Using a capo on a guitar

[Skyedriver]

Now I know this will sound like a really stupid question but....my old acoustic has a very narrow neck and my fat fingers cannot hit just one string at a time no matter how i try.
If i use a capo at say the 3rd fret the strings are farther apart. The pitch is raised but for each chord do I keep the same fingering but moved down 3 frets or do I need to rethink the fingering??

Cheers

[crofty1984]

Despite your hands being further down the old girl than before, you don't need to change your style of fingering. Do it like you always fingered and you'l hit the right notes.

[kiteless]

Yea.

Just treat the capo as a movable nut.

[Skyedriver]

kiteless said:

Yea.

Just treat the capo as a movable nut.

and all the time I thought I was the movable nut!!

In all seriousness, the fingering for an A chord or whatever is still the same, the notes played will be different....??

[kiteless]

Yebbut, if you play an open G shape after the open A (with capo) although the notes are different it'll sound the same but in a higher key as the intervals between the notes of the chords are the same.

[Ravell]

Skyedriver said:

kiteless said:

Yea.

Just treat the capo as a movable nut.

and all the time I thought I was the movable nut!!

In all seriousness, the fingering for an A chord or whatever is still the same, the notes played will be different....??

If you play the A shape with a capo on the 3rd fret, you'd end up with your fingers on the 5th fret of the D, G and B strings. So because you've moved everything up 3 half steps, you'll end up playing a chord that's 3 half steps higher too. So the A becomes a C (A to B is two half steps, B to C is just one). You can try it by playing the A 'shape' in that position and then playing a C in the regular position without the capo. You'll notice that although the voicing of the chord is slightly different, it's still recognisably a C.

So while you can move all the chord shapes along with the capo, you need to be aware of what they turn in to as some will end up flat. A C 'shape' played with the capo will for example end up as a E-flat (or D-sharp if you prefer) as the root note of the chord is now on the 6th fret of the A string, which is an E-flat.

If you're serious about learning to play like that, it's worth learning some basic music theory to understand what makes a chord what it is (a root, a third and a fifth) and how you can find those notes on the fretboard. It sounds harder than it is really, but will make your life much easier when playing along to songs or practicing with someone else.

As kiteless pointed out, if your not aware of this you'll end up playing the song in a different key, which is fine if you're doing so by yourself as the intervals still work, but won't work with the song or backing track for example.

Edited by Ravell on Wednesday 17th February 01:30

[Airbag]

Ravell said:

…
If you're serious about learning to play like that, it's worth learning some basic music theory to understand what makes a chord what it is (a root, a third and a fifth) and how you can find those notes on the fretboard. It sounds harder than it is really, but will make your life much easier when playing along to songs or practicing with someone else.
…

This, I don't know where the idea people who play guitar shouldn't know any theory or be able to read music.

It's ridiculous.

[kiteless]

Bit harsh, that.

I suspect many (myself included) started off playing minor pentatonic in one fixed position, and some open cowboy chords with not a clue of what a root / 3rd / 5th / 7th notes were or meant. In a non-professional sense, learning the guitar is non-prescriptive: learn to play it when you want, how you want, to a level you want. And the great thing is with guitar, you don't have to read sheet music to i) enjoy playing and ii) learn the complexities. If you want to know how to play an AbDim7 chord, look at a chord map.

Although I will admit learning relative intervals in key makes the learning process more involving (especially when someone like Martin Taylor starts talking 10th notes in a given chord )

[Airbag]

kiteless said:

Bit harsh, that.

I suspect many (myself included) started off playing minor pentatonic in one fixed position, and some open cowboy chords with not a clue of what a root / 3rd / 5th / 7th notes were or meant. In a non-professional sense, learning the guitar is non-prescriptive: learn to play it when you want, how you want, to a level you want. And the great thing is with guitar, you don't have to read sheet music to i) enjoy playing and ii) learn the complexities. If you want to know how to play an AbDim7 chord, look at a chord map.

Although I will admit learning relative intervals in key makes the learning process more involving (especially when someone like Martin Taylor starts talking 10th notes in a given chord )

I don't think it's harsh at all, I think there is a culture of lowered expectations surrounding guitarists. I recognize that people have different goals, but if you want to sit around playing cowboy tunes knowing a harmonized major scale is doing to make your life much easier and it's not too intimidating conceptually.

I don't know... I get all riled up about this kind of stuff.

[Dracoro]

Many of the greatest guitarists do not know a lot of this stuff and can't read music. e.g. Hendrix, LInsey Buckingham, Slash to name a few.

You don't need to know exactly how a car works to be able to drive one well.

Sure, if you know all this stuff it may help but you don't *need* it. It's about how it sounds, you can do all that by ear!

