The amazing flexibility of the om

[Huda]

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

[mandroid]

Or learn more closed 4 finger chords and leave the capo in the case?

borrow tenor banjo 4 finger chords which will be well suited to the longer scale lengths shared by both.

[Steve L]

For me,those ringing open strings you can only get by using a capo is part of the magic of the sound of CBOM instruments. I think using a lot of closed position chords would make the instrument sound like a guitar with a sinus infection.

[mandroid]

Mandola is as long as I got , at 16" scale ,
when the Guitar players all play in Emaj the ringing open chords are few.

just My .02, a few closed chord forms are good for following key changes to where ever they modulate off to..

[Bertram Henze]

That "fifths magic" helps me to avoid the capo since I do not try to strum full chords all the time - mostly I do double stops and can transpose simply by choosing the pair of courses to play (GD, DA or AE). The only instrument better at this than the OM would be a cittern, but no, not another instrument for me either...

Bertram

[JeffD]

I think using a lot of closed position chords would make the instrument sound like a guitar with a sinus infection.

[JeffD]

I sometimes play my mandola as an octave mando - capo 2 and play down one string - so I am down an fourth plus a fifth equals and octave below the fiddle.

[sean parker]

huda, it's great to be able to move a capo around on an om. i do it all the time. but i don't get your questions. unless i'm not understanding what you're doing, if you wanted to play in C, up in the middle of the neck, wouldn't you put the capo on the 5th fret? so you get C G D A, like a mandola? putting a capo at the 6th would put you in C#.

you could go to the 10th, but you would be dramatically reducing the string length, so all the sustain will be sapped from ringing open chords, unless a short decay sound is what you're going for.

i generally wouldn't go above the 6th fret, for that reason, plus any key higher than the 6th fret can be done with reasonable comfort with open strings on the frets below it, capo or no capo, open and closed. imo.