How Do I Transpose a Particular Song?

With your permission, I’d like to go into the “mailbag” this month and look at a recent email. Since re-posting my old article, The Underappreciated Art of Using a Capo, I’ve been getting quite a few notes like this and thought it might be good to share the whole thought process behind transposing:

I’ve just read your articles about using a capo and transposing songs into different keys. However, I’m struggling with this particular song: http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/o/oasis/dont_look_back_in_anger_acoustic_crd.htm

He’s playing with capo on the 4th fret, but I’m wondering what chords the other guitarist (Gem ;) is playing. I know that he plays the guitar with capo on the 2nd fret. How do I transpose this song?

There are a couple of ways of figuring out the chords the second guitarist is using. You could either figure out what key the song is in (meaning the chords you’d play without a capo) and work from there or work from the chords you have (for the guitar with the capo on the fourth fret) and figure out how they relate to a guitar with a capo on the second fret.

Whichever way we go, you first want to take a look at the song with the chords you have, namely with the guitar having a capo on the fourth fret. Just listing out the intro and first verse we’ve got this (and I’m simply listing the chords as they appear in each line of the song):

Capo on 4th fret

Intro
G  Cadd9  G  Cadd9

Verse 1
G  G/F#  Em7
G/B  Cadd9
G/F#  G  Em7  G/F#
G  G/F#  Em7
G/B  Cadd9
G/F#  G  Em7  G/F#

It’s pretty safe to assume this song in in the key of G. But with the capo on the second fret, you’ve raised the G two whole steps (four half steps and every fret is a half step) up. So therefore when you play G with the capo on the fourth fret, you’re playing in the key of B.

Now let’s take a moment and imagine if we were playing G on the second fret. Why? Because the difference between a guitar with a capo on the second fret and a guitar with a capo on the fourth fret is two frets, right? So if the guitar with the capo on the second fret was playing without a capo, the guitar with the capo on the fourth fret would have to play with the capo on the second fret in order to be playing the same. as the second guitar. And if you play a G with a capo on the second fret, you’re playing an A because A is one whole step (two half steps) higher than G.

And now let’s assume that the guitar with the capo on the second fret is playing in A. That would make perfect sense because when you play an A with a capo on the second fret it’s B because B is one whole step (two half steps) higher than A. So that totally jives with what we know about the song. The “real” key is B. If we have a capo on the fourth fret we should play in G and if we have a capo on the second fret we should play in A.

Now we look at the chords that we have and raise them all one whole step to put them in the key of A. It would look like this:

Capo on 2nd fret
Intro
A Dadd9 A Dadd9

Verse 1
A  A/G#  F#m7
A/C#  Dadd9
A/G#  A  F#m7  A/G#
A  A/G#  F#m7
A/C#  Dadd9
A/G#  A  F#m7  A/G#

I hope this helps. It’s really just a matter of writing it down and thinking it through.

If you’ve got any questions, we at Guitar Noise are always happy to answer them. Just send any of your questions to David at dhodgeguitar@aol.com. He (or another Guitar Noise contributor) may not answer immediately but he will definitely answer!