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Summary: Learn about using a capo on an acoustic guitar from a professional guitar technician in this free guitar care video.
Views: 4,166 | Tags: maintenance, care, guitar, string, tune, set, up, stringing, adjust, guitars
About the Expert
Tim Ambrosuis Tim Ambrosius is professional guitar technician and manager at Keller Music in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been playing guitar for over 15 years and has worked a... read more
Hi, my name is Tim Ambrosius. I'm a professional guitar technician. I'm going to show you how to use a capo. First off, there's a couple of different styles. We have right here a spring loaded one that just clamps onto the guitar using pressure from a spring right in there. Now, the purpose of the capo so that you can play in different keys in the open position. A lot of people like to sing in certain keys, and this will just help them do that. As you can see when you play, this it's an "e" chord, a regular "e" chord just in the open position. So, you have strings ringing out. Now what you can do, some people will want to play in like "f" sharp. So, you want to take the capo, pull it tight. You want to center it as much as you can on the fret. Let it down. Then, that's at the "f" sharp on the second fret. Now, you can play the same structured chord with the open strings except now it's going to be an "f" sharp instead of an "e". So, sometimes that'll help people play in different keys and be able to sing in different keys and make it easier on their voice.