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,
Tuning mechanisms for stringed instruments and the sarod, but some like the esraj and Mohan veena often use modern tuning machines instead. Tapered pegs are also used on older European instruments, such as the Bulgarian gadulka and the hurdy-gurdy, as well as on flamenco guitars. Among modern western musical instruments, tapered pegs are most often used on violin family instruments, though usually the double bass uses tuning machines. "Peg dope" (also peg paste, peg stick, peg compound) is a substance used to coat the bearing surfaces of the tapered tuning pegs of string instruments (mainly violins, violas, cellos, viols and lutes ). Manufactured varieties are