Capo Question

I have a Question regarding the use of the capo. I am new to this. If you place the capo on the first fret, how do you finger cords like A. There is no room to put your hand. Any advice

Originally Posted by: rjdooley

If you place the capo on the first fret, how do you finger cords like A. There is no room to put your hand.

Short answer: any place on the fretboard you can find the notes that form the chord & the capo doesn't interfere. Barre chord A major at the 5th fret is the most obvious answer.

Long answer! A capo is generally used to make difficult fingerings (or key signatures) easier to use basic open chords. Since an A chord is a fairly easy chord there's no need to use a capo. The same goes for any of the basic open chords. There's no need for a capo if you are playing only open basic chords.

However, if you need to play an A chord (or any chord) when you have a capo placed on the 1st fret (or any fret that interferes with a known chord shape), then you have to find a different voicing for that chord in a fretboard location where the capo doesn't interfere. Fortunately you can play many chords in many different locations on the guitar!

Any given major chord is formed by playing the 1st, 3rd & 5th of its parent scale. In the case of an A major chord: a (1) - c# (3) - e (5).

Anywhere on the guitar you can play those 3 notes together is an A major chord.

Examples! You might notice the first one is some of the notes from the open A major chord! You have all you need right there, but you have to avoid the open A & E strings because we are assuming you have changed their sounding pitch with a capo. The A string would sound at the 1st fret being a B-flat. The open E string would sound at the 1st fret being an F. Neither work with an A major chord. So you avoid them.

|-----------|

|--2--(3)--|

|--2--(1)--|

|--2--(5)--|

|-----------|

|-----------|

These are part of a barre chord A major at the 5th fret.

|--5--(1)--|

|--5--(5)--|

|--6--(3)--|

|--7--(1)--|

|--7--(5)--|

|--5--(1)--|

Or you can play a subset of those notes.

|--5--(1)--|

|--5--(5)--|

|--6--(3)--|

|--7--(1)--|

|-----------|

|-----------|

|-----------|

|--5--(5)--|

|--6--(3)--|

|--7--(1)--|

|-----------|

|-----------|

|-----------|

|-----------|

|--6--(3)--|

|--7--(1)--|

|--7--(5)--|

|-----------|

These tutorials show how a capo works & is general used. Hope that helps!

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=2545

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=2332

Hey rjdooley,

Possibly another way to answer this: if you have the capo on the first fret, just play your normal chords up a fret. The names of the chords will change, but the shapes can be moved.

For example, your A chord will now become an A#. You'd fret it just like an A chord, but on the 3rd fret instead of 2nd fret. Think of the Capo as the nut (open string, zero fret) of the guitar.

You can do the same thing with all of your open chords (G, D, E, C, etc). Just play them up a fret. You can do the same thing by putting the capo on the 5th. You'd treat the 5th fret as the zero fret / open string and then place your open chords down accordingly.

Again, this changes the NAMES of the chords, but it allows you to use open chord shapes anywhere on the neck.

-Carl.

I see them as a cheat when they're used because the guitarist doesn't want to play barre chords. I do see some legitimate uses, to get a different chord voice is one.

Target EHR