00:00What's up, Paul here from Guitar World, and today we're going to be checking out a couple
00:03of unique capos from the king of capos, Kaiser. Yes, these are not your ordinary capos.
00:11It's the Kaiser Quick Change Shortcut capo and the Quick Change Drop D capo. Let's check it out.
00:16Both the Kaiser Shortcut and Drop D capos offer great ways to find creative chord voicings,
00:31or if you need to capo alternate variations of similar chords. I love Kaiser capos, I use them,
00:37and in this video I'm going to show you just a few examples on how to use each in familiar ways.
00:44The shortcut capo works with acoustic guitars or electric guitars and is designed to capo three
00:50of the six strings on a guitar. The fifth string, the fourth string, and the third string, otherwise
00:56known as the A string, the D string, and G string. And as you can see, the other three strings are free
01:03and don't go through the capo. So when capo'd on the second fret, the shortcut emulates what is known as
01:09dad-gad tuning. And when capo'd on other frets, the shortcut turns the guitar into an open tuned
01:16instrument. You can hear all the colorful voicings as you strum or play fingerstyle up and down the
01:22entire fretboard. What I really love about the Kaiser Shortcut capo is that I don't have to retune if I
01:29want to do that dad-gad type of tuning. Simply just put the capo on the second fret and you pretty
01:36much have that sound and start droning away.
01:52So with the shortcut capo, you can see all the different possibilities like, you know,
02:16having this open and these two open. And then, of course, I'm capo'd here on the second fret
02:22with the B and E and A. I can do a lot of different, you know, kind of inversions. So I can go
02:27get this kind of really great sound. I can even go behind the capo and, and, you know, and hit the
02:36bass note of it as well. And of course having that possibility of these notes being held,
02:55I can use this to kind of drone out other strings while I'm able to hit these notes, adding a real
03:01nice, you know, colorful texture like something like this.
03:14So moving it up to the fourth fret with the shortcut. I can also
03:18keep the bass note and the ringing strings and also create some colorful
03:47colorful tones as well as having that low bass note kind of drone through. So here we go.
04:04Also another cool thing that you can do is take the shortcut capo,
04:32and invert it. So basically I'm barring the, on the second fret, the C sharp, the A, and the E.
04:43So now I have the two bass strings, the E and the A open as well as the open E. So with that you can
04:50get, of course, like a different type of color as well. Also like it almost sounds like an alternate
04:56tuning. So let's hear what that sounds like. Here we go.
05:07So let's hear what that sounds like.
05:17So let's hear what that sounds like.
05:19So let's hear what that sounds like.
05:21So let's hear what that sounds like.
05:32So let's hear what that sounds like.
05:34So let's hear what that sounds like.
05:36The drop D capo works with acoustic guitars or electric guitars as well,
05:55and is designed to capo five of the six strings on a guitar.
05:58Only the sixth string, the E string, remains open.
06:02When the drop D is capoed, it allows the guitar to emulate a drop D tuning on the second fret,
06:07which I have here. So you can do the familiar cowboy chords or create experimental shapes.
06:12So similar to the shortcut capo, again, I can do some interesting variations on chords,
06:18and of course play behind the nut as well while I'm barring, and keeping that low E open like this.
06:25So let's hear this.
06:55Also with the drop D capo you can also move up to like say the seventh fret and then use
07:07sort of the low E as sort of your moving bass note and then watch the different inversions
07:14you can do here like this.
07:44You can do here like this.
08:14You can do here like this.
08:26Also the same thing with the drop D, you can invert it, turn it upside down like I did
08:46and then use the E as your drone and now you have the whole second fret part where you can
08:51have fun with it like this.
08:53You can do here like this.
09:00You can do here like this.
09:07You can do here like this.
09:14You can do here like this.
09:19. . .
09:48Both the Kaiser Quick Change, Shortcut, and Drop D capos are avant-garde capos that open up a world of creative possibilities.
09:55These capos work on any fret in standard or inverted positions and alternate tunings.
10:00The only thing you need to bring with you besides these Kaiser capos is your imagination.
10:05Definitely check it out.
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