Theory

How to use a capo – Transpose a song

What is a capo?

‘A capo (short for capotasto, Italian for “head of fretboard”) is a device used on the neck of a stringed (typically fretted) instrument to shorten the playable length of the strings, hence raising the pitch. It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. G.B. Doni first used the term in his Annotazioni of 1640, though capo use likely began earlier in the 17th-century.’ – WIKiPEDIA

Using a Capo can be quite a difficult thing to get to grips with.

A lot of songs on the internet will state whether a capo is used a few don’t.

But besides playing a song in the way it was intended we can us a Capo for other reasons.

transposing a song to our voice without having to change chord shapes or when trying to avoid too many barre chords.

Why avoid barre chords?

The first obvious reason is that when we start playing guitar the barre chord is a deal breaker.

It’s damn hard for new guitarists to move freely to a barre chord and sometimes dammit you just want to play that song!

The other is that when finger picking we can use open chords to play more elaborately, also the preasure needed to apply barre chords while picking can be very wearing on the fingers and hand.

Below are some tables showing the transposed open chords when the capo is applied to each fret.

The ‘Black‘ letters indicate the Original Chord, mainly Open Chords apart from the ‘F‘ and ‘Bm‘ which can be Barre Chords.

The ‘Red‘ letters indicate the new chord.

I’ve used the most common chord shapes to keep things simple.

The way to use these tables is to write out your chords on a peice of paper and then look for the best solution.

Find the chords you have in the red row and then move the capo to that fret. Using the chord shapes form the black row will now give you the transposed version.

Capo 1st Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

C#	D#	D#m	F	Fm	F#	G#	A#	A#m	C	Cm	C7
Db	Eb	Ebm			Gb	Ab	Bb	Bbm

Capo 2nd Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

D	E	Em	F#	F#m	G	A	B	Bm	C#	C#m	C#7
			Gb	Gbm					Db	Dbm	Db7

Capo 3rd Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

D#	F	Fm	G	Gm	G#	A#	C	C#m	D	Dm	D7
Eb					Ab	Bb		D#m

Capo 4th Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

E	F#	F#m	G#	G#m	A	B	C#	C#m	D#	D#m	D#7
	Gb	Gbm	Ab	Abm			Db	Dbm	Eb	Ebm	Eb7

Capo 5th Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

F	G	Gm	A	Am	A#	C	D	Dm	E	Em	E7
					Gb

Capo 6th Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

F#	G#	G#m	A#	A#m	B	C#	D#	D#m	F	Fm	F7
Gb	Ab	Abm	Bb	Bbm		Db	Eb	Ebm

Capo 7th Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

G	A	Am	B	Bm	C	D	E	Em	F	Fm	F7
					Db	Eb

Capo 8th Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

G#	A#	A#m	C	Cm	C#	D#	F	Fm	G	Gm	G7
Ab	Bb	Bbm			Db	Eb

Capo 9th Fret

C	D	Dm	E	Em	F	G	A	Am	B	Bm	B7

A	B	Bm	C#	Cm	D	E	F#	F#m	G#	G#m	G#7
			Db				Gb	Gbm	Ab	Abm	Ab7

Note:

These charts show only the basic chords so as to avoid confusion.

Only one 7th chord is used and no sus chords have been used.

If you find that your chord progression has any of these follow the chart below to replace or add.

C	D	Dm	E	Em	G	A	Am	B
Csus2	Dsus2		Esus2			Asus2
Csus4	Dsus4		Esus4			Asus4
Cadd9
C7	D7	Dm7	E7	Em7	G7	A7	Am7
								Bdim

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ClockFace – Transpose Chords(updated)

Want to transpose your chord progression into another key?

Then here is a little tool that should help.

This tool can be used to learn key signatures, modes, chords within key and relative minor.

Other uses could be when transposing chords using a capo.

Again I’ll write some more about using this tool for other uses.

Using the ClockFace:

The two inner circles have notes written on them.

The inner coloured circle is the ‘key’ in which your chords to be transposed are.

The outer circle from that are the notes from the ‘Key of C’

If you look at the buttons under transpose there are letters next to each button.

Pressing a button will change the ‘inner circle’ – so pressing the D button will change the inner circles notes to those of D Major – while the outer circle stays as C Major.

You can then look for you chords in relation to ‘C’ – Try it out.

The Outer circle has letters printed on it – ‘m’, ‘M’ and ‘dim’

‘m’ = minor

‘M’ = Major

‘dim’ = diminished

These relate to the chords.

The inner circle from that has roman numerals printed in it, ie ‘I’, ‘II’, ‘III’, ‘IV’ etc

These relate to the degree in the scale.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.untidymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/clockfacetranspose_full.swf" height="400" width="550" /]

To use this tool for modes use the roman numerals:

I = Ionian/Major

II = Dorian

III = Phygian

IV = Lydian

V = Mixolydian

VI = Aeolian/Relative Minor

VII = Locrian

The Key Of C Major

The key of C major is the easiest key to get to know.

This article deals with it’s principles, key signature, chords, relative minor and modes.

It also contains links to related articles on this site.

First the key signature.

This bit is the easiest bit.

When you look at the clef, you will see no sharps or flats indicated.

This is because the key of C has none.

C Major Scale

The C Major scale has the following notes: C D E F G A B

The Key of C has the following chords: C Dm Em F G Am Bdim

It’s relative Key is A Minor.

It’s Modes are:

D Dorian
E Phrygian
F Lydian
G Mixolydian
A Aeolian(natural minor)
B Locrian

Related Articles:

C Major Scale

C Major Chord

G Major Chord

Minor Scale Construction

Before you begin take a look at how a major scale is constructed

Look at the C-major scale

C D E F G A B C

Find the sixth note. (The submediant). That note is ‘A’.

