Capo positions, tunings, chords and other wonderful things
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
If you are going to play chords only, no capo is needed. A chord has the same construction regardless of the key of the tune. Actually all the information you need, when there is a vocalist, is the chords and when a chord is played. So having the words with the needed chord just above is sufficient to chord along with the tune. I think it's actually easier that way.
If the music you are looking at shows the chords as
G C G C G D Em D C Em D G C G C G D Em D C,
and the music key is G, play the chords as shown. Your second set of chords is the chords transposed for the key of D, as if you were going to play the melody + chords in the new key of D, not G. You would be playing the chords for a D melody, everyone else would be playing chords for a G melody.
Play the chords either way, which ever sound best or is the most natural feeling. You can play the D as 000, 002, 200, 030, 777, etc or just one note, 0 on the base string [like a standup bass player does, one note at a time]. The G the same, 310, 013 or just a 3 on the base.
updated by @skip: 06/27/19 11:06:08AM