Using a capo to stay in the same key

Now, no matter which of the five chord shapes you are starting from, you can always figure out how many frets to capo up from that position. That holds good if your start point is open position chord shapes or if you are starting from having a capo on and you need to count up or down from that position. To count down you would just reverse the direction of the arrows and move the capo down the same number of frets.

To know the shapes of all other chords in the progression, you can translate directly using the roman numeral system of labelling chords in a key.

Below is an amended diagram with all seven diatonic chords for the keys of C, A, G, E and D plus their Roman numeric labels.

Here is the same diagram with digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 also.

1 Like