OMG OT: Harmonic Capo

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Hey all you looping guitar players, my wife just gave me the coolest 
fucking late Christmas present
that I've ever received:  It's going to have a huge impact on some of my 
guitar playing.

It's called the Harmonic Capo (made by Bob Kilgore:  
http://www.weaseltrap.com/ )

It is a capo that you place on the 12th fret of an electric guitar that 
has 6 individual
rubber stoppers whose height (and width) from above the fretboard can be 
individually adjusted.

Essentially,  what it does is play continual 12th fret Barre chord 
harmonics.

Now, that is pretty cool by itself, but the truly groovy addition to 
this concept is that it is designed so that if you actually fret any 
string either
in back or in front of the capo,  the strength height is lowered enough 
so that the harmonic action
of the capo is disengaged and a normal note sounds (allowing for normal 
melodies and/or chords to be played)

What is so infinitely cool (at least to me who is not a guitarist but 
plays one on TV)
is that you can tune the guitar like a zither........in other words,  
you can tune to 6 scalar
notes (or your hearts content) and always be able to play harmonics in 
this scale whilst
simultaneously playing leads as you strum or arpeggiate the harmonics.

I set it up on my Fretless Strat tonight and just tuned my guitar to an 
interesting Arabic Maqam
and then could alternate between playing bass lines on the lowest string 
(tonic) and melodies
on all the other strings.

Just goofing around with my M9 earlier tonight,  I was able to use 
double and half speeds to create three octaves of harmonic parts
and then solo over the resultant chimey 'soup'    With all the harmonics 
singing, I was able to play my fretless guitar with my eyes closed,
sliding in and out of consonance..........it's a really beautiful effect.

My wife is amazing and I'm so happy that we had to wait to give each 
other Christmas months later than normal.

Woohoooo!!!!   I'm psyced!

rick walker