Transposing riffs and chords with open strings

Hi guys (and gals)! I have a problem that I'm sure that some of you have encountered before and I'd be grateful for any tips on how to solve it.

I play in an four-piece alternative rock band (something between post-rock, old shoegaze and alt country/indie rock) with a bunch of friends. The band consists of guitar (me), drums, bass and keyboards, we mostly play our own material and also jam a lot. We haven't gigged yet but it's coming to that eventually and the entire point of the project is to basically just have fun among friends.

Now, the problem is this: our singer has a really high voice and with our material we (myself and the bass player) constantly find ourselves in a situation where the stuff that we write needs to be transposed up so that she can sing it. The issue here is that I love to use a lot of open strings, especially with big chords (x24400 (Bm) or 070980 (Em))-type of fingerings) when I play and those cannot really be transposed. And even if the chords themselves can be transposed on the expense of the shimmering sound that I love, riffs using open strings are much trickier. I wonder if anyone has a good solution for this (and "get a new singer who can sing in E" is not solution here...). Technique-wise I have no problems playing complicated bar chords but they just don't sound the same.

A capo is an obvious solution, but it does bad things to intonation and for me it's really audible too since I love to play up and down on the neck, not to mention that capoing requires retuning the guitar when you change its position. It also changes the sound and the feel of the guitar and my guitar of choice for this band (a MIJ Jazzmaster) cannot really afford to lose any more sustain than it already does. I am also not very good with alternative tunings since I have enough problems with the fretboard in EADGBE already and I don't believe that tuning the entire guitar up enough is possible either. Of course it's possible to just write different material, but is that really the only viable solution?

A capo does not have to mess up your intonation. My solution was to get the intonation as nearly perfect as possible with open strings and use a Fender capo which uses hand pressure to clamp the strings. You can set it only as tight as it needs to be to prevent buzzing. Another thing I have found out is to clamp the capo right on top of the fret. Let about half the fret stick out toward the bridge and clamp the capo. Intonation should be right on. BTW, x24400 is Bsus4. There's no third in that shape.

Try a different capo perhaps. I have a really stiff one that raises the notes about a quarter tone. I've gone back to using my cheapo elastic one (don't know the name of them) and I can slide it up and down to different frets with minimal intonation issues.

I have a Shubb capo which should be really good, but now that I think of it, maybe it's too tight and in any case, I've always clamped it right next to the fret and not on it. I'll try to tweak it the next time we play. Thanks for the tips!

(and regarding the chord, I meant to write x24430 instead of the Bsus4. I guess that would technically make it Bm11 or Bmadd4 but in any case, both the Bsus4 and Bm11 are lovely chords :))

In over 50 years of playing, my simple Shubb has proved to be the best. Heck! My first capo was a pencil with a rubber band!

I have used every kind of capo I could think of from the old elastic, bungee-looking things, to the ones with the metal teeth and the strap with the handle you engage in the teeth and snap in place, to Paige, to Shubb, to Kyser to Dunlop to G7th to Planet Waves and by far, the easiest and most effective and least de-intonating on my electric guitars is this Fender:
http://www.projectmusic.net/ekmps/shops/projectmusic/images/fender-smart-capo-7871-p.jpg

What if you detuned down a full step or a step and a half?

It sounds like you write the music in the key of E (even though you used that open string Em as an example), then transpose up to what? F#? G?

It also sounds like you like that ringing E and/or B string sound you get playing in E. There are a ton of open string chord voicings in available in standard tuning. So my suggestion is to mess around with as many as you can find, and look for the ones that you like in your singer's keys. Some of these voicings are in shapes you are already familiar with.

Some examples using your Bsus4 shape:
Cmaj7 [x 3 5 5 0 0]
D6sus2 [x 5 7 7 0 0]
E5 [x 7 9 9 0 0]
F#7sus4 [x 9 11 11 0 0]
G6 [x 10 12 12 0 0]

You can do cool stuff with the familiar E shape:
Fmaj7#11 [1 3 3 2 0 0]
F#7add4 [2 4 4 3 0 0] <-- awesome chord! Think Rush's Alex Lifeson
G6 [3 5 5 4 0 0]
Aadd9 [5 7 7 6 0 0]
Badd4 [7 9 9 8 0 0]
Cmaj7 [8 10 10 9 0 0]

Here's some of my favorites, droning D chords:
G6 [3 x 0 4 3 0]
Aadd4 [5 x 0 6 5 0]
Bmadd11 [7 x 0 7 7 0]
Cadd2 [8 x 0 9 8 0] <-- fret the D string @ 10 to make it C Major
Dadd9 [10 x 0 11 10 0]

*Theory experts feel free to point out errors in my chord naming and if possible I'll edit and correct them :smile: