Capo Capo A capo (short for "capodastro", "capo tasto" or "capotasto" , Italian for "head of fretboard"; Spanish: " cejilla" or "capodastro"; French: "capodastre"; German: "Kapodaster"; Portuguese: "capodastro", Serbo-Croatian: "kapodaster"; Greek: "kapotasta") is a device used on the neck of a stringed (typically fretted) instrument to shorten the playable length of the strings, hence raising the pitch. It is a common tool for players of guitars, mandolins, mandolas, banjos, ukuleles and bouzoukis. The word derives from the Italian "capotasto" which means the nut of a stringed instrument. The earliest known use of the term "capotasto" is by Giovanni Battista Doni who,
StarrBoard fretted instruments. The piano-like note markers on the fretboard reflect a semitone string tuning system, although Starrett experimented with various microtonal tuning systems over the years. At least eleven StarrBoards were built before Starrett ceased production of the instrument. Most of the instruments were electric, although at least one was purely acoustic and two had wired frets and strings for electronic processing to provide MIDI output. The StarrBoard is no longer being manufactured, although a derivative instrument called the harpejji is being made. StarrBoard The StarrBoard is a stringed musical instrument invented by John D. Starrett and patented on July