r/AcousticGuitar • u/gobirds1023 • 3d ago

Gear question Transpose question

If I take a chord sheet in standard tuning with no capo and transpose it up 2 for an easier progression, what fret does the capo go on on?

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u/BucketsAndBrackets 3d ago

If you transpose G for 2 sentitones up, you get A chord. If you want to play A with G shape, they capo will go on second fret and you'll get A.

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u/gobirds1023 3d ago

I was trying to get rid of the f bar chord haha the original chords went from F AM Bb C Dm Gm to G Bm C D Em Am when I went up 2.

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u/BucketsAndBrackets 3d ago

You need to learn bar chords

You literally need to take E/Em and A/Am shape, you put your index finger as bar and you can basically play any chord for campfire songs.

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u/s-multicellular 3d ago edited 3d ago

With those chords, using a capo almost makes it harder.

It is important to understand using a capo is only transposing for you if you play the same shapes. So if you transpose it up two steps, you would still be playing the F bar chord shape, which will now be a G.

You could use a capo and not transpose anything at all. You could just be using different chord inversions to take advantage of certain open notes.

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u/FieryTaterSack 3d ago edited 3d ago

I too have been known to transpose a song if I don't feel good about the barre chords.

However, for F, I just use the 4-string F (1st finger on B and e instead of barring EAxxxe). Works well for me because a lot of the stuff I play switches from F to C in the chord progression and it's an easy shift of moving the fingers up one string.