I love my OM, but I find myself mostly playing in the mid-to-high range on the neck.
In otherwords, I find myself emulating a mandola more than an OM (and I KNOW that my wife won't let me buy yet ANOTHER instrument).
If I want to play songs in the same key as my guitar buddy, I put a capo in the middle of the neck and transpose the chords of the song.
Performing this transposition exercise gave me an insight into the amazing flexibility of the OM and the magic of fifths tuning.
The trick is to use a capo to move everything up a fifth, and then play chord forms that are down a fifth from the sounds that you want to produce.
By moving the key up a fifth and the chords down a fifth, you end up playing a song in the right key, with familiar chord forms, in a comfortable mid-neck position.
For example, let's say you want to play a song in the key of G. Let's take "Wading in the Velvet Sea" by Phish. The chord progression is easy and hypnotic:
G D Em C D (repeat forever)
Now if you play those chords as open chords at the bottom of the neck, they just don't sound good (to my ear).
So, do the following:
1. Use a capo to move everything up a fifth. Put the capo on the 7th fret, which moves things into the key of D.
2. Transpose the chords down a fifth. Transpose the chords from the key of G to the key of C. In this example, the transposed chords are: C G Am F G.
3. Play the transposed chord forms in the middle of the neck. Voila! You are playing the song in the correct key of G. You already know the chord forms. Your fingers are comfortable in the middle of the neck. Your guitar buddy is happy.
Now, here comes the questions:
Let's say that I want to play a song in the key of C. Would it work to transpose the chords UP a fifth (in the key of G) and then put the capo DOWN a fifth (in the key of F)?
Should I put the capo on the 10th fret (to get the key of F) or on the 6th fret (a full fifth below G)?
Thanks,
Huda
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