anon “The Guitarists Guide to the CAGED System | 2013.08.01 | Promier Guitar as a hands-on tutorial, Step-by-step, I'll walk you through the basics of this system + Identify the location of while providing practical assignments—as if we were in a one-on-one lesson, Grab the root in each shape. your guitar and let's get to it! + Discover how to connect all five CAGED shapes to The CAGED System ‘map out the entire neck in ‘The CAGED system derives its name from five basic open chord shapes: C, A, G,E, any key, starting on any and D. To get the most out of this lesson you must know these five chord shapes one of the five shapes. (Fig. 1). Click here to download a printable PDF of thi lesson's notation, ‘Next, you need to know where the root of the chord is located in each of the five shapes. The root is the foundation of the chord. The root of a C chord, for example, is C. Major chords, which we'll focus on in this lesson, are built by stacking the root, 3rd, and Sth notes of their respective major scales. The notes of the C major scale are C-D-E— F-G-A-B, Therefore the root, 3rd, and Sth notes of a C chord are: C-E-G. In Fig. 2, you'll find the five CAGED chords with the location of the root, 3, and 5 labeled in each chord diagram. htpihwww [Link]/19990-7-the-quitarsts-gide-o-the-caged-syston page= 515anon “The Guitarists Guide to the CAGED System | 2013.08.01 | Promier Guitar A x, Assignment #1 Memorize the location of the root in each chord shape. For extra credit, memorize the location of the 3 and 5! nae Ga a} LISTEN DESIGNED @SSFMBLED . A AUC UIE click here Recent Articles by Mike Cramer Style Guide: Essential Blues Progressions Style Guide: Django Reinhardt and Gypsy Jazz Fretboard Workshop: Increasing a Lick's ROI Style Guide: Uptown Blues Related Articles htpihwww [Link]/19990-7-the-quitarsts-gide-o-the-caged-syston page= aisanon “The Guitarists Guide to the CAGED System | 2013.08.01 | Promier Guitar © Jazz © Acoustic © Concepts & Techniques © All Categories, + Premier Blogs © Last Call ‘Tone Tips Vintage Vault Esoterica Electrica On Bass State of the Stomp See AIL iz © PG Giveaways © Other Gear Giveaways © Winners Search Go SEMEL Gl wi SLIVE SOUND ri Pee eae ‘Home » The Guitarist's Guide to the CAGED System more... Beginner + Lessons * Sound Samples * Chords + Scales * Tab The Guitarist's Guide to the CAGED System Mike Cramer ‘August 10, 2013 Moving On Up Now you know the basic shapes and the location of the root for each shape. The next step is to convert each open- hpitwu sremirgitar comlricles/19900-7-the utarsts-qideto-he-caged-ysten page=? anasvraore “The Gutarsts Guide tothe CAGED System | 203-0801 Promir Guitar position shape to a closed-position shape—meaning there won’t be any open strings involved in playing the chord shape. To do this we must create barre chords out of each of the CAGED shapes. In Fig. 3 you see all of the CAGED chords as barre chords. Note: No barre is needed to play the D shape as a closed chord. Shape AShape G Shape * 1243 Some of these shapes may feel like old friends. The first barre chords most guitar players learn are the barre form of the A and E shape. Two shapes that are less familiar and prone to spacing errors are the G and D shapes. The common spacing error is to compress the fingering of the shapes. Be sure to keep an empty fret between your first finger and the remaining fingers used to build the chord, as shown in Fig. 4 Incorrect spacing forthe Correct spacing Incorrect spacina forthe Correct spacing for the barred G Shape forthe ‘barred D Shape bbarree D Shape barred G Shape lS xX You may find a few of these shapes are difficult to grab due to the stretching involved. To minimize strain, don’t ‘wrap your thumb up and over the neck on the 6th string side, keep it behind the neck. Also, I encourage you to only hitpihwuw [Link]/19900-7-the-guitarsts-gide-to-he-caged system page=2 513anon “The Guitarists Guide to the CAGED System | 2013.08.01 | Promier Guitar barre the necessary notes. For example, when playing the G shape, don’t barre across all six strings; you only need to barre three notes (the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings). Why ereate any