On Wed, 4 Oct 1995, Jeff Stickney wrote: > Likewise, as I tuned a Baldwin/Hamilton grand the other day I was=20 > studiously studying the plate (what, my mind wander?) I couldn't help but= > =20 > notice that the piano had a "Capo Tasto Bar". Now, I always thought it=20 > was Capo D'astro. Or is astro the name of the dog on the Jetson's? What= > =20 > exactly does Capo D'astro/Tasto mean? Any Italians out there? (It's all= > =20 > Greek to me.) = I am not an Italian. But I am familiar with some organological Italian terminology. So... The correct term is Capo Tasto. Tasto in Italian means "fret" ( you know - frets, those things that go accross a guitar's neck). Capo means "head". Capo Tasto therefore means Head Fret, Chief Fret or maybe Big Fret. Which is what a capo bar is - a big fret accross the strings. "Capo d'Astro" appears to be some sort of meaningless nice-sounding nonsense phrase - Astro meaning "star" - that suggests some sort of "celestial" quality imparted by a particular piano feature (the Capo Tasto). In other words, marketing BS. Israel Stein
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