How to transpose a song with a capo, step by step

A song is too low for your voice, or written in a key full of barre chords, and you want to play it anyway. A capo solves both, but only if you know where to put it. That takes three facts: the key the song is in, the key you want to hear, and a set of open shapes you can play comfortably. This page is the method, worked through on real keys. The quick lookup, which chord each shape becomes at each fret, lives on our guitar capo chart; here is how to get from a song to the right fret.

The method in four steps

1. Find the key of the song. The last chord, and the chord the chorus keeps landing on, is almost always the key. Check it against the others: G, C, D and Em are the I, IV, V and vi of G major, so a song built on them is in G. If the home chord is minor, the key is minor.
2. Find the key you want. For singing, play the chorus and move the capo one fret at a time until the highest note sits comfortably. For playing along with a recording, the target is the recording's key. For avoiding barre chords, the target stays the same and only the shapes change.
3. Choose a family of shapes. Pick a key you can play in open position, below your target: G (G, C, D, Em), C (C, F, G, Am), D (D, G, A, Bm), A (A, D, E, F#m), or for minor keys E minor and A minor.
4. Count the half steps and put the capo there. The distance from the key of your shapes to the key you want, in half steps, is the capo fret. Each fret is one half step.

Worked example: a song in Bb

The chord sheet says Bb, Eb, F and Gm. Played as written, that is three barre chords and one more barre for the minor. The key is Bb major: Bb is home, Eb is IV, F is V, Gm is vi.

Now look for an open family below Bb. G is three half steps below (G, G#, A, Bb), so put the capo on the third fret and play the G shapes. G, C, D and Em, three frets higher, sound as Bb, Eb, F, Gm. Every chord of the song, no barre.

A is one half step below Bb, so the A shapes with the capo on the first fret also work: A, D, E and F#m sound as Bb, Eb, F, Gm. That route keeps a barre for F#m, which is why the G family wins here. When two routes reach the same key, take the one with the easier shapes, then listen: the lower capo gives a fuller sound, the higher one a brighter one.

When the song is too high: going down

A capo can only raise the pitch, so lowering a song means changing the family of shapes, then letting the capo make up the difference.

Say you play a song in G with the open G shapes, and it is two half steps too high for your voice. The key you want is F. Two families sit below F and reach it with a capo:

• C shapes, capo 5: C, F, G and Am sound as F, Bb, C, Dm.
• D shapes, capo 3: D, G, A and Bm sound as F, Bb, C, Dm.

Both routes put a harder shape in the song, the F chord in the first, the B minor chord in the second. That is the honest trade of going down: the capo cannot do it alone. If you were already playing with a capo, the easy case, take it down: each fret lower is one half step lower.

Chord transposition chart

To rewrite a song in a new key, move every chord by the same number of half steps. Find the root of the chord in the left column and read across to the number of half steps. The rest of the chord name comes along unchanged: if Am moves up 2, look up A, read B, and write Bm.

The chart only goes up, and that is all you need: moving down by a number of half steps is the same as moving up by twelve minus that number. Down 2 is +10. Down 5 is +7.

Minor keys: two families and a capo

Minor-key songs use their own four chords: the home chord (i), the minor chord on the fourth (iv), and the major chords on the sixth and seventh (VI and VII). In E minor that is Em, Am, C and D; in A minor, Am, Dm, F and G. Those two families cover every minor key with a capo.

An empty cell means that family would need the capo past the seventh fret. The E minor family is the friendlier of the two: no F to deal with, and the low E string rings under the home chord. The chord names follow the key's spelling, so E flat minor shows Cb and Db: on the guitar those are the B and C# chords.

Heard on a record: Wonderwall

Oasis's Wonderwall is the textbook case. The guitar plays shapes from the E minor family, Em7, G, Dsus4 and A7sus4, with the capo on the second fret. What you hear is F#m7, A, Esus4, B7sus4: the key of F# minor. Without the capo the same shapes still work for practice; the song simply sounds a whole step lower than the recording.

Four mistakes that make a transposition sound wrong

• Moving some chords and not others. Every chord moves by the same amount, including the bass note of a slash chord: D/F# up two is E/G#.
• Changing the quality. The root moves, the rest stays. A minor chord stays minor, a seventh stays a seventh.
• Forgetting to retune after the capo goes on. A capo pulls the strings slightly sharp. Tune with it on, using the online guitar tuner.
• Giving the band your shapes. Tell other musicians the chords that sound, not the ones under your fingers.

The chords you need to play the families on this page are on the basic guitar chords page, and changing between them smoothly is the subject of how to change chords faster.