A Capo For Two: Jamming for Beginners

Welcome to the forum
What you’re discribing is an Am shaped barre chord with the root on the A string muted. This is how minor chord up the neck were taught back in the 60’s and 70’s during the folk music era. This shape is movable just like the mini F chord.

OK, I’m stuck. In the video and on the website for this lesson, Justin mentions Wildflowers by Tom Petty as a good song to practice with. The lesson teaches capo fret 5 using shapes Fadd9,C,G,C. No matter what I try, I can’t find a way to move this to open chords. Unless I’ve made a mistake, if I try to play it with open chords, that F maps to Bbadd9. That’s a bigger stretch than I can make! Has anyone found a way to play this? Maybe capo on a different fret? I’ve tried figuring that out without success…maybe I have a mental block. TIA. :smiling_face:

Hi @judi ,

So, Wildflowers appears to be in the key of F: it’s played with chords from the key of C, with capo on 5.

If you remove the capo, you need to play the key of F chords, including the cumbersome Badd9, as you mentioned.

Alternatives could be:

Capo 1, play in key of E: the chords would be E, Add9 and B
Capo 3, play in key of D: play D, Gadd9, A

The Aadd9 and Gadd9 chords seem doable. You could probably play B7 instead of B, if you were to choose the capo on 1 option.

Other alternatives could be:

  • Capo 8: Dadd9, E, A
  • Capo 10: Cadd9, D, G

Indeed, although from a practical standpoint, playing with the capo so high has its drawbacks.

Thank you for your replies John @jjw and Jacob @jacobbonde. It’s good to know I understood which chords would be played open! I wasn’t clear when I asked about playing on other frets…this lesson and is to have two people play the same song in the same key, one with open chords and one capoed. I was thinking it might be possible to play in the key of F with the capo on a different fret. As I said, I couldn’t work it out, and perhaps it’s not possible (or at least not realistic!). I will do the exercise of figuring out the key when played with capo 8 and capo 10, but my guitar does not have a cutaway and it gets really cramped up there.

I suppose I could try transposing Wildflowers to a different key using open chords, and figuring a capoed version in the same key. But for now I think I’ll find a song in an easier key to work with. :smiling_face:

It was clear enough for me that you wanted to do one with capo and one without capo. :slight_smile:

But playing it with two capos (one two guitars, of course :smiley: ) on different frets would be similar - two guitar playing the same chords using different open chord grips.

You could transpose it to Dadd9, E, A (no capo) and Cadd9, D, G (capo on 2).

Thank you Jacob, I’ll give that a go! I confess my head got pretty twisted trying to work through this, and I kind of gave up trying. I need to start hitting the theory again. :flushed:

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For those that don’t have a jam partner, DAW or Looper try to find an “Online Chord generator” from a search engine.

There are plenty! There you can edit the Instruments, the BPM, the Chords progression that you want.

You can use it with your smartphone, IPad or your computer. In general, whatever uses internet.

Is not like physical instruments but is simple and makes the job ok :wink:

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Thanks for the heads-up @angelakis. I didn’t know these existed. Easier than setting something up in Garageband if you just want to practice with a chord progression without a lot of fuss. This one seems good:

https://www.onemotion.com/chord-player/

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I’ve noticed that putting the capo on makes the tuning sharp; it’s particularly obvious in this case as the regular chord is played by the other guitar. I’ve tried reducing the capo clamping force to the absolute minimum (I have the shubb capo that allows for that), and even tried positioning the capo almost directly on top of the fret so that string stretching is minimised, but the too-sharp-out-of-tune-ess is still painfully obvious. Is there some trick to using the capo that I’m missing?

I have a Shubb capo, and when I put mine on, the strings go sharp by about 1 cent. This is less than the sharpness of a fretted string using your finger. So, my best guess is that your capo is still too tight.

Here’s how I did my adjustment:

  1. Loosen capo all the way.

  2. Place capo on neck at the 5th fret and tighten the adjuster until the pad barely contacts the strings (capo should be just behind the fret, not on top of it).

  3. Strum the guitar slowly and listen for buzzing/muted strings

  4. If no buzzing/muted strings, loosen the adjuster 1/4 turn

  5. If a string buzzes or is muted tighten the adjuster 1/4 turn

  6. repeat #4 and/or #5 until all 6 strings ring clear with the least amount of clamping force possible.

If it’s still “painfully obvious” for you, then your only other choice is to attach the capo, then retune to match the other guitar.

This is unlikely, but the intonation of your guitar might be wayyyy off. To check this, tune your guitar perfectly, then check that each string is still in tune when you fret it at the 12th fret (1 octave higher) .

YMMV

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Hi @Fast-Eddie, thanks for your reply.

Mine goes sharp by somewhere in between 5 to 10 cents. It’s very noticeable, especially with the open chord sounding from the other guitar.

Yeah, I’ve already loosen the capo to the point where the screw isn’t even in contact with the rear arm of the capo. Even so, it seems to be clamping onto the guitar neck with more than the absolute minimum of force. Which Shubb capo do you have? Mine is the standard C1.

I have both a Shubb L1 Lite and a Shubb C1 Standard. The only difference is that the L1 is aluminum and the C1 is brass. I use them on my Sire L7, PRS SE Hollowbody, and my Taylor GS mini. I never need to change the adjuster more than 1/2 turn when changing from guitar to guitar.

I adjust mine so that it barely squeezes enough to fret the strings. I can’t imagine how a capo that barely squeezes enough to fret the strings is making the guitar 5-10 cents sharp. Are both guitars being tuned using the same tuner? Perhaps your tuner is 10 cents different than the other player’s tuner?

I suggest re-tuning your guitar with the other players tuner after you install the capo, just to make sure it’s possible for the two guitars to sound good together. If your capo is applying the bare minimum pressure to fret the strings and you are 5-10 cents sharp, I’d check to see if your guitar is properly intonated, your nut slots are deep enough, and your bridge height is reasonable.

YMMV

That confused me too.

You misunderstand; when I say that the capo is set to the minimum clamping force, I don’t mean that the capo is barely squeezing the strings, I mean simply that the capo cannot be loosen further (because the screw on the Subb capo is already as flush with the arm and not in contact with the roller-thingy). The clamping force itself doesn’t seem negligible; I can see the strings bend in the small space between the fret and the capo, but I don’t know enough to say if it’s too much or not. My guitar is fairly standard as far as electric guitars go (Ephiphone Les Paul).

I suggest you post a picture of the capo on the guitar in question. If I loosen my Shubb capo all the way, it would fall off the guitar neck. Perhaps yours has been bent?

If you don’y have a jam buddy you can use the justinguitarjams chords. If you then use the diagram and capo you already have multiple chord options for most of the songs to practice with. And later on throw in power chords or bar chords too of course.