Overview

Capo was designed to help you learn songs “by ear” without tabs or sheet music. Its collection of high-tech tools will have you learning more songs in less time.

Below you'll find a high-level walkthrough of the steps that you'll take when learning new songs using Capo. Each step contains links to the documentation where you will find more information about the features as they are referenced.

Learning Songs

Here’s how you learn a new song using Capo:

1. Create a Project

Start by selecting the song that you’re working on, and Capo will create a Project to store it in. Projects let you resume your learning session at any time, and remember where you left off.

2. Map out the song

Capo’s Structure song view gives you an overview of the bars in the song, which you can organize into sections. For example, you can group the bars into Intro, Verse, and Chorus sections for a typical pop song.

Capo will automatically detect the location of the bars and beats in your song to save you some time, but you can edit the locations yourself if needed.

3. Identify the Notes and/or Chords

Using Capo’s Advanced Audio Playback features, you can listen carefully to the recording to identify the notes and chords in the song. For example, you can slow the recording down to 25% of its original speed, or use Capo’s scrubbing feature to hear notes frozen in time—all without affecting the playback pitch.

Capo automatically detects the chords to give you a head start, but you can edit the chords if they don’t match what you’re hearing, or how you’d like to play them.

4. Practice Playing!

Once you know what to play, it’s time to grab your instrument and start building your muscle memory.

If you’re a chord-oriented player, you’ll use the Chords song view while playing through the entire song.

When you face a tricky part that needs more work, you can use a combination of Capo’s looping Regions and audio slowing features to work up to playing at full speed.

Last updated: December 10, 2020