The capo
How a capo transposes the whole neck, how to work out the sounding key and how to place it well.
Essential
Content under musical review. It may contain inaccuracies.
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How a capo transposes the whole neck, how to work out the sounding key and how to place it well.
Essential
A capo is a clamp that presses every string down at one fret. It acts as a new nut: each fret you move it up raises everything by a semitone. That lets you play the same open-chord shapes in another key.
First an open G chord. Then the same shape with a capo at the 2nd fret: now it sounds as A.
The shape doesn't change; the sound does. Capo diagrams show frets counted from the capo.
| Capo at fret | The G shape sounds as |
|---|---|
| 1 | A♭ |
| 2 | A |
| 3 | B♭ |
| 4 | B |
| 5 | C |
| 7 | D |
Pick the key you want to hear and the capo fret; the tool shows you which shapes to use:
Work out chords with a capoTry a simple progression with G, C and D shapes, and move the capo until it fits your voice.
Rhythm & accompanimentChord changesChange chords on time, without pauses, inside the pulse.To place it well: put it just behind the fret, not on top of it or in the middle, with just enough pressure to stop buzzing. Too much pressure pulls strings sharp; check your tuning after clamping it.
Count semitones. What sounds is the shape plus as many semitones as the capo fret. The other way round: to hear B♭ using G shapes, count from G to B♭: three semitones, so capo at fret 3. With the capo very high (past the 7th fret) the tone gets thin and the frets get cramped; sometimes another family of shapes works better.
A partial capo clamps only some strings. For example, at the 2nd fret across the 5th, 4th and 3rd strings, the open strings sound E, B, E, A, B and E: an Esus4 that imitates an open tuning without retuning anything. It's a handy way to explore alternate-tuning sounds without touching the pegs.