How can beginners jam together and sound just like professional guitar players? The answer is here!

And it's a pretty easy one - we'll use a guitar capo on a trick that I call A Capo for Two, and yep, it requires open chords only. You'll find famous artists playing like that - it's simple, most beginners can do it, and it sounds incredible!

🎸 This is the first lesson of our Duets series, and it's part of Grade 3 of my Beginner Guitar Course. Hope you enjoy it!

This tutorial will explore how two guitar players can play together even as beginners. You can get two acoustic guitars - it's great - or combine acoustic and electric guitars as well. The classic version is two acoustic guitars playing together, but creativity and musical expression are the only rules here.

To take advantage of this guitar trick, you'll need to follow some general guidelines. Let's start by exploring them. :)

Jamming for Beginners: Before Getting Started

This guitar trick works around what we call the CAGED System - something we'll explore in many lessons in Grade 3 and further on in our Intermediate stages. For now, we need to get you started with the fundamental idea of what the CAGED System means. Here's a simplified explanation:

What's the CAGED System?

There are only five ways of playing chords on the guitar: the C, A, G, E, and D shapes. I'm sure you've encountered them before. Let's take a look at your guitar fretboard! If you start off with a C chord, you've got the notes C, E, G, C, and E. So, it's an open C Chord with a C Shape.

💡 We get the shape’s name from the chord in the open position!

The important thing here is to realize that there are different ways of playing those same notes - C, E, G, C, and E - somewhere else on your guitar fretboard. For example, you could play an A Shape - you'll play those same guitar notes, but the position on the guitar neck would look similar to the open A chord. Your first finger would work as a guitar capo on the 5th fret. :) Check out the video tutorial to visualize this better!

You'll hear it - it still sounds like a C Chord, but it's slightly different because the top notes sound different. Join the video lesson to keep exploring this concept - we've got 5 different ways of playing the C chord on the guitar.

As we advance in our guitar journey, we'll explore more about the CAGED System and how to put it into practice. For now, we're only getting into it so that you understand the basics and how you can use that to play along with other guitar players and sound like a pro - even if you're still a beginner!

Get the Trick: A Capo For Two!

The CAGED System allows you to play all the same open chords you know in different places of your fretboard using a capo. So, the trick here is to get a friend to jam with - one will be playing the chords in the open position, the other will be playing the same chords, at the same time, but down the neck - and using a guitar capo! That sounds beautiful.

💡The way your guitar fretboard works is cool, eh? Once you understand how it all comes together, you've got the fretboard freedom you've been looking for. Just stick around, commit to your guitar practice routines, and trust the process. You've got this!

So, I call this trick A Capo For Two - seriously, it's the coolest beginner jam trick I know. :) The challenge will be to find the right place to put your capo on your guitar neck. If you're doing a song that has loads of chords - that'll be trickier! Here is some general advice for you:

Trial and error work pretty well here! You already know how one guitar will play (the usual open chord position) - so, experiment with the second one. Move the capo around and pay attention to what you like the most. You'll learn a lot about root notes, tones, semitones… in a practical way!
You should know the root notes on the thicker strings at this stage of your guitar journey. If you still haven't memorized them, check out the 6 Essential Notes here. Preferably, you'd also know the notes on the 4th string - but there's a cheat for that, and we'll learn it in the video lesson. :)
Getting to know the root notes and finding the shapes on the guitar neck is another level, eh? If you'd like to go further in your guitar journey and become a musician, I'd recommend you dig into it and get the time to know how your instrument works. If not, if you just want to have some fun, all you have to do is memorize some common patterns. It all comes down to how far you plan to go in your journey.

To help you out, here's a cheat sheet for you!

Open Chord Shapes Cheat Sheet

This chart should help you make sense of things, and understanding your guitar neck will be easier! All you've got to do is check the open chords and see where they all line up on a certain capo position. The top row of chords in the grey cells are those you may be aiming to play - call them your target chords. All chords shown in the rows below, and right of a capo position, are the 'chord shapes' you need to hold to play the target chords.

This chart only considers open chords because this lesson is part of Grade 3 of my Beginner Guitar Course. If you're a more advanced guitar player, feel free to add barre chords as well!

What about the Minor Chords?

You can apply the things we learned here to play Minor Chords, but it usually takes more complicated fingerings, and this A Capo For Two trick works less. That's because there are no C Minor and G Minor open chords. To understand the reason behind that, check out my Practical Music Theory course.

So, for now - I'd recommend starting with Major Chords and visiting Minor Chords later in your guitar journey.

A Capo For Two - Real-Life Examples!

You'll find the trick in so many awesome tracks! Some of my favorites are:

Handle With Care by The Traveling Wilburys
Wildflowers by Tom Petty
Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones

Choose songs you love but have easy chord progressions - and, for now, prioritize songs with Major Chords only. We'll get fancier about all of this later on!

Practice. :)

The best way to figure out this stuff is just to do it. If you have a friend who also plays guitar and you can sort this stuff out together, even better for you! With someone else, you'll learn together and have loads more fun!

Following Grade 3? Next, we'll learn a simple secret from the greatest musicians!