[Ravell]

The whole point of music theory is to make your life easier, not harder. So many guitar players seem to run away as soon as they hear the word "theory", but there is no need to learn all of it. Just pick up what you need along the way. I can't really read sheet music myself for exaple as, at the level I'm at, I haven't really needed it yet.

My point is that while you can insist on not learning any theory at all, you're only making your life harder. People like Hendrix and Slash might not have been able to read sheet music, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure they know enough basic theory to make a chord on the guitar with any given root note at just about any position. It's something you can learn in a couple of hours. You're making life very difficult for yourself without it if you have any intention of playing as a group, and near impossible if you put on a capo like Skyediver suggests.

Something like this will likely take you a long way and can be learnt in maybe half an hour or so: http://www.musiclearning.com/lessoncentral/chords/...

[Skyedriver]

Ravell said:

The whole point of music theory is to make your life easier, not harder. So many guitar players seem to run away as soon as they hear the word "theory", but there is no need to learn all of it. Just pick up what you need along the way. I can't really read sheet music myself for exaple as, at the level I'm at, I haven't really needed it yet.

My point is that while you can insist on not learning any theory at all, you're only making your life harder. People like Hendrix and Slash might not have been able to read sheet music, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure they know enough basic theory to make a chord on the guitar with any given root note at just about any position. It's something you can learn in a couple of hours. You're making life very difficult for yourself without it if you have any intention of playing as a group, and near impossible if you put on a capo like Skyediver suggests.

Something like this will likely take you a long way and can be learnt in maybe half an hour or so: http://www.musiclearning.com/lessoncentral/chords/...

All points taken in good heart.
I can read music a little, although chords sometimes confuse me, having played keyboards and northumbrian pipes however I just came up with a metal block wih the guitar fret for some reason. That combined with the wish to try guitar (again since I first had a go decades ago) but found that my fingers simply didn't fit the narrow neck of the one in my posession. If I get the hang of it I would go and get one that fits my grubby mitts properly but until then I wanted to just see how it all went along without extra cost.

[kiteless]

Airbag said:

I recognize that people have different goals, but if you want to sit around playing cowboy tunes knowing a harmonized major scale is doing to make your life much easier and it's not too intimidating conceptually.

I don't understand that.

That's like reading something in the key of Cb

[Gaspode]

kiteless said:

(especially when someone like Martin Taylor starts talking 10th notes in a given chord )

Interesting, I was discussing this very point with my guitar teacher just last week. He reckons that a 3rd is always a 3rd and a 5th is always a 5th, so there's no such thing as a 10th or a 12th - I thought that calling it a 10th would be useful as it indicates a 3rd an octave up, espeially as we were playing 9ths in the song we were studying.

He says not, and he can play better than me, so I believe him :-)

[JimCross]

I would suggest correcting your technique, not using a capo to work around it. Capos are great, but can also be quite limiting if you're relying on them. And some songs will sound completely different if you're playing them in a different key, or even the same key but a diffferent position with the capo.

Either your fingers are very large, in which case changing your guitar for something with a fatter neck will bring you better results and more satisfaction, or your technique needs some work. It's all about practise, practise, practise...it's worth it in the end

[Skyedriver]

JimCross said:

I would suggest correcting your technique, not using a capo to work around it. Capos are great, but can also be quite limiting if you're relying on them. And some songs will sound completely different if you're playing them in a different key, or even the same key but a diffferent position with the capo.

Either your fingers are very large, in which case changing your guitar for something with a fatter neck will bring you better results and more satisfaction, or your technique needs some work. It's all about practise, practise, practise...it's worth it in the end

point taken, as previously said however, I have an old guitar, was bought it as a little lad back in the 60's, it has a narrow neck and I have always had a little difficulty playing it so keep putting it away. Was giving it one last try before getting the keyboard back out of storage and returning to that....

[kiteless]

Gaspode said:

kiteless said:

(especially when someone like Martin Taylor starts talking 10th notes in a given chord )

Interesting, I was discussing this very point with my guitar teacher just last week. He reckons that a 3rd is always a 3rd and a 5th is always a 5th, so there's no such thing as a 10th or a 12th - I thought that calling it a 10th would be useful as it indicates a 3rd an octave up, espeially as we were playing 9ths in the song we were studying.

He says not, and he can play better than me, so I believe him :-)

I'm with you on that point. The sound of a 10th chord is totally different in character to that of a chord using root and the nearest major 3rd.

[Airbag]

kiteless said:

Airbag said:

I recognize that people have different goals, but if you want to sit around playing cowboy tunes knowing a harmonized major scale is doing to make your life much easier and it's not too intimidating conceptually.

I don't understand that.

That's like reading something in the key of Cb

No, E# idiot, E#.