Another New Toy - A Capo

I have always made use of a choice to use a capo when playing guitar but fought shy of using one on my Ukulele. No particular reason, especially whether it is right or wrong, but it seemed to take up too much room and restrict the fretting hand - especially some chords which needed a very high position of the hand - D (2220) springs to mind.

However since I now play in a club with other ukulele players, I often find that the songs in our song books are often in a key which I find uncomfortable to sing along in. However, I did not want to play those songs at home in a different key so I looked once again into the idea of a capo. A quick look at Amazon came up with this model ...

This elasticated model seemed to offer a much better chance of being able to play those problematic chord shapes. No hinderance on the underside of the neck to positioning the left hand and low enough to be able to reach over with the LH fingers.

I soon found that even 2-3 semitones up the neck allowed me to be more comfortable with singing those songs which challenged my vocal range. One such song was "Something" from The Beatles catalogue. Singing it the key which was used in our song book, meant I had problems with most of the verse - I had to sing very low  but could not cope with raising my voice to the next  octave above. Raising the key just two semitones with the capo has made it so much easier to sing for me. And I don't have to learn new chord progressions. Still very low but now acceptable - just; what do you think?

The use of open strings is also crucial to this as I am obviously picking notes which are found in open chords. Just another reason why the opportunity to use a capo is useful.

Thanks for visiting, I have more recordings which I have been busy making, and look forward to sharing them in future posts