Last night I was playing with a 'just for fun' group of friends. We had banjo, fiddle, guitars and ukulele. All were beginner level except for me. The guitars used capos. I used a capo on my banjo fr a different reason (as explained above.) The others did not use capos.

My friends were not particularly interested in learning the ins and outs of transposing. They don't really have a strong grasp of what it means to be in the "key of c" or why that is different fronm the "key of G." Mostly they are thinking of one chord at a time.

They just want to have fun.

Thinking about what they would need, I visualize a graphic of a guitar neck. Perhaps the existing guitar-neck animation window could be adapted. There would be a bar across the strings representing the capo. The user could slide the bar up and down with the mouse and see the shape of a C chord move with it. A window labeled "original chord" and "new chord" mght show "C" and "Eb" respectively when the bar gets to the 3d fret. Another window would show "original key" and "new key." Then the new chords would show on the chord sheet, but the key would not change. Perhaps the new chords could have a little subscript '3' or something.

Over time this would be a learning tool. The user would gradualy gain a sense of what transposition is all about.

Flatfoot sez: Call me when 'Talent-in-a-Box' is ready to ship! -- [8{>

Got some tunes on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/flatfoot50
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My BiaB lesson site:
http://jdwolfe0.wixsite.com/learnbiab