Purchasing Capos
Capo is short for capotasto, the Italian word for “head of fretboard.” A capo is a device used to clamp down the strings on your guitar’s neck. If you’re at all familiar with barre chords, which is where you clamp your index finger over a whole row of frets, then you will appreciate why capos are a handy tool. When placed across the fret board, the capo shortens the length of your instrument, which effectively raises the pitch. This allows you to play in almost any key as if it were “open.” So if you can play a G major, you can clamp the capo on right before the second fret and play an A major by using the same fingering pattern as the G major you would have played if there was no capo. Even if you rarely use it, all guitar players should have a capo on hand. It makes for easy transposing and if you’re still learning chords (which you should be) it allows you to get more out of what you already know.
But there are different kinds of capos and a ton of brands…
Going cheap
Live For Music, Acoustic Guitar Capo
These capos go for as cheap as $2-5, and a ton of people buy them. While it will work fine for many guitars, any jumbo-sized guitars or guitars using heavy strings will likely experience buzz from its inability to hold down the 6th and 5th strings.
Kyser Capo
Kyser
Guess what I did the next day? I went out and bought another Kyser Capo
Shubb Guitar Capo
A Shubb Guitar Capo
See more capo choices in our “Best Guitar Accessories and Capo Reviews” article.