Using a Capo

I'm at least a little active on 2 or 3 guitar forums.  The older I get the more I think I might officially be the curmudgeon that T told me I was 15 years ago.  Sometimes folks on the various forums just irritate the heck out of me and make me think that I should step away and stay off the interwebs for a bit.  This was one of those occasions.

We got to talking about capos.  One of the other forum participants either doesn't understand how to effectively use a capo or was just ignoring everything that I was saying.  I finally gave up, and bowed out of the conversation before I said something that was going to get me a warning from the mods.  May the other person wallow in their ignorance (although I know they are far smarter than I and definitely a more skilled player).

There are two primary ways to use a capo.  Notice I did not say that there were only 2 ways to use a capo.  I said there are two primary ways.  These would be the two ways that most people tend to use a capo.  You can change the key that you are playing by slapping it on.  Or you can change the chord shapes that you want to play by slapping it on.  It's on this second point where the individual mentioned and I reached an impasse.

There's the first way.  Change the key in which you're playing.  This one is pretty simple and straightforward.  You're playing in the key of A, but the singer (or you) decide that the key needs to be raised to B, so you slap the capo on the second fret, and you have effectively changed the key of the song to B without having to change the chords that you have learned for the song.  I've learned to play the song in one key, but it's the wrong key for the singer?  No problem.  Bust out the capo, find a place on the fretboard they like, and capo like a champ.  Key changed for them and I don't have to learn new chords for the song.  Yes, you can quickly and easily change the key to a song with a capo.

The second way can be a little more confusing to folks just learning to play.  And, since I know the other forum person is anything but a novice player, I still can't figure out why they couldn't seem to wrap their head around this concept.  Change the chord shapes that you're playing. 

In my bluegrass days, this was something I used to do a LOT.  Back in those days, I played primarily in the keys of G, C, and D.  Not that I couldn't play in A or E or some either "weird" chord, but all the little riffs and lines I played were much easier in one of those three primary keys.  So we're doing a song in A?  Cool!  Capo II and I still get to play with the G chord shape.  Or maybe the song was still in G, but the other guitar player wanted to play cowboy chords, so I'd capo VII and play with a C-chord shape as the I.  But the key we were playing in remained G.

And that's where the person I was interacting with was wrong all day long.  They said that by placing the capo on the guitar, you were changing the key that you were playing in.  Specifically, we were talking about playing in the key of Bm.  They said that, if you did the capo VII thing, you were playing in Em.  I tried several times to make the distinction to them.  No, you were not playing in Em.  You were playing an Em chord shape, but you were still playing in Bm.  They disagreed.  Vehemently. 

They were wrong.  And still are.  Whether you played a barre chord at II to play Bm or you stuck a capo on II and played an Am shape or put a capo on VII and played an Em shape or even stuck a capo higher on the neck and played a Dm shape, you're still playing in Bm.  Yes, your chord shape turns into something else as you move around the neck, but the key remains the same.  Chord shape changes.  Key remains the same.

The one thing I erased several times and didn't tell them out of concern that it would come across as overly snarky is this.  The band is playing in Bm, and you slap a capo on VII.  You don't tell the band that you're switching to Em because the key didn't change.  Your fingering and chord shapes changed.  If you told them to stop playing in Bm and switch to Em, you and the band are going to be playing in different keys.

I still can't figure out how they couldn't wrap their head around that one.

Along a different vein, I only use Shubb capos.  I was given my first one back in 1993.  That's still the one that is in my pocket whenever I'm playing.  No tuning issues.  No bending issues.  It works every time.  I've tried some of the other brands, and always find myself back to the Shubb pretty quickly.  They're the best.