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,
Tablature MPA. Tablature Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the lute, vihuela, or guitar, as well as many free reed aerophones such as the harmonica. Tablature was common during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and is commonly used today in notating many forms of music. Three types of organ tablature were used in Europe: German, Spanish and Italian. To distinguish standard musical notation from tablature, the former is usually called "staff notation" or just "notation". The word "tablature"