Learning How to Use a Capo | Guitar Instructors in Tulsa
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
In this musical world, there are always more ways to grow in your musicianship. One of the things that I’ve done to help my guitar playing is work through the music theory side of understanding when to use a capo. When I first started learning to play the guitar, I wanted to find the best guitar instructors in Tulsa to help with my journey. I would find YouTube videos, like this, to help me. I was at the very ripe age of twenty years old. I had played the piano for about thirteen years, but the guitar had always seemed too intimidating to attempt to learn it. When I first started playing, I realized that there are many things that help out a beginner that a lot of teachers don’t talk about. However, the reason I was able to address this was because I had learned to play the piano and was able to correlate the two instruments and how they are similar. One of the things I had to learn was how to use a capo effectively, and that’s what I was able to accomplish very quickly.
Now, a capo can seem like a cheat for some guitarists. There are many musicians that say you should never use a capo, for one reason or another. However, when we are able to effectively use a capo on the guitar, it can genuinely help you master the instrument. Not only can you play some songs more easily, you can also play in a wide range of musical keys that would not be available to you, until you master every single chord on the guitar.
When you’re looking for guitar instructors in Tulsa and you want to learn to use a capo, it is important to understand the chord shapes that you want to play, and the key that you’re wanting to play in. For instance, most guitarists learn to play in the key of G as their first set of chords. This would include G major, C major, perhaps C add 9, E minor, and lastly, D major. There are indeed more chords than those four in the key of G, but these are the most predominant chords that are used. So, if we wanted to play in the key of Ab, we would actually need to learn a whole new set of chords.
When you’re learning a new musical key to play in, it can potentially be frustrating to the learner, especially if the chords require a barr. When we use your first finger to lay flat on the fret to completely barr off the strings, we call this a barr chord. A capo actually helps to minimize the amount of barr chords that are required to play in a more challenging key. Because of this, we could actually just lay the capo onto the 1st fret of the guitar. What this does, is it takes any chord shape you know, and raises it one half step. In other words, you can play your G major chord shapes, raising the chords a half step, and you would be hearing the music in the key of A flat. Which is great!
Learning How to Use a Capo When Learning a New Key Signature
This content was also created for Curtis Music Academy
More often than not, guitarists take a look at a chord chart to throw the capo on the guitar anywhere they want, without really analyzing what’s going on. It is important to recognize where the new key is actually be played. We want to know how to use a capo while finding guitar instructors in Tulsa in the most logical way. Therefore, if we want to play in the key of F major, once again, we can use the capo to help us. E is actually just one half step lower than F. We can use the capo on the 1st fret to raise the sound one half step. Now, all we need to do is understand how to play the E major chords, which is very easy. If you have any difficulty playing in the key of E, you can schedule your first lesson with Curtis Music Academy for just $1 and we will show you exactly how to master the key of E.
Another reason it is helpful to know how to use a capo is so that you can play with another guitarist using different chord shapes to make the sound even more full. When we adjust the way the voicing of the chords are layed out, the sound of the song will sound much more full. In fact, many amazing bands do this with their instrumentation. Finding a guitar instructor in Tulsa will help you to write a song and create the chord progression. You can even add a second guitarist to play the same chords, but in a different way. Perhaps if the song is in the key of C, the other guitarist will place the capo on the 5th fret and play the chord shapes of G. This is a very effective way to make a full sound. However, if you don’t know how to use a capo, guitar instructors in Tulsa will make everything much easier for you.
After many years of searching for the right tools, including the capo, you may realize that there are many things that are helpful to learn the guitar. If you have any resources that have been beneficial to your learning, we would love to hear about them. Let us know what all you have done to learn the guitar in a practical manner. As you continue to learn, sometimes it’s great to see how much you’re able to grow with consistent progress
Once you’ve called Curtis Music Academy and scheduled your lesson, we will help you transpose the keys to a place where you can easily sing the notes. You will know how to use a capo after finding guitar instructors in Tulsa and how to use chord shapes to the fullest extent. Within just your first lesson, you will be on your way to master the guitar and play music in the greatest way possible. If you have any questions about this article or anything guitar related, give us a call at (918) 361-7641. We would love to hear from you, simply because you are awesome. Feel free to schedule a lesson with us here. It only takes a short amount of time to become great at the guitar, and your lessons with us will help you learn how to use a capo in your search for guitar instructors in Tulsa.