I’m wanting to buy a mandolin capo, but the ones I’ve seen for sale are really big and bulky and get in the way, in fact they are nearly as big as the one made for the guitar. Iv’e thought abut making my own by cutting down a Dunlop ,you know the one I mean. Anyone any suggestions?
Anyone thinking don’t be lazy and learn to play in every key?
Stewpot
Try “Quikdraw” capos. I don’t have their address but the website shouldn’t be too hard to find. They make excellent sliding capos for most stringed instruments. They last about 100 times longer than the Dunlops too.
Are we talking octave mandolins or the regular kind? If the latter, I’ve found that using a capo pretty severely limits the resonance, although I suppose one could argue that it depends on the mandolin and/or the capo.
But more to the point, I find it challenging enough to fit my big ole fingers between the frets as it is. If I’m playing further up the neck because I’ve capoed the mando, well, I think I can forget about trying to reach anything higher than the A on the E string.
There was a long discussion on this topic a while back on the co-mando list and the consensus was that there are times when a capo can be used (usually if the singer is in Eb or another “odd” (to the player) key but that learning to play in other keys is a good thing overall. As for what kind of capo, look at banjo capos in your local store and decide if one will fit the bill.
I opted to learn to play in Eb myself.
Mike Keyes
Why use a capo some mando players are such wusses you don’t need a capo just learn the damn key it is not that hard just practice it.
You do get mandolin sized capos, if you hunt around. I rarely use mine unless a singer or piper starts a song in an unusual key. It’s not all about being a wimp. Sometimes, the use of “open” strings is a lot more effective and produces a better result. However, if I’m learning new tunes myself, I always make the effort to do so in the correct key without a capo.
Nuisance keys?
How curious that the wag who says you should “just learn the damn key” hasn’t learned to use the shift key or the period key on his computer keyboard.
Physician, heal thyself.
There is no apostrophe in “mandolin capos” either.
Unnecessary.
Coming.
:~}?
You
Apostrophe between “things” and “you”.
I once knew a guy whose surname was Capo. We tried wrapping him round a fretboard once, but he didn’t like that much. Said it tickled.
Thanks SimonW for the Quickdraw link , they look like a good proposition, but I’m having problems getting hold of one here in the UK.There’s a place in Cambridge that might sell them.
Can’t see an awful lot wrong in using a capo, its not a cheat, and it makes you a more flexible player. Its hard enough to start with to play an instument well, so why make life even more difficult for yourself. I’ve seen Eric Clapton using Caop’s sometimes and nobody knocks him do they?
American bluesmen used to call a capo “the cheater”.
Unseen122, you make a valid point. Of course it’s good to learn to play in unusual keys - each key has it’s own character, owing to where the open strings fall in the scale etc. *But* is there not also some value to playing with a capo? It opens up yet other possibilities - you can play in F with an F open-string drone, for example, which you can’t do without a capo or an alternative retuning (another valid way to ).
Furthermore, if you happen to be in a session where everyone is tuned up a semitone, should you be expected to spontaneously transpose all your tunes up to E-flat or A-flat? (If you can do that, Unseen, I congratulate you. But it’s beyond most of us.) You could tune your mandolin up to match the others, but that’s 8 strings to deal with - assuming they don’t break, they’d probably take the whole duration of the session to stabilise at their new pitch, and it would put a lot of added stress on the instrument. So that’s where the capo comes in handy.
Unseen - you are young and probably have a lot of time, energy and motivation to practise things like playing the Maids of Mount Cisco in E-flat minor - good on you! Most of us do as much as we have to do to enjoy playing - if the work you put in outweighs the enjoyment, there’s no point.
I learn a tune in a certain key. It would be hard to play well, in all 12 keys for each tune. Sorry, but that’s why capos were invented. Now, which one is the best for a Rover RM-75? f-style?