Subject: RE: absolutely beautiful guitar work
From: PoppaGator - PM
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 02:14 PM

'I understand that use of a capo can be considered "cheating," and is generally verboten in the realm of classical music.'

With all due respect, I don't think this is true. Okay, it's Renaissance music rather than Classical in the strict sense (which you probably didn't mean, anyway), but in Karl Scheit's edition of solo pieces by John Dowland arranged for guitar, he recommends playing them with a capo on the third fret to try to emulate the sound of a lute. I've got an arrangement for guitar of some of Brahms' songs where the capo is required for at least one. One could probably find more examples.

"However, in other genres played on the guitar ~ most notably, flamenco, performed on an instrument very similar to the standard classical guitar ~ use of the capo is expected, even encouraged.

The capo just makes the guitar into a slightly different instrument, one with a higher pitch and a shorter fretboard."

For what it's worth, in my opinion, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with using a capo (or not using one, for that matter) for any genre of music, any more than there's anything wrong with using drop D, Renaissance tuning, or any other tuning. Retuning strings upwards is somewhat risky, unless they don't have too much tension. Using a capo comes to much the same thing.

Capos are very useful for playing in flat keys, where it's nice to have open strings that suit the key. The trade-off is the loss of the notes behind the capo. "Classical" music for guitar tends to use sharp keys and I got a bit bored with constantly playing in the same keys.

I also think it's legitimate to use a capo as a crutch, if one needs to. I think it's better to do that than play every song in the same key.

The important thing about music is the way it sounds, not how technically skilled the player is. I have a reasonable amount of technical skill --- that's nice for me, but not really for anyone else. The only thing that's nice for other people is if I play something they enjoy listening to. Whether I use a capo or not is irrelevant. Just my two cents.