FruitarGeek wrote
Btw Bob, you said you had a drop D capo, whats that about? I need one of those haha
OK... it's a partial capo. It covers FIVE strings of a regular guitar, not six. There are some capos that you can fit in such a way that they will cover 5 strings, but sometimes you get bits of capo sticking into spaces where you'd rather your hand goes.
It doesn't provide a true drop D. That's an inaccurate name for this device.
I place it at the 2nd fret with the strings 5 to 1 pressed down and 6 left alone. So now the open notes are
E B E A C# F#
So those two Es give you something similar to the two Ds in drop-D tuning.
However things change when you start fretting notes on the 6th string.
A usual, open G chord in standard tuning can be represented as
3 2 0 0 0 3
In drop D a G would be
5 5 0 0 0 3
because the 6th string is detuned by a whole tone.
But with my "drop D" capo I can place my fingers like this
3 2 0 0 0 3 (with respect to the capo, not the nut) and I get a regular major chord - an A in this case because I am capoed two up. So playing in the key of A (G fingering, two frets up) I have nice strong bass notes for the 4 chord with that pair of Es, but I can also use regular fingering for MOST chords that use the 6 string and barre chords are completely unchanged. What I do lose though is the ability to use the Em fingering of
0 2 2 0 0 0 (for std tuning, no capo).
Do some googling on "partial capo". I use the 5-string capo in a fairly simple way. As above, or sometimes with a regular capo at the 2nd fret and a "drop D" at 4. You can be more adventurous. I also have a 3-string capo that can, depending on which way round you fit it, depress 5, 4 and 3 or 4, 3 and 2. I have seen guys put that up high - perhaps 7th fret and play games with fretting the 6th and 5th strings BEHIND the capo.
It's never really the same as the equivalent open tuing. You gain on the swings, lose on the roundabouts. You can have a lot of fun.
Hope this all makes sense.
