May I aks why you transcribe a lot of the new tracks with capo? Just wondering.
Capo is actually Mark's middle name... No, just kidding. I can understand your question, because there's like just a couple of songs without capo, but I have a theory here.
While transcribing the song, I try every single capo position, literally every one, even the ones you would never think of, and sometimes you can get an "eureka" moment. But usually you can recognise the capo position right away and it's no brainer, like in Floating Away. For this song there's just no any possibilities other than Capo 1. Harder ones, like Nobody's Child, is not so obvious. The obvious choice is Capo 3, but it just doesn't sound right that way. So you switch to Capo 1 and aha! Capo 0 is also a choice, so I try that as well. But usually it doesn't work completely. Because it's too low, too hard to play or doesn't sound good at all.
So deciding the capo position is a very tricky job and it's a combination of open strings available, difficulty to play and most importantly — good sound. Technically you can play many of the songs with various capo positions, sometimes even more than two, but I try to provide only the right one, with good sound.
In the early days of transcribing I've made terrible idiot mistakes, like playing the main rhythm part of 5:15 am with Capo 1 or The Ragpicker's Dream without capo at all.
And from a songwriter's perspective capo not only gives you a chance of transposing the songs easily, but also gives a feel of freshness and adventure of finding new sounds. I always thought there's not too many MK songs with Capo 1 and here it is on the new album already several songs sound good that way. And the most easy way to know if a song was played with a capo on certain fret is to see it live, and luckily I always get it right. Can't remember mistakes of 5:15 am magnitude of stupidness.
So long story short, I transcribe a lot of songs with capo, because they sound better that way, and probably was played that way for all the same reasons in the first place.
