How to Create Drop-D Effect Using Only a Capo

Hi, I’m Lisa McCormick and in this mini lesson I’m going to show you a very easy and cool little trick you can do with your capo to get some fun and interesting sounds out of your guitar. So I’ve got this kind of capo that pinches on. This brand isn’t necessarily the only one that will work but you need one that opens up and pinches the neck of the guitar. Because what we’re going to do is at the 2nd fret here, we’re going to actually come up from the bottom. And put it on the 2nd fret in the space there but make it so that it misses the 6th string. 6th string remains un-capo-ed. What that does is it creates kind of a similar situation to drop D tuning. But you haven’t had to do any changes in tuning. So for instance, when that opens up for us here is with the capo on the 2nd fret if I were to make a D chord, normally I would only play these top 4 strings. But now because of the fact that the lowest 2 strings can be worked into the chord, check that out. So that’s a D chord with a lot more depth to it. G chord I would play as normal, A as normal, and then D again. It gives it a lot of resonance. It’s a lot of fun to do.

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