Now write a scale, starting on the ‘A‘,and proceed upwards for one octave.

A B C D E F G A

Now if you have already looked at how major scales are created you should know that Cmajor has no sharps or flats. This is the same for Aminor which has the same key signature as it is the relative minor of Cmajor.

So to find the relative minor of a major scale, find the sixth note of the major. That note is the note upon which the relative minor would be built.

The type of minor scale you just learned to construct is called a natural minor scale. Sometimes you may see them referred to as “Pure minor“.

There are two other types of minor scales you need to learn: the harmonic minor and melodic minor.

————————
HARMONIC MINOR:
To form a harmonic minor scale, take the natural minor, and raise the seventh note. To change the A-minor scale above into a harmonic minor scale, we would raise the seventh note, the ‘G‘ to become a ‘G#’. Here it is:

A B C D E F G# A

—————————
MELODIC MINOR:
To form a melodic minor scale, take the natural minor, raise the sixth AND seventh note on the way up, and put them back to their “natural” state going down. Because the melodic minor looks different going up than it does going down, you must write a melodic minor ascending and descending. Here is a A Melodic minor scale:

A B C D E F# G# A G F E D C B A

—————————–

You should learn all these types of minor scale.

————————-
Determining Key Signatures of Minor Keys
Hopefully you should know how to use a major scale, find the note upon which the relative minor scale will be constructed, and write the three different types of minor scale.

But what happens when you are asked to write the key signature of Aminor ?

As you know, a minor scale and its relative major will share the same key signature. In the case of A-minor, you know that ‘A’ is the sixth note of Cmajor scale. Simply go up a whole tone, plus a semitone. This will get you the relative major. So a whole tone plus a semitone above ‘A’ is ‘C’. C-major will use the same key signature as A-minor.

If you’ve understood the page dedicated to major scale construction you will already know that C-major has no sharps or flats. So now you also know that A-minor has no sharps or flats as well.

Major Scale Construction

The major scale is constructed like this:

TONE, TONE, SEMITONE, TONE, TONE, TONE, SEMITONE

So if we use Cmajor as an example,
C D E F G A B C

C – D	TONE
D – E	TONE
E – F	SEMITONE
F – G	TONE
G – A	TONE
A – B	TONE
B – C	SEMITONE

So Using the following:

TONE, TONE, SEMITONE, TONE, TONE, TONE, SEMITONE

We can make all major scales:

Lets use Dmajor as an example:
D E F# G A B C# D

D – E	TONE
E – F#	TONE
F# – G	SEMITONE
G – A	TONE
A – B	TONE
B – C#	TONE
C# – D	SEMITONE

Other ways of working out scales can be done like this:
For scales that have sharps(#)
If we start with C major

C D E F G A B C

Go up to the fifth degree of the scale to G and start following the musical alphabet through to the octave.

G A B C D E F G

Retain the sharps (#) from the previous scale – (with Cmajor we have no sharps or flats)

Add a sharp (#) to the seventh note:

G A B C D E F# G

———————————–

So using this again:

G A B C D E F# G

Go up to the fifth degree of the scale to D and start following the musical alphabet through to the octave.

D E F# G A B C D

Retain the sharps (#) from the previous scale – (with Gmajor has an F#)

Add a sharp (#) to the seventh note:

D E F# G A B C# D

———————————–

Follow this through and you will get all the major scales that have sharps in their key signature.

A major scale has the notes: A B C# D E F# G# A

E major scale has the notes: E F# G# A B C# D# E

B major scale has the notes: B C# D# E F# G# A# B

F# major scale has the notes: F# G # A# B C# D# E# F#

C# major scale has the notes: C# D# E# F# G# A# B# C#

——————————-
Major scales with flats (b)
Again using Cmajor as our starting point.

C D E F G A B C

Go up to the fourth degree of the scale to F and start following the musical alphabet through to the octave.

F G A B C D E F

Retain the flats (b) from the previous scale (Cmajor has no sharps or flats)

Add a flat (b) to the fourth note

F G A Bb C D E F

——————–

So following this through:

Take Fmajor:

F G A Bb C D E F

Go up to the fourth degree of the scale to F and start following the musical alphabet through to the octave.

Bb C D E F G A Bb

We now have our next major scale that has flats in it – this being Bb major

Retain the flats (b) from the previous scale (Bb major already has, as you can see a Bb)

Add a flat (b) to the fourth note

Bb C D Eb F G A Bb

Bb major scale has the notes Bb C D Eb F G A Bb

Eb major scale has the notes Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb

Ab major scale has the notes Ab Bb C Db Eb G Ab

Db major scale has the notes Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C Db

Gb major scale has the notes Gb Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F Gb

Cb major scale has the notes Cb Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bb Cb

—————————————

Each note of a scale has a name – below using Cmajor as an example – the table shows both the name and the number of each degree of the scale – the numbers are always represented by a roman numeral

Note	Degree of scale	Name
C	I	TONIC
D	II	SUPERTONIC
E	III	MEDIANT
F	IV	SUBDOMINANT
G	V	DOMINANT
A	VI	SUBMEDIANT
B	VII	LEADING TONE

Home Recording Articles, Tips, Tricks and Advice

Theory

How to use a capo – Transpose a song

Related Reading:

ClockFace – Transpose Chords(updated)

Related Reading:

The Key Of C Major

Related Reading:

Minor Scale Construction

Related Reading:

Major Scale Construction

Related Reading: