Why capo up 2 and play in C, rather than just play in D?

I have been working on "Bury Me Beneath the Willow". It notated and performed in the key of D. My question is why capo up 2 and play in C, rather than just play in D? I know this is often the case when playing in the key of A - often people will capo and play in G. What advantages are there to doing this? Is is just a personal perference thing? I don't quite understand.

Because of the way the strings are tuned - not equally spaced - fiddle tunes in particular seem to fall more easily under the hand using G and C shapes rather than A and D shapes. D shapes and C shapes certainly have a very different feel to them, so in a way I guess it's down to personal preference. Reuben is in D and you'll find that Lesson uses D shapes.
Andy

It can have something to with the inversion of the chord being played--that is to say, what tone is in your lowest bass string. C capo 2 = D gives you your fifth in the bass. D with no capo leaves you laying off the sixth string and using your fifth string (open = A, the fifth) or fudging with your thumb to put the tonic (D) in your bass. You could also tune your sixth string down from E to D, but then folks would start accusing you of being a banjo picker.

It might also have something to do with folks being accustomed to playing in certain keys and not wanting to stray too far from what they are familiar with. I see a lot of BG players using the G shape a lot and moving their capo accomodate the tune. It doesn't work so good down about the ninth fret or beyond.

Don't know if my name will show at the head of this post: Art, aka, mrnefarious

Can you hear me now?

Im one of the players who usually plays in G or C and moves my capo to change keys. It seems be be the easiest way to keep getting a nice clean sound and makes it easier to figure out lead if you always use the same chords. Im sure people have other thoughts on the matter but this is what works for me.

Some advantages to using a capo:
1. It can make playing in almost any key like playing in the first position, relatively speaking.
2. It can eliminate the need to play many barre chords.
3. It can shorten up the stretch that you need to make for playing a scale or run by one fret.

Some disadvantages to using a capo:
1. You make a certain portion of your fingerboard unusable.
2. You can color the sound of your piece in a less than favorable way. The further down the neck you put a capo the more low end tone you lose.
3. If you are using it and playing mainly with one or two tonic shapes (as above) you may not be learning to play your instrument as completely as will be useful to you, i.e., when you play something outside of the typical folk/bluegrass three or four chords you are back in that unfamiliar territory where you generally reach for your capo (which is already on.) A capo can help to discourage you from learning the fingerboard thoroughly. 4. A lot of capos can't be put on without significant distortion of the strings, i.e., retuning every time you put it on or change position.
5. Tone death--shortening the string length reduces sustain and affects tone.
6. Snobs think that you are cheating.

A capo is a tool--use it judiciously.

Advantage #4:
Given a particular song in a particular key, using a capo (or not) can allow you to achieve a particular arrangement that you like or that you think better suits the song. Conversely, maintaining a strong bias either for or against using a capo can limit your aesthetic choices. For example, in the key of D, I might put the capo on 2 and play in C position, or play in open D position, or in rare cases I might even put the capo on 5 and play in A posiition, or on 7 and play in G position. The last two would be more likely if I'm playing with another guitar and I want to improve the combined sound by not hitting the same chord shapes and licks as the other guy or gal, i.e. to "broadenthe tonal spectrum."

Of course, I should confess that I'm sometimes guilty of using the capo to avoid playing bluegrass in A or E position, just because I haven't really learned yet how to get the kind of bluegrass-appropriate sound that I like in either of those positions. I hope I will some day, but for now I'm just being lazy.

So, for me the capo is often an extremely useful tool, and sometimes a bit of a crutch.

Cheers,
Dan