Capo di tutti capi

ca·po NOUN:Inflected forms: pl. ca·pos
A small movable bar placed across the fingerboard of a guitar or similar instrument so as to raise the pitch of all the strings uniformly.

ETYMOLOGY:Italian capo (di tastiera), head (of the fingerboard), from Latin caput.

If you’ve read Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” you’d be familiar with the word “capo,” or “boss/head.” Capo di tutti capi means boss of all bosses, which was the position the Mafia bosses, including Don Vito Corleone, were aspiring for. This edition of JamBayan, however, isn’t about that kind of capo, although the etymology is the same: capo di tastiera or head of the fingerboard, that’s what we’re talking about here. And since the word “capo” has Italian roots, I’ll insist on pronouncing it the way Filipinos do, with a short “a” as in “cap,” instead of “a” as in “cape” as my American and Canadian friends call it.

My guitar case contains relatively few accessories, and these few are what I feel are essential: a guitar tuner, a Googalies cleaning cloth, spare bridge pins, picks, and a capo (I’d like to throw in a couple of sets of strings in there but me being on a third world guitarist’s budget I can’t always do that). And of these, I think the most important to my actual playing is the capo.

A capo is really just a clamp you put over your strings (on the neck side, naturally) to adjust the pitch of the guitar. If the standard tuning is E-A-D-G-B-E, then putting a capo on the first fret changes it to F-Bb-Eb-G#-C-E; clamp it on the second fret and you get F#-B-E-A-C#-F#, and so on and so forth. What this does is it allows you to play a song in a different key but still using the same chord shapes you may have first learned it in.

For example, you may have studied the song “You’ve Got A Friend” as sung by James Taylor in the key of A but you can’t actually sing it because it’s too low; all you’d have to do is put a capo on until you reach the pitch that’s right for you. No need to relearn the entire song. (In fact, that song was played and recorded by James Taylor using a capo on the second fret; he then played it in G).

Some guitarists actually shun the capo because it’s a shortcut. For them, nothing beats transposing the chords to another key because it makes one think. I agree with that to some extent. Transposition is an important skill to master and gives you more freedom on the fingerboard especially when playing with other musicians who’d like to raise or lower the key in which a song is being played. There are also times when you don’t have a capo on hand, or when the transposition is from a higher chord to a lower one, in which case the capo would be of limited use.

But using a capo has its advantages. Many songs sound better in certain chord shapes, and it’s not always easy to get that sound when transposing to another key. Say you’re playing a song in D2 (a D with an open high E string) but want to raise it to Eb2: you could move your fingers one fret up and do a barre on the first fret, but that would rob the chord of the nice ringing sustain that the open high E gives. A capo would let you play the same chord shape, ringing sustain and all, and still be in the key you want.

The best capo?
The capo I’ve been using was given to me by my best friend Bill many years ago. He and his family went on home assignment in Canada and when they came back he brought two capos for me to choose from: a Kyser Quick-Change Capo and a Shubb Acoustic Guitar Capo. I tried them for about a week and in the end I came up with the winner: the Kyser.

Why did I choose it? Well, to put it simply, it works. You can use one hand to clamp it on and move it from fret to fret. It clamps on tightly enough to give the strings a nice ring when played, but it’s not too tight as to make it difficult to put on, move, and remove. The best part is that when I’m done I can simply clamp it on my guitar’s headstock and leave it there until I need it again. It stays with me all throughout a gig or worship time.

The Kyser also allows for some neat tricks.

1. You can place it on only some of the strings to leave other strings open to get some open-tuning effects. For example, you can clamp on the second fret but only on strings 2 to 6, leaving the first string as the high E. When you play an E chord, you actually get an F#7; play an A and you actually get an Asus.
2. You can get a drop-D effect by clamping upside down on the second fret, leaving the low E (6th string) open. When you play a D shape (giving you an E), you also get the E bass.

You get the idea. Try playing around with the Kyser and find your own tricks.

The only problem with the Kyser is that it’s a little difficult – but not impossible – to clamp on to the higher frets, starting from the seventh fret onwards. This is because the fingerboard widens as it reaches the body, so at about the seventh fret you have to really push it in to cover all the six strings. But again it’s not impossible to do, just a little more difficult.

The Shubb capo was also good, especially since it was much smaller, but the Kyser’s one-hand operation really just blew it off the water for me. There are other capos in the market, but in my opinion they’re not worth the money. They are cheaper, but that’s also the sound and performance you’ll get out of them.

A Kyser Quick-Change costs $19.95 or about a thousand Philippine pesos. There are a number of knock-offs in the market nowadays, and I found some at Victoria Plaza (here in Davao City) for about a third of that price. I haven’t tried them yet, however, and I’m not sure if they’re of the same quality as my Kyser. For me, my Kyser is the capo di tutti capi.