Recently I came across a guitarist named Andy Mckee on youtube and I was blown away by his incredible skill, technique, tone and above all melody and songwriting. You get a lot of these acoustic guitarists that rely solely on technique based trickery to write songs. Whilst this is great for a live performance as a crowd pleaser, personally I don't see it as much more than a party trick; akin with playing the Mario Bros theme on the guitar. Guitarists like Mongrain and Preston Reed don't quite do it for me. Andy McKee on the other hand encompasses all the skill and trickery that these otheer guys use, but with beautiful harmonies and delicate melodies. Pure genius. Anyway, I digress. Part of Andy's method of creating such inspiring music is the use of alternate tunings. In addition to tuning his strings differently, he uses special 'partial' capos that clamp only certain strings. I knew of these before, but never had the urge to try one until now.

The one shown above is Shubb partial capo. This particular one clamps only the 5th, 4th and 3rd strings when clamped from the 'top' side. Thus leaving the 6th, 1st and 2nd strings open. It can also be used from below the neck to clamp the 2nd, 3rd and 4th string if so desired. When used on the second fret, it creates a DADGAD tuning (up a tone), which is popular amongst acoustic players. Its essentially a Dsus4 open tuning which sounds nice and airy.

Shubb capos are in my opinion the best designed capo so far. Very small and unobtrusive, solidly made from brass, goes on and comes off very quickly and basically works very well. This fits both my acoustics and electrics perfectly.