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,
Machine head Machine head A machine head (also referred to as a tuning machine, tuner, or gear head) is a geared apparatus for tuning stringed musical instruments by adjusting string tension. Machine heads are used on mandolins, guitars, double basses, and others, and are usually located on the instrument's headstock. Other names for guitar tuners include pegs, gears, machines, cranks, knobs, tensioners, and tighteners. Non-geared tuning devices as used on violins, violas, cellos, lutes, older Flamenco guitars, and ukuleles are known as friction pegs, which hold the string to tension by way of friction caused by their tapered shape and by the