by Peter Berryman
Capo and Phonemendator
Of all the doodads clinking in the clothing of the fully festooned folk musician, the doodaddy of them all is the capo. Most folks reading this music newsletter probably know what one is, but for those who don't: Capos are clamps of one kind or another which mash down on the strings of a guitar (or other stringed instrument) to shorten the vibrating length and therefore raise the pitch of (with most capos) all the strings at the same time. You'd want to do such a strange thing, for example, if you are playing a song in the key of C and know the fingering for that key, but since you quit smoking that's too low for you to sing. So you want to be playing in the key of D, but don't know the fingering for that key. That's when you untangle your capo from the peg twirlers and string warmers in your pick pouch and clamp it two frets up on the fingerboard, each fret representing a musical half-step. You use the same fingering as you did for the key of C, but since you've slid your whole harmonic universe up two half-steps (C, half-step to C#, half step to D), you are now, according to the piano in your rec room, in the key of D.
My inspirational friend Jesse Kaysen recently emailed me: "Picked up my guitar for the first time in a long time and I still hate capos." With a "Know the enemy and he is yours" approach, she Googled capos, and found the marvelous web site of Anders Sterner and his Sterner Capo Museum.
Whether you're a fanatic capo freak or just want to see what one looks like, this is the site for you. It features such sections as the more than 200 year history of the capo, capo humor, and somewhat off-topic areas as the Sterner Chordkey, which is an absolutely free and imaginative method of constructing chords on various instruments. But most amazing to me are the pictures and descriptions of the various capos he has found and categorized. He even includes photos of the "poor boy" capo, which I have certainly used in an emergency, consisting of a pencil held across the fretboard by rubber bands stretched around the back of the guitar neck. In addition, Mr. Sterner himself has designed what looks like the best capo of them all.
In the section on the history of the capo, he mentions the first capo patent, and goes on to say, "If you have the opportunity, I strongly recommend you pay a visit to the Patent Office. You'll get many good laughs from watching the many crazy musical accessories man has invented."
Since I live 1000 miles from the actual governmental closet, I fired up the Googler to see if the US Patent Office has a web site. Now, why I never looked into this before, I can't really say. I'm probably the last mouse pusher to click upon this resplendent repository.
What a library! A Library of the People. At least of the Tinkering People. The patents from 1975 to the present are searchable by text, and the ones before that, all the way back to 1790, are available online, though only as graphic images (.tifs, to be exact). The image files are searchable only by classification or number, so it's fairly hit-or-miss. And the site isn't spectacularly easy to navigate. Then again, they do have a lot of information to handle!
I was particularly interested in the older patents. I love those old weird drawings, for one thing. But for another, generally speaking, the history of invention is fascinating. We may not be wise animals, but we sure are clever now and then (which can be a dangerous combo, of course, as in the H-bomb, the bug bomb, and the boombox.)
In one evening's worth of mousing and clicking, I found hundreds of goofy musically oriented patents, such as Patent No. 181,312 (illustration below): "Be it known that I, G. Napoleone Carrozzi, of Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Phonemendator, or Voice-Regulator." The application was filed July 12, 1876, eight days after the country's Centennial, and was granted August 22 of that year.
If I understand his text description, and the accompanying Dr. Seussish drawing, correctly, the voice student is to bring the wire loop at lower left, labeled b, into the mouth and rest the loop upon his tongue. The teeth are to grab the adjustable vertical post B at the points labeled a (for the upper teeth) and a' (for the lower).
This posture helps the student learn where to hold the tongue and how wide to open the mouth. "C is a feather, arranged to indicate when the air passes through the nostrils, so that the pupil, if he thus discovers that he has formed such a habit, may strive to correct it, and learn to what extent he succeeds." D is a mirror in which the student can see the feather reflected, and behind it the lips, "...to determine when all the proper conditions are fulfilled."
Thusly Phonemendated, the nation bellowed into a new stentorian century, one eye on the feather.
As Mr. Sterner pointed out, there are at least 185 patents for capos alone! Drop on in, but don't forget to stop at Sterner's Capo Museum on the way, for a nice relaxing change of key.
References:
Sterner Capo Museum:
http://w1.865.telia.com/~u86505074/capomuseum/
(or just Google for "capo museum")
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Home Page:
http://www.uspto.gov/
My special thanks to Jesse Kaysen and G. Napoleone Carrozzi, and to Mr. Sterner for his marvelous web site.