Must-Know Guitarist Tech Tip!

​Click to watch free video lesson​

Happy Monday, my friends — brand new lesson today featuring an incredibly helpful tip: adjusting the key of any YouTube video.

Specifically, I’ll show you how to use the free Chrome plugin Transpose – which lets you easily transpose any video to a different key (as well as fine tune the pitch, adjust the speed down, create loops, etc).

This started with a question I received from Song Notes member Randy, who asked:

Here’s the video Randy is asking about:

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If you want to learn to play Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, I teach it in lesson #433.

In short, Carson McKee is using E flat tuning — which means all his strings are tuned down by one half-step (Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb). Many guitarists use this tuning quite a bit – as it can bring songs down into their vocal range, or maybe they prefer the looser strings… which can be easier to bend, etc.

In the old days, you’d need to tune down ½ step yourself in order to play along with Carson in this example. But with the magic of YouTube, there’s another way!

The answer is the free Chrome extension Transpose – which, when installed in your browser, allows you to adjust the audio of any YouTube video you’re watching. Specifically, you can set the “Transpose” setting to +1 in this example – which brings the sound of Carson’s video up in pitch by one half-note / one semitone / one fret.

This effective nullifies (cancels out) his E-flat tuning… and puts his video into standard tuning. And now you can play along without adjusting your guitar... as I demonstrate in my tutorial above.

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Songs I've Taught Using in E-flat Tuning

While I (almost?) always record my lessons in standard tuning, I’ve taught many songs where the artist’s original recording is tuned down ½ step.

Here’s a list of all these lessons… if you pulled up the artist recording of any of these songs on YouTube, you could use the steps above (set “Transpose” to +1) and play along – without leaving standard tuning!

• ​"The Man Who Sold the World" by Nirvana (orig. by David Bowie)​
• ​"Where Did You Sleep Last Night" by Nirvana​
• ​Strumming & Riff Guide for "About a Girl" by Nirvana​
• ​Nirvana Riffin' in Drop-D (ft. All Apologies)​
• ​"Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses​
• ​"Gloria" by The Lumineers​
• ​"Walk Right In" by The Rooftop Singers​
• ​"You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'" by The Righteous Brothers​
• ​"1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins​
• ​"Patience" by Guns N' Roses​
• ​"Tonight, Tonight" (acoustic) by The Smashing Pumpkins​
• ​"Lonesome Town" by Ricky Nelson​
• ​Fingerstyle Fun feat. "Mama I'm Coming Home" by Ozzy Osbourne​

Using Transpose to Play Along with Guitarists Using a Capo... Even if You Don't Have One

You can also use this same extension to play along with any video where the guitarist is using a capo. In my new lesson above, I show this using Toni Lindgren’s performance of Ripple by the Grateful Dead (which I teach in lesson #382). Here’s Toni playing it, using capo 4th fret:

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Of course, you could play along with her by putting a capo on the 4th fret. But if you don’t have a capo handy — the Transpose extension can save the day! Simply set the “Transpose” setting to –4, as shown here:

This adjusts the audio of her performance, lowering the key by 4 semitones / 4 half-steps / 4 frets. Again, this effectively removes her capo from the equation… which means you can play along without a capo, and be in the same key as her.

This capo use-case has the admitted drawback of seriously compromising the vocal quality of her voice… but if you’re only worried about referencing the guitar parts, it does the job just fine.

Another Must-Know Guitarist Tech Tip

Let’s face it — a miracle of the modern age is the access we all have to video lessons, fan covers, or artist performances on YouTube — each of which makes our learning journey so much faster.

As great as this is, there’s the awkward dance of moving our hands from guitar to our computer mouse so we can use the cursor to click and rewind, pause, fast forward, or otherwise adjust the video that’s playing. Trust me when I say there is a better way.

I’m talking about keyboard shortcuts. By learning just a few, you’ll be able to control playback in a small fraction of the time it takes to use your mouse & cursor. This removes frustration, increases the time we’re actually playing the guitar, and gets us where we want to go that much further. So let’s dive in!

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:44 Play/Pause
• 1:09 Rewind & Fast Forward
• 2:53 Jumping to a specific point
• 3:48 Frame-by-frame movement
• 4:27 Muting, Captions, Full Screen
• 5:15 Playback Speed
• 6:00 Touch Screen Shortcuts (smartphone and tablet)
• 7:28 Troubleshooting Tips!

Thanks and Enjoy!

I hope you find these videos helpful! YouTube is such a wonder for us modern-day guitar players, and these two tips allow you to quickly play along without re-tuning or fumbling for your capo.

By the way – if you're looking for any other tuning lessons, I've got a bunch. Check out all my tuning lessons here »​

David
​Browse all my lessons at songnotes.net​