[wcap]

I realize that this is not news to a lot of you, nor should it have been to me, but I have recently been really impressed by how much you can change the sound of a guitar just by putting a capo at the second or third fret.

I'm not just talking about simply changing the key, but really changing the whole tonal character of the instrument.

Recently I've been playing Doug Young's wonderful arrangements of Shenandoa and Bring a Torch a lot (DADGAD and DGDGAD tunings, respectively). I learned both of these without capos, but Doug plays them capoed up a few frets. The other day I tried playing them with the capo, just for variety, and I was truly impressed (almost amazed, really) by how much better they sounded, both on my Goodall and on my Martin 000-15. The transformation was magical. Meanwhile, certain other pieces sound much better without the capo.

This really should be no surprise to me - for years I have capoed up my 5-string banjo 3 frets for certain pieces. For some reason, my particular banjo's sound is simply stunning and magical for some of these slow and very melodic and harmonic pieces that I play when capoed up three frets. The same pieces sound not at all special without the capo. On the banjo I think the capo is putting certain critical notes at some of the resonant frequencies for that particular instrument (probably based in part on the tightness of the head).

On guitar I suspect that similar things are going on. Moving everything higher causes the notes to interact with the resonant properties of the guitar differently. I suspect that different overtones are being enhanced to different degrees, etc. But really, I don't know exactly what the whole explanation is.

The bottom line is though that if you have never tried out some of your pieces with a capo, you might be pleasantly surprised by the result. Your capo is more than just a way to change keys without changing fingerings!


(And Doug, if you are reading this, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this - e.g. what you think is going on in these cases where a capo improves the sound, and how you decided to play these pieces capoed up in the first place - trial and error I'm guessing?)