extra work? By converting each of the five CAGED shapes into barre or movable forms, you have exponentially increased your chord vocabulary. Each individual shape can become any major chord you need: Simply move the chord up or down the neck and place the shape’s root on whatever note you want—it’s that easy. Take a look at Fig. S and you'll see that moving the C shape up one fret ereates a Cf chord, and moving it up one more fret creates a D chord. C# Chord D Chord C Shape C Shape By knowing that the root is located on the Sth and 2nd strings in the C shape and knowing the names of the notes on those two strings, I was able to correctly identify the actual chord I produced by shifting the C shape to these other locations. To do this with all five shapes, you need to know the location of the root within each shape and the names of the notes on the fretboard, Fig. 6 names all the notes on the fretboard. Assignment #2 Move each shape up and down in half-steps (one fret at a time), focusing on keeping the shape together and not collapsing the G and D shapes. Also, be able to identify the correct name of the chord at any place along the neck. Previous | 23 Next WIN tus \ RKING KOA GUITAR! 4 Recent Articles by Mike Cramer hitpihwuw [Link]/19900-7-the-guitarsts-gide-to-he-caged system page=2 araanon “The Guitarists Guide to the CAGED System | 2013-08-01 | Promier Guitar laze Acoustic Concepts & Techniques All Categories, + Premier Blogs iz Last Call ‘Tone Tips Vintage Vault Esoterica Electrica On Bass State of the Stomp See AIL PG Giveaways Other Gear Giveaways Winners Go MONTH FINANCING” ON SELECT BRANDS ‘Home » The Guitarist's Guide to the CAGED System more... Beginner + Lessons + The Guitarist's Guide to the CAGED System Sound Samples + Chords « Seales * Tab Mike Cramer What's in a name? htpihwuw [Link]/articles/19900-7-the-quitarsts-gide-to-he-caged system pagen3 ans.anon “The Guitarists Guide to the CAGED System | 2013.08.01 | Promier Guitar Up to this point, we've focused on acquiring the chord shapes and laying the foundation for realizing the full potential of the CAGED system. Think of each shape in the system as a puzzle piece: When all the pieces are connected, you will have mapped the entire fretboard. Again, the best way to see how this works is to play through it, Play each of the chords listed in Fig. 7, paying attention to the fret markers and spacing of the shapes. What did you notice? If you played the chords correctly, you should have heard that they were all the same chord— all C chords. Hopefully you realized that all five shapes were used and that you ended with the same shape you started with (assuming you have a cutaway on your guitar that allows you to access the higher frets). By the way, did you notice the order of the shapes used in this example? The name CAGED not only tells you what chord shapes make up the system but also the order that the shapes connect to one another to map out the fretboard. Fig. 8 places all five shapes as C chords in one fretboard diagram. ‘What if you want to map out the chords in the key of A the same way you did for C? To do this, start with the open. position A chord—an A chord with an A shape. Then think of the spelling of CAGED and find the letter following ‘A, which is G. So, play an A chord with a G shape. Then it’s an A chord with the E shape, and so on until we retum to the A shape. So in this example, our CAGED shape sequence is AGEDC. This sequence is mapped out in htpihwuw [Link]/articles/19900-7-the-quitarsts-gide-to-he-caged system pagen3 515srozots “The Guitarists Guide tothe CAGED System | 2013-08-01 | Premier Gitar Fig. 9 3 LI CI Making Connections Earlier I said to think of the CAGED shapes as individual puzzle pieces that, when connected, map out the entire fretboard. By playing through the above examples, you've experienced this. When mapping out a chord, itis important to be visually and physically comfortable with how two adjacent shapes connect to each other. A general rule to keep in mind: Between two adjacent shapes, there will always be at least one note that’s common to both shapes. In Fig. 10, I've diagrammed all pairs of adjacent shapes for the C chