Smart Energy

Two capos are better than one?

Partial capo guru Harvey Reid has just launched a big site with tons of info on, you guessed it, partial capos. But what is a partial capo? Partials capo only some of the strings on a guitar. Unlike a bar capo, which stretches across the entire neck and raises the pitch of all six strings, a partial changes only one (or more) strings. As Reid says:

Using a partial capo creates open-string effects similar to those achieved by non-standard tunings of the guitar. Changing the length of an open string with a partial capo yields a similar kind of musical results as you get by retuning. It is, however, fundamentally different than retuning the guitar, and you usually can’t play the same music both ways. Since you generally stay in standard tuning when you use a partial capo, the geometry of the scales and chords on your fingerboard remains familiar. This is the primary advantage of using a partial capo. You get more sound from the skills you already have.

There are many interesting and very useful ways to use a partial capo and an altered tuning simultaneously. Even if you are experienced with tunings, the place to begin understanding the surprisingly confusing world of partial capos is to think of it as a “parallel universe” to the world of altered tunings. Start with standard tuning configurations before you “jump off the cliff” and do both at once. There are over 11 million ways to partially capo a guitar in each different tuning! Only a few of them have real musical value, but it’s a vast world to explore.

I’ve just begun my exploration of partial capos and their uses, so it’s great to have this resource.

Holy smokes, never seen a geetar fingered like this before. Go, Ronnie, go!

I knew Kirk was a talented guy, so when Dr. Sullivan wrote to say, Check out this guy’s flickr stream, I was pretty sure I was in for a treat. But I didn’t think my mind would be blown by the man’s irrepressible use of color.

Old Plymouth

Of this old Plymouth, Kirk says:

I visited a junkyard near home yesterday and took these shots. It seems this yard was abandoned in the late 50′s since all the cars seem to be that old. Read the rest of this entry »