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Introduction to the CAGED Chord System 3 C shape 5 A shape 7 G shape 9 E shape 11 D shape 13Connecting the Chord Shape 15CAGED Concept Shortcut 16Practical Application 1 of CAGED: Sensible Chord Progressions and Using Chord Fragments 18Practical Application 2 of CAGED: Solos and Improvisation Using Chord Chasing 24Minor Chords and CAGED 31Final Tips for Using and Practicing the CAGED System 33

Table of Contents

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I. Introduction to the CAGED Chord System (00:00 – 04:02)

If you want to figure out all of the possible chords you can play on your guitar, you only need to start out with five basic major chord shapes. We call these chord shapes CAGED. These chord shapes were named after the chords they form in the open position with a guitar in standard tuning.

For the CAGED chord system to work, you need to know two things:

1. Your CAGED chord shapes (shown above). 2. Knowledge of barre chords, both 6th string (E shape) and 5th string positions (A

shape). With the CAGED system we can do the following:

1. Turn these five chord shapes into more than 60 chords. 2. Efficiently move from one chord to the next within the same chord progression. 3. Generate melodic ideas for soloing, improvisation and even composing new

works. Given the fact that using the CAGED chord system could give rise to various chord shapes for the same chord, it can be confusing at times. So how do we know which chord shape to use? The choice of chord shapes could be determined by the following:

1. If the chord shape is easier to use, it will be chosen over a more difficult one. 2. The chord shape is nearest to the next chord in the chord progression a guitarist

is playing. A guitarist doesn’t want to jump all over the place to go from one chord to the next. The nearer the chord is, the easier it is to play and therefore better and more efficient. For example, if you’re playing an open C and the next

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chord is an F, you don’t have to play the F barre chord (A shapeat the 8th fret but you’d choose the barre chord at the 1st fret instead (E shape).

3. A guitarist is going after a particular sound based on the chord shape (e.g. a G chord based on a “C” shape sounds different from a G chord in the open position).

4. The visual aspect. The easier a chord shape is to memorize, the more likely it is to be used.

Take note that guitarists NEED to learn the CAGED system because knowledge of these chord shapes helps players to switch from one chord to the next in the most efficient manner possible. With the CAGED chord system, you can literally play any chord anywhere on the fretboard.

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C Let’s try out getting all sorts of chords from the C chord shape by building barre chords:

All that we did here to convert the C shape into other chords is just move the chord shape to a different location. For instance, to get an F, we just use the index finger bar at the 5th fret and then formed the C chord shape using the middle, ring and index fingers at the subsequent frets.

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Another thing about the CAGED chord shapes is that if we change or add one or two notes, we get different but related chords. Let’s take a look at some more examples:

By changing or adding notes, we can get various C chords like Cmaj7, Cm7, etc.\

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A Because of its shape, the A shape is easy to form barre chords with:

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All you have to do is form a bar with your index finger from the root note at the 5th string down to the 1st string and then form the A chord shape a whole step after the bar. You can also form other kinds of A chords by changing or adding one or more notes such as shown in the examples below:

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G G can be kind of tricky to make barre chords with because of the stretch required, but it can be done as shown in the examples below:

These shapes are rather awkward to play that you’d prefer using the E shape versions of the same chord. However, there still are certain ways by which we can use this shape. For example, take a look at the C chord using the G shape in the diagram above. We can use the pinkie for the 6th string, the ring finger for the 5th string and then use the index finger as a bar for the other notes. If we avoid playing the 1st string, we get a C. If we play the 1st string, we get a C(add 6) chord. We can also build other chords by adding or changing one or more notes in the shape.

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One can also form four-note chords on four strings using the patterns below. These sort of chord voicings are very useful in playing jazz:

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E This time, let’s use the E chord shape and turn that to at least six other chords. Just like the A chord shape, E is very popular for use in barre chords:

Out of the basic E chord shape, we can build an Emaj7, Em, Edim7, Eaug7 etc. using some modifications to the fingering:

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From the E shape alone, we can already build a number of chords we can use.

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D We can turn the D chord shape into any other chord by stopping the root note or bass note with the index finger and the using the second, third and fourth fingers to form the D chord shape one whole step away.

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Same with the other chord shapes, add or remove one or two notes to form different chords with the D chord shape:

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II. Connecting the Chord Shapes (04:02 – 16:36) Take a look at your C chord. Although it is in the open position, you’ll find that it actually has a barre: your guitar’s nut. As shown above, you can transform your open C chord to a D, E, F and even all the way to a C an octave higher by just moving up to different frets and using your first finger as a bar. You also may have noticed that using the CAGED chord shapes, you can play the same chord in different parts of the fretboard. You can even connect them together this way. Let’s take the C chord again as an example. We can play C across the entire fretboard by starting out with the traditional open C chord shape, move to the A shape version (3rd fret 5th string barre chord), then the G shape, the E and then lastly the D shape version, and then it starts all over again at the C shape albeit in a higher register:

Have you observed the pattern? The entire pattern from open chord C to barre chord C using the D shape spells out CAGED! It’s one reason why the entire system is called CAGED. On the guitar, you can play one chord all over the fretboard in five different ways using CAGED. Remember the sequence CAGED and you can play the same chord in at least 5 different locations on the fretboard. While practicing, visualize how each shape connects together. When you’re in an actually playing situation, you’ll never know which kind of C you’re supposed to play.

