I am delighted of all your opinions I read above - seems you are the kind of people I can communicate with. I even think that these opinions are not ... er ... 'extreme' enough.

You know I 'was raised' as a guitar player while always performing alone and in a situation like that you simply can't help to also somehow learn to sing. I never did music as a professional but I did have contact with audiences, and I learned that singing isn't easier or less fascinating than playing guitar, that a song is a whole you can manage or not, and that your special skills in playing guitar is among the last things the audience is interested in when it comes to listening to a song. Of course the performance of your song may depend extremely on how you play your guitar - but it depends on how THE SONG SOUNDS, not on how YOUR PLAYING LOOKS (to guitar teachers).

A guitar isn't like a piano. You have to do much more than press one in a row of buttons to produce a sound. Well, this also gives you the power of doing much more than that. Use it! On a guitar chords sound different when played in the same key but with different fingering because of different capo positions. Choose the best one! AND: The whole guitar must somehow match the singing...

A capo is one of the things necessary to make the best of a song, just one of the available tools: Among flatpicks, fingerpicks, fingernails, bottlenecks and so on. Would you call using a flatpick 'cheating' ????

The goal is the song. There's absolutely no excuse for not doing a song although you would be able to. I'm talking of doing a song NOW - tomorrow is much too late. And there is also no excuse for not doing a song as good as you can NOW. Hence: There is no excuse for not using a capo although possible (thus improving the song, of course).

So if anybody shows up who is looking down on us 'cheaters' who use 'godsent' capos: Well I might like to discuss guitars with him but not music or even ART. (GrrrRRRrrr...!)

Thanks to you all

Joerg