Changing keys with the capo?

I don't know the song (well, by name, I can't hear it in my head) but the tabs I found on the net look like the key of G to me. They do say though, that it's played tuned down a step, which leaves you with a couple of awkward choices:

- Sing it a step higher than the original, using the same chords on a standard tuned guitar. (I don't know how her range compares to yours, but if you're anything like me going up from an original recording is not an option :wink:)

- Transpose it to a different (lower) key and then capo it back to the original pitch, or wherever suits your range. I'm doing this with one at the moment. The original starts with Am, but his voice is ridiculously high compared to mine. I transposed it all so that I can capo it wherever suits my voice. If I need it to start with Gm, for example, I'd play the Em shapes with the capo at the third fret instead of playing the Am shapes without a capo. Voila, two frets lower. In my case though, I can just about reach the highest notes if I don't capo it on my 1/2 step down guitars... 6 frets lower than the original! :shock:

- Capo it at the 11th fret and it'll fit the original, but it'll be so high it'll sound like mandolin (I'm not really serious about this one :wink:)

Tell me if that second one is too waffly to make sense, or if you need me to do the verse of this song and talk you through it...

I don't know the song (well, by name, I can't hear it in my head) but the tabs I found on the net look like the key of G to me. They do say though, that it's played tuned down a step, which leaves you with a couple of awkward choices:

- Sing it a step higher than the original, using the same chords on a standard tuned guitar. (I don't know how her range compares to yours, but if you're anything like me going up from an original recording is not an option :wink:)

- Transpose it to a different (lower) key and then capo it back to the original pitch, or wherever suits your range. I'm doing this with one at the moment. The original starts with Am, but his voice is ridiculously high compared to mine. I transposed it all so that I can capo it wherever suits my voice. If I need it to start with Gm, for example, I'd play the Em shapes with the capo at the third fret instead of playing the Am shapes without a capo. Voila, two frets lower. In my case though, I can just about reach the highest notes if I don't capo it on my 1/2 step down guitars... 6 frets lower than the original! :shock:

- Capo it at the 11th fret and it'll fit the original, but it'll be so high it'll sound like mandolin (I'm not really serious about this one :wink:)

Tell me if that second one is too waffly to make sense, or if you need me to do the verse of this song and talk you through it...

I'm afraid you lost me with the whole transpose, Am shapes, Em shapes, thing. If I transpose it to some other key, then I play THOSE chords, but with the capo on? This has some odd chords like Cadd9 and G/B and Am7 that I haven't got a clue how to transpose.

BUT the sheet music doesn't say anything about tuning down on this song, though it does on others in the same book. Shouldn't they have mentioned that? Anyway, I can sing along with the recording (as well as I ever can, anyway, heehee) but I can't sing with the sheet music as written, so I need to do something.

Also, I should have maybe mentioned that I am just playing the chords and not melody or any individual picking, if that matters.

I'm thinking your on the right track with the capo. I'm not a big fan, but I've see Jewel on TV and she uses a capo a lot if I'm not mistaken. Did the recording sound higher pitched than your guitar playing in G? If so, just capo it up to the correct pitch. You play the same way, the fret under the capo becomes your first fret, making that G higher. The key, which really is the key, is to identify that first chord and then everyone would be able to help you.

A good set of options there misanthrope, but you forgot one;

actually do the tune down half a step!

Its only a minor adjustment on each string, although if you don't have an electronic tuner it might be trickier I guess, I don't know how to do it without one :oops:

I'm can't see how the transposing would work, as in this case you are needing to play notes that are not available without tuning down the strings, surely?

The rule I tend to work off of: If a song requires a tuning change, make a tuning change. Don't be afraid to experiment outside of EADGBe! :)
I should have maybe mentioned that I am just playing the chords and not melody or any individual picking, if that matters.

Makes no difference, either way you still need to be tuned lower, as although you are playing chords fingered the same as Cadd9, you are actually playing Cadd9b (flat), which cannot be achieved without the tuning down (at least as far as I'm aware anyway :P)

Pete

I gave a listen, my daughter had the CD, and yeah, it is lower. I find that odd cause this chick like yodels and stuff. Her range is up there. I suppose music is cyclic though so if you get high enough you come back around. Detuning could be the answer.

OK .. looked up the tab and found out what everybody already said. :lol:

Play it this way http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/j/jewel/you_were_meant_for_me-tab.shtml
And tune to Eb and you will be fine with the recording. I should have done a little research before shooting my mouth off. :oops:

I gave a listen, my daughter had the CD, and yeah, it is lower. I find that odd cause this chick like yodels and stuff. Her range is up there. I suppose music is cyclic though so if you get high enough you come back around. Detuning could be the answer.

OK .. looked up the tab and found out what everybody already said. :lol:

Play it this way http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/j/jewel/you_were_meant_for_me-tab.shtml
And tune to Eb and you will be fine with the recording. I should have done a little research before shooting my mouth off. :oops:

So that means I have to tune down to play it with the cd? Darn! I am too lazy to retune the guitar whenever I sit down to play something. Just ain't gonna happen. I've been playing around with it some more, and it sounds better (with the cd) capo'd on the 4th fret than not capo'd at all. It is much higher then, though. Does that make sense? Not sure I can sing it like that though.

Melisa

Well by using the capo you can make it so that you are playing the same notes but just one full octave higher, so it will 'go' with the CD well despite being higher sounding.

If you can't be bothered with retuning, and can't sing at the 4th fret, then just try playing it open and sing everything a little higher to suit it. Granted it wont sound exactly like the CD, but it's as close as you'll get without changing tunings.

Pete

I'm afraid you lost me with the whole transpose, Am shapes, Em shapes, thing. If I transpose it to some other key, then I play THOSE chords, but with the capo on? This has some odd chords like Cadd9 and G/B and Am7 that I haven't got a clue how to transpose.
Sorry :oops: I'll go and get hold of a sample of the song and use the actual chords as an example... stay tuned :)
BUT the sheet music doesn't say anything about tuning down on this song, though it does on others in the same book. Shouldn't they have mentioned that? Anyway, I can sing along with the recording (as well as I ever can, anyway, heehee) but I can't sing with the sheet music as written, so I need to do something..
They should have mentioned it if it is tuned down, but it may have been a mistake. I've seen worse :)
Also, I should have maybe mentioned that I am just playing the chords and not melody or any individual picking, if that matters.
Ok, in that case we'll be adjusting for your singer's range instead of yours, but the principles the same...
A good set of options there misanthrope, but you forgot one; actually do the tune down half a step!
Err, oops again :oops: I meant to say "alternatives" instead of "options", which then excludes tuning down. That's my story and I'm sticking to it :mrgreen:

OK, I got hold of it, and it is played as if it were in G but tuned down 1/2 step. Unfortunately, it's a really awkward one to get around playing on a guitar that's not tuned down.

Here's the original verse line:

|-----------------0--------|-----------------0--------|
|-----------3-----------3--|-----------3-----------0--|
|-----0--------------0-----|-----0--------------0-----|
|--------0-----------------|--------0-----------------|
|--3-----------------------|--2-----------------------|
|--------------------------|--------------------------|

|-----------------0--------|-----------------0--------|
|-----------1-----------0--|-----------0-----------0--|
|-----0--------------0-----|-----0--------------------|
|--------2-----------------|--------2-----------2-----|
|--3-----------------------|--------------------------|
|--------------------------|--0-----------------------|


As you can see, the sound of the verse comes from all those open strings that are left to ring. Moving everything down one fret so that playing it on a standard tuning guitar gives us the same notes leaves us with only one open string in that whole section which will change the sound drastically, and it's also now a really evil fingering, like this:

|--------------------------|--------------------------|
|-----------2-----4-----2--|-----------2-----4--------|
|--------------------------|-----------------------3--|
|-----4--------------4-----|-----4--------------4-----|
|--2-----4-----------------|--1-----4-----------------|
|--------------------------|--------------------------|

|--------------------------|--------------------------|
|-----------0-----4--------|-----------------4--------|
|-----------------------3--|-----------3-----------3--|
|-----4--1-----------4-----|-----4--1-----------1-----|
|--2-----------------------|--------------------------|
|--------------------------|--------------------------|


That all pretty much rules out doing it that way unfortunately, or at least it would for me. That would leave seeing if your singer can manage to play it one semitone higher than the original recordig or tuning down for it as the best practical solutions. Sorry to get your hopes up, I'd never heard that one before and most I come across aren't that awkward to rearrange :?

I'll still show you what I mean about the transposing down and then using a capo to raise again with an example if you like, for future reference? I'll use a different sing though :wink:

Misanthrope - I'm afraid it's just little ole me, no real singer, no band. I found a work-around (I think) for now, but I'd still be interested in the transposing down and then capoing back up thing, when you get the chance. Sounds like a useful thing to know.

For now, here's what I'm doing. I don't know the song well enough to sing it without the cd yet, so I used Audacity to change the pitch of the original song up one half step so it matches the sheet music, then exported that as an mp3. That way, I can play it on my mp3 player as I play and sing along. It's not as high quality a sound file now, and I wouldn't want to listen to it just for listening, but it should work well enough for learning the words and the tune while playing along. This is the first time I've used Audacity, so if you actually knew what you were doing, you could probably get a much better file. I only got to test it briefly before everyone else got home, but I think it will work.

I really appreciate everyone's replies. It is so nice to finally have someone to ask!

Melisa

Heh, I'm really not with it today - I took you saying you were "just playing chords" to mean someone else was singing it :)

Sounds like an Audacity-tweaked file will do just nicely.

This is the song I'm learning: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OjA0yl22FFY - For the verse, he's playing Am-G-Em7-F, but my voice can't reach that high. What I did was transpose that down 5 frets so that Am became Em, G became D, Em7 became Bm7 and F became C, leaving me playing Em-D-Bm7-C.

The idea behind going down 5 frets instead of just a couple was that I because they are mostly open shapes I could use a capo to raise it back a little and still get jangly, open-sounding chords. Putting the capo on the fifth fret would make them back to the original chords (ie, the Em shape played with a capo at the 5th is Am) - so now I have open sounding chords at the original pitch, but with a capo at the 5th. From there I can now move it backwards to suit my voice without changing the chord shapes I'm playing, whereas before I was stuck having to work it out each time I wanted to change it.

If it turned out I only needed to drop it 3 frets instead of 5, I could have put the capo on the second and still played those open shapes. Em would become F#m, D would become E, Bm7 would become C#m7 and C would become D, so I'd still be playing the Em-D-Bm7-C shapes, but the capo would be making them F#m-E-C#m7-D.

Is that any clearer? :wink:

Heh, I'm really not with it today - I took you saying you were "just playing chords" to mean someone else was singing it :)

Sounds like an Audacity-tweaked file will do just nicely.

This is the song I'm learning: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OjA0yl22FFY - For the verse, he's playing Am-G-Em7-F, but my voice can't reach that high. What I did was transpose that down 5 frets so that Am became Em, G became D, Em7 became Bm7 and F became C, leaving me playing Em-D-Bm7-C.

The idea behind going down 5 frets instead of just a couple was that I because they are mostly open shapes I could use a capo to raise it back a little and still get jangly, open-sounding chords. Putting the capo on the fifth fret would make them back to the original chords (ie, the Em shape played with a capo at the 5th is Am) - so now I have open sounding chords at the original pitch, but with a capo at the 5th. From there I can now move it backwards to suit my voice without changing the chord shapes I'm playing, whereas before I was stuck having to work it out each time I wanted to change it.

If it turned out I only needed to drop it 3 frets instead of 5, I could have put the capo on the second and still played those open shapes. Em would become F#m, D would become E, Bm7 would become C#m7 and C would become D, so I'd still be playing the Em-D-Bm7-C shapes, but the capo would be making them F#m-E-C#m7-D.

Is that any clearer? :wink:

Oh, I think I get it. That's pretty nifty! Cool song, too. Thank you for the very good explanation. I've learned something today! :D

Melisa

No problem :)

After all that, I found I couldn't even manage it with a capo - I'm playing it with the Em etc shapes, on my 1/2 step down guitar and just managing the high notes... 6 semitones down from the pitch he's at in the video :shock:, :roll:, :mrgreen:

No problem :)

After all that, I found I couldn't even manage it with a capo - I'm playing it with the Em etc shapes, on my 1/2 step down guitar and just managing the high notes... 6 semitones down from the pitch he's at in the video :shock:, :roll:, :mrgreen:

LOL, you must have a very low voice. Oh well, it wasn't all for nothing because it worked great as an example for me. :)

Melisa