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III. CAGED Concept Shortcut (16:36 – 24:57) Let’s say you already know your 6th and 5th string barre chords, there’s a shortcut to learning how to use CAGED. Remember why it spells CAGED? That is because CAGED is the sequence of chord shapes for any particular chord. Here we have a D using the A shape (5th string barre chord). To its left we see the A shape is the C shape version and to its right we see the G shape:

If you’re starting with an A shape barre chord, the C shape is always behind and the G shape is always in front.

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Let’s try looking into C major formed with the E shape (6th string barre chord). To its left we see the G shape and to its right we see the D shape.

If you start out with an E shape barre chord, the G shape is always behind and the D shape is always in front.

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IV. Practical Application 1 of CAGED: Sensible Chord Progressions and Using Chord Fragments (24:57 – 34:56) Once we’ve got a grasp of the concept, we can now take the CAGED concept in a more realistic situation. Let’s say we have a chord progression like C-F-G. Let’s say we’re starting at a C around the 5th to 8th fret. Let’s look for a C chord within that area. We can try using the G shape version of C for that:

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Visualize the notes on the fretboard. In practice, you don’t really have to make the whole shape with your fingers. Just visualize something within that shape that you want to make as long as you can complete or at least provide an impression of the chord. You don’t really have to play all notes of the chord shape as seen in the examples below. You can try forming the chord out of just two notes based on the G chord shape:

Next, you can try playing three notes based on the G chord shape:

You can use the two top strings, three top strings, middle four strings, three bottom strings, all strings except the 6th string, or any string combination you can find in that G shape as long as they form a chord. In essence, you will be playing only a segment of that chord but it would still give the impression of the chord you’re trying to play.

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Here’s one application of that concept. Here are examples of the C major chord based on the G shape. It has that sort of funky vibe going. Variation A uses the top four strings. Variation B has a hammer-on bass note in the beginning and is the sort of riff that guitarists like Jimi Hendrix would use for rhythm parts:

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Remember that you’re not required to strum all of the strings in the chord. You could shake it up or make variations to create a variety of sounds with just a single chord. Here’s another example with the open G chord:

We’ll try and look for the F next. We can find that in between frets 5 and 8 we can find the C shape version of F.

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Again, we can choose to include only some of the strings. Here’s a very cool example of how we connect C and F together:

By making particular variations (e.g. choosing notes, varying strumming patterns, hammer-on fills, etc.), you can add a lot of texture to the chord progression, especially when you’re playing with another guitar player that plays the same progression in a different position. Let’s see where the G is within frets 5 to 8. It should be a D shape.

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Now, you may or may not play all of the strings in the chord. Look for what is most comfortable and what would sound right. We have the entire chord progression going like this:

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V. Practical Application 2 of CAGED: Solos and Improvisation Using Chord Chasing (34:56 – 42:27)

With you visualize a particular chord progression using the CAGED system, you would easily combine all of those in your head and be able to see where all of the particular notes for that chord progression go melodically using a concept called chord chasing. Chord chasing is the concept of creating melodies based on the chord shapes of a particular chord progression without even thinking of any particular scale. In this kind of guitar solo/improvisation approach, the notes of the chord are emphasized and the “spaces” can be filled up with notes based on the diatonic scale. For example, using the C-F-G chord progression somewhere in the 5th to 8th fret, here are the notes for C:

We can come up with a melody for C like this:

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Here we have the notes for F:

We can then build a melodic fragment like this:

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And then here we have the notes for G:

As usual, we can form a melody such as this one:

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The goal here is to connect all of those together, not only in the sense that we can play all the notes of each triad but be able to utilize the notes of each chord with every other chord e.g. you can use the notes from each chord at any time over the entire chord progression. When you’re playing those chord tones, you actually end up pretty much with the diatonic scale. If you’re able to visualize all the individual notes of all the chords in a particular key signature, it’s the same thing. You end up with a diatonic scale although you’re playing it in a more colorful and interesting way rather than just playing your scales up and down.

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Here is a complete solo using the melodies from chord chasing as shown above:

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One good thing about this is that if you also know your pentatonic scales, it’s easy to integrate them with the chord chasing concept and then you also get to end up with the diatonic scale as well. Here is an example that shows how to do this in the C-F-G chord progression:

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It is best to learn CAGED by starting in the key of C and then apply it to other keys as soon as you get used to it. You can also try applying the CAGED system in another spot on the fretboard using the same key. There are many different approaches one can take when learning the CAGED system but the most important thing is you should be able to find a way to use CAGED in your playing. For example, chord fragments, an easier way to play chord progressions, soloing and improvisation ideas, etc.

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VI. Minor Chords and CAGED (42:27 – 46:26) Upon first glance, it seems that minor chords don’t work well within CAGED. It’s like throwing a wrench into the whole system. And so how do we work with minor chords in the CAGED framework? Let’s take a look at an example. Say we have a chord progression like Cm-Fm at the 5th to 8th fret. Here we have the notes of C minor based on the G shape:

It’s awkward to form a chord based on that and it can mess up the entire system. One solution to that is play just the fragments as discussed earlier

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Here is F minor within that same fretboard location:

Once again, we can play fragments to avoid awkward and uncomfortable fingering:

Playing them in fragments would simply the work for you, and soloing using the individual notes of the minor chords within that fretboard location also works.

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