ROUNDUP
Partial-Capo Roundup
BY GAYlA DRAkE PAUl
Guitarists have always been wild experimenters, using endless configurations of gear and
gadgetry to get the sounds we’re seeking.
Open tunings have long been a mainstay of
that process, and recently partial capos have
been letting guitarists get that open-tuning feel
without actually going to all the trouble of tuning. With so many capo manufacturers offering
this option, we decided to take a closer look
and see what they have to offer.
A Partial Capo Primer
Before we dig in to the different models, it might
be useful to talk a little about the different styles
and applications of partial capos. The earliest
experimenters, like Harvey Reid (who made
himself a partial capo at home before there were
any on the market, and helped to develop the
Third Hand capo) would put their normal capos
on either upside-down to leave the bass string
open, or only part of the way across to get some
droning treble sounds. Then some folks began
to put multiple capos on, terraced down the fretboard, to create additional voices that could add
bass or open-string style tension to a song.
If you want a crash course in what can be
done with these gadgets, check out some of
Harvey Reid’s music, or another early user,
Ed Supple, who did a lot of session work in
Nashville and used partial capos to create
sounds that nobody has quite figured out yet.
He also introduced Michael Hedges to the
partial capo, and of course that opened up
entirely new territories.
It takes a little adjusting to get the hang of
playing with these capos, because although
they do make the guitar sound like it’s in
these altered tunings, it’s really not, and
the chord shapes are not the open tuning
shapes. With the DADGAD capo (because it’s
really EBEABE, which is almost as much fun
to say) or Open-G capo (which is really just a
regular A-chord, and sadly unpronouncable—
EAEAC#E), the open voice sounds like the
tuning, but all the other chords are the same
as in standard. Lead playing in first position
is slightly complicated by having some of the
strings ringing open differently, so they’re not
terribly appealing for that purpose, but as a fin-
gerstyle tool or in the hands of a great rhythm
guitar player, they can give you a cool open-
tuning vibe without actually having to learn to
play in one. Your guitar stays in whatever tun-
ing it’s in, for example standard tuning, so you
can play standard tuning chords and riffs above
the capo and still have that open-tuning sound
when you want. Some capos are low profile,
allowing you to reach over to fret those miss-
ing bass notes, while others are not.
The Nitty Gritty
There are three broad categories: fixed, adjustable and, for the want of a better word, special.
The fixed category contains the capos that block
certain strings specifically, either from the bass
side, or flipped to the treble side. The adjustable
category contains the capos that cover all the
strings, but allow you to choose which strings
to leave open, basically giving you all the fixed
capo options with a single device. The special
capos don’t fit in either of these categories, and
are unique unto themselves. We’ll be looking at
three parameters in our evaluation: quality, ease
of use, and usefulness. For these tests, the guitars stayed in standard tuning.
Kyser sent us four different configurations to
play with: Drop-D, Double Drop-D, Shortcut-to-DADGAD and Open G. The Kysers are sturdy,
work exactly like they’re supposed to, and
