Capo

Using a capo changes the sounding key of the guitar while letting you keep the chord shapes you want to play. That often means the chart needs to be viewed one way and written another.

Capo vs. transposition

A capo does not rewrite the song. It changes where you play the same shapes on the guitar.

Transposition changes the written chord symbols.

In practice, musicians often use the two together:

• use a capo to keep comfortable shapes
• use transposition to decide how the chart should be shown or saved

How to handle capo in Chordly

Chordly does not use a separate capo switch in the main editor or Play Mode toolbar.

Instead, you usually work one of these two ways:

Use Play Mode transpose for a temporary capo-friendly view

If you want the chart to read differently while you play, but you do not want to edit the song itself, use the transpose controls in Play Mode.

That changes only the Play Mode version of the chart. The editor stays untouched.

Use editor transpose if you want the song rewritten

If the chart itself should now live in a different key, use the transpose controls in the editor.

That rewrites the chord symbols in the song.

Show the capo on the chart

If you want the capo information visible to other people reading the chart, add it directly to the document as normal text, such as Capo: 2.

You can place it near the top of the song and format it however you want, just like any other text in Chordly.

If you import a ChordPro file that includes a capo directive, Chordly can also bring that capo information into the song as readable song info.

One question to ask

Do you want to change how this chart looks right now, or change the chart itself?

• if you only need a temporary performance change, use Play Mode transpose
• if you want the written chart changed, use editor transpose

Related pages

• Transposing
• Play Mode
• Transposing Chords