question about capos....

[aurora]

hi, i'm new to guitars, i just got a yamaha f310 acoustic for christmas but unfortunately there's a 4 week waiting list for lessons so right now i'm just playing around with a few chords (my neighbor taught me how to read them). i found the tabs for the song "everywhere" by michelle branch to mess around with which has Am (i'm guessing that's A minor?), C, G, and F chords, but it says "capoed on first fret." ok, so i looked up what a capo is but i'm still lost because how do you actually play with one? accoding to the stuff that came with the guitar (one of the promotional sets, came with a video, extra strings, picks, digital tuner, case, polish, etc.) to play Am you have to press the 2nd string in the first fret? so with a capo does the second fret become your first fret or something? thanks for any help you can give me, i really appreciate it!

[smfulla]

well basically using a capo, makes the fret which the capo is on, the 'open' string, and the next fret is first fret. Basically.

[gck]

with a capo, you can easily transpose songs ->

For example, you play a song in Em, but want to play it in Gm now: all you have to do is putting a capo on the 3rd fret: if you use the fingering for an Em chord now, you'll hear Gm. you play Am, you hear Cm... and so on...

you can compare the capo to a "permanent" barre finger.

To understand all of this, you'll need to catch up a little on the music theory (scales and the sort of thing)...

but basically, a capo is a very useful thing!