THE CAPO CRUSADER
“I’VE COME UP WITH MANY OF MY OWN ORIGINAL CAPO ARRANGEMENTS OVER THE YEARS THAT ENABLE ME (AND/OR MY STUDENTS) TO FAVORABLY ADAPT KEYBOARD-DRIVEN SONGS OR ONES WITH MULTIPLE GUITAR PARTS FOR CONSOLIDATED PERFORMANCE ON ONE GUITAR ”
THERE’S A VIEW HELD BY SOME OLDER, FORMALLY SCHOOLED GUITARISTS that “you shouldn’t ever have to ‘cheat’ by using a capo and should be able to form any chord shape with your fingers.” Well, this older, formally schooled guitarist thinks that’s nonsense. It’s just foolish pride talking and ultimately a self-defeating notion that limits the possibilities of what you can play and the sounds you can create on your instrument, and it’s comparable to another dumb, dogmatic rule that says “you shouldn’t have to rely on altered tunings and should be able to play anything in standard tuning.” Yeah, right. Tell that to a highly original and innovative songwriter like Joni Mitchell who has made a brilliant career using open tunings! It’s like a carpenter declaring, “you shouldn’t have to rely on a nail gun, cordless drill or table saw when you have a perfectly good hammer, screwdriver and handsaw.” Yes, you could in some cases manage to get the job done rather arduously without the aid of these labor-saving tools, but why make things more difficult and limit yourself?
The capo is a marvelous invention, one that offers the player of a stringed instrument a movable, finger-free barre across the strings at any given fret and thus the ability to take advantage of “open” strings, relative to
