been playing a fair amount of acoustic guitar lately and have seen videos of mostly acoustic players using 2 capos

for example, one at 1st fret which capos all strings, then one at 3rd fret which only capos the top 4 strings..

this creative use of capos is new to me, since I'm not primarily a guitar player, but have played a lot over the years.

the capo covering only the 4 strings looks to be a banjo capo, maybe?

would love to hear from guitar players on this..

From what you described, it sounds like the twin capos have been used to fret a bar chord.

its interesting to play around with ..

seems to suit a certain fingerpicking style..

Fingerpicking (or flatpicking) using open ringing strings is a lot easier higher up the neck and has a nice sound.

Nice for sitting out the back with your guitar on a summer evening.

Also good for changing the key of a song to one you can actually sing it in.

Did you guys ever hear that Irving Berlin only ever played in one key and had the piano equivalent of a capo to change to other keys?

A "custom-made 1940 Weser Brothers piano". It had a lever of some kind.

If you watch the Fort Worth gig on the recently released Some GIrls DVD you can see Mr Richards using two capos on JJFlash I think. Not sure as to why he is doing this as he usually only uses one on that song.

Maybe it's because of sympathetic ringing behind the first capo?

I wouldn't have thought that would be picked through the amp though.

Probably because he was afraid having to re-tune his guitar after removing his original capo. By adding the second one, the guitar wouldn´t get any tuning problems...

Quote
GravityBoy
Maybe it's because of sympathetic ringing behind the first capo?

I wouldn't have thought that would be picked through the amp though.

No, I can't understand why it would be used on an electric, no doubt one of our learned friends will be along soon to clarify the matter. Maybe it did something to the string tension and thereby gave a different feel/sound?

A capo, or caporegime, is used by the Mafia to head a "crew" of soldiers.