Hi Soph. Many times when I was playing in bars, I'd have folks come up to the stage and say (I think they were trying to be complimentary) "Hey, how come you're using a "clamp"? You don't need one..blah, blah..." I always tried to explain it with much of what I said in my last post, til I realized they didn't have a clue or care what I was talking about. One night a guy challenged me to play "Summertime" in Cm, rather than play in Am capoed up to the third fret. I was too insecure to tell him to fuck off, so I did. Spent the whole song trying to transpose (and look cool about it!) The song sucked! I love my capos (Shubb and Dunlop "C" clamp) Never use it when I'm playing "chop rhythm" swing blues or jazz though. For slow fingerpicking I wouldn't be without it.

I bought one of the "Third hand" jobbies, but never found much use for it.

Thread creep: Here's a lovely tuning that I thought I'd invented, til I heard Keola beamer using it.

From the bass: C,G,D,G,B,E.

Play in C, but just use the index and middle on the second and fourth strings. Verrry rich chord eh? Now barre it at the fifth and play the same position...that's your F. Slide the barre up to the seventh...that's G. Now just screw around with it for a while, and you'll find lots of nice effects. Freight train sounds great with this tuning. Be sure to use the fourth fret barre for E and the second fret barre for D.

Keola says it's a common Hawaiian "slack key" tuning.

Rick