Is a Capo Cheating?

This was a question posed on a reddit thread: "Is using a capo cheating?"

What? Is playing the guitar a test? Is there some kind of moral cheat code to playing the guitar? Is your playing being graded?

Do you use a capo because you only want to finger things in Open G, no matter what key you're in? Be my guest. Whatever makes you happy. Because the relevant question SHOULD be, "How much fun am I having?" NOT, "How good am I?" or, “Do I know enough to transpose?”

So...I think the titles’ question is rooted in a premise that misses the point. The point being FUN!

Therefore, I'm not going to talk about "cheating," but about how I use a capo, and why.

• Sorry about the amatuer quality of the gig videos I'm using to illustrate all this. Most of them are phone videos. Besides the various uses of the capo, they also illustrate that what I'm saying here is from the background and experience of a working musician - me! - who walks the walk! It's not just talk.

A capo is a tool. As such, it has its uses. You can move the capo up one fret in the middle of the song to accommodate a half-step modulation like George Jones does in the video below.

Note the capo at the first fret. Watch carefully at 0:51. Right as the camera crossfade starts you can see him tilt the guitar up as the modulation happens. That's when he repositions the capo. After the modulation the capo is miraculously at the 2nd fret!

Now if you use a capo like this AND can have fun doing it &/or make a million bucks (like George Jones), more power to ya! I wouldn't call it "cheating." I would call it "compensating." That term seems less judgmental to me, and that's what I want - less judgment.

“Compensate” is what you do to work around a deficit. In George’s case, the inability (or unwillingness) to play bar chords.

I would only say that, among other reasons, that is why I am not interested in George Jones as a guitar player - I am interested in George Jones as a singer...but that's a different subject. If you've ever read George Jones' autobiography you'll know he was an expert at compensating behavior!

Whenever I use a capo it is for the following reasons:

Capo Use 1:

Certain chord voicings as well as specific voice leadings can only be acheived by using open strings in certain keys. Think James Taylor.

A song like “Carolina in My Mind," if you want to play it like James Taylor with particular chord voicings and walking bass lines, has to be played in D in the first position using open strings.

It just so happens that D is too low for my vocal range, I need to do it in F. Now I could play it in F, but it wouldn't sound the same as the way James played it. So I capo at the 3rd fret, and play it as if I was in D.

James knows all this. From a visual perspective, here he is playing the tune in Gb - capoed at the 4th fret. But it’s not Gb, it’s F. Compare the two videos; sonically it’s the same key, but the capo is in a different place. So…James’ guitar is tuned a half-step down. That means playing in D (guitaristically) with the capo at the 4th fret is actually F, not Gb. Tricksey! James is playing a down-tuned guitar (Eb), thinking in D, but you can bet he told his band that the song was in F! Confused yet?

So any tune or arrangement, whether simple (like George Jones) or more complex (like James Taylor), played in the first position that uses open strings, can only be played in a single key in one position. To transpose it to another key AND have it sound the same, necessitates a capo.

Another example would be the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.” Now, there are many ways you can play this song, and I have. But if you want it to sound more or less like the Beatles did it, you have to play it in D, first position, using open strings.

The Beatles capoed at the 2nd fret, which makes the “D” an “E”. Here is The Beatles' original version:

My vocal range requires it to be in F, so again, capo at the 3rd fret:

This is the primary reason I use a capo. I want particular chord voicings and bass lines that can only be achieved by using open strings.

Of course, all this creates a different set of problems. One problem is that capos tend to pull the guitar out of tune. Dealing with that issue requires another blog.

Another problem is illustrated by my above version of  “Norwegian Wood”. When I’m singing and playing the chords, my hands have to be thinking in D, but when I solo I have to ignore the capo and be thinking in F.

Capo Use 2:

I have performed Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” in 3 different keys, all in first position using open strings with no capo: F, E, and D. Unlike some of my versions of James Taylor tunes, I’ve never desired to play this song like Van Morrison.

Each key presented its own unique sound with advantages and disadvantages.

I originally did it in the key of F. When I recorded it in 2006 for my CD, My Ship, for a couple of reasons, I needed to knock it down a half-step to E. Rather than completely rearrange the song, I tuned my guitar down a half-step to Eb and capoed the first fret. I could play it like I always did, fingering things in F, but singing in E. Here’s that version:

Later, I rearranged the tune for Open E so I could play it live without the hassle of tuning the guitar down and using a capo. Here’s a live version with my good friend Terry Hancock singing. We’re in the key of E, and this shows some of the unique possibilities of Open E with no capo. But if I wanted it to sound like this in another key I would have to use a capo.

Keep in mind there is a bass player (Rick Yord) in this video so I didn’t have to worry about the bass end of things.

As my vocal range lowered with age, I changed the song to the key of D.

In general, I’m not a fan of altered tunings. I talk about the reasons why in The Best of All Possible Tunings is...

However, I do use the Drop D tuning for certain tunes. To get this tuning, you lower the 6th string a whole-step down from low E to D. All the other strings remain the same. I'm not going to go into all the reasons why one would do this other than it creates a low D that normally doesn't exist on the guitar. The drawback to it is, any chord that uses the 6th string has to be re-fingered to compensate.

Kind of like George Jones, only the opposite; George compensates to make things easier. This is compensation that makes things harder.

When I started singing “Into the Mystic” in D, I came up with this bass-line-heavy arrangement that uses the drop D tuning. Just for your information I included the tuning alteration of the 6th string in the video:

Capo Use 3:

I said all that Drop-D stuff to get you to the following; a very specific, esoteric use for a capo.

If you were to capo strings 1-5 at the 2nd fret but leave the 6th string open, you would have the equivalent of the Drop-D tuning except that it would be in E! Let's call it "Drop-E."

Here's my friend and wonderful singer Ron Gutierrez and I on a duo gig. Ron called "Into the Mystic" in E. I could have played the tune in Open E, but I chose to do "Drop-E" - capo at 2nd fret, with the 6th string open.

I did it this way because I wasn't using a looper, so I couldn’t loop bass lines/chords to solo over as I did in the video above. I needed chord voicings/open strings as if I was in D, plus I needed to chord solo over an open drone because of, again, no looper. As you can probably tell by the shouted cues, Ron and I did this gig with no rehearsal or preparation, which is the nature of most gigs I play.

As an aside, bar (or "barre") chords work on the same principle as a capo; your first finger functions as the capo.

That's also the principle behind the CAGED method of teaching and learning the guitar. I'm not going to explain CAGED or go into why I won’t teach the CAGED approach. All I'll say is that it can get you to a certain point, and many people get what they want before they reach that point. That’s fine for those folks.

However, if you want to go beyond that point, you’ll have to go back and start over; I've had to do that with many students who came to me for lessons having originally learned how to play using CAGED.

My point is, bar chords and the CAGED method both work from the same principle as the capo. So if you be dissin' the capo, in a sense you be dissin' bar chords and CAGED as well.

So no, I do not consider using a capo to be "cheating." And for certain things, a capo is a necessity!

So whether you’re simply George Jones-in’ or complexity James Taylor-in’ why would you not use a tool that gets the job done?

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