

you did realize the sock monster plays guitar, right?

You know the sock monster that comes
and steals your odd socks,

you put socks in the washing machine
and then you go back to it later

and there's loads of individual socks
and the other ones are missing?

Well the guy who nicks them
is the sock monster,

and he also definitely plays guitar,

because he steals picks all the time,
loads of picks,

this guy must have loads of my picks.

And recently he started experimenting with capoes,

because he's been nicking these as well.

Now that was a proper tangent,
apologies for that.

Go and get yourself a capo,
they're really really useful,

lots of fun,
and they help you play lots of cool songs,

So have fun, and I'll see you for another lesson
sometime very soon. Bye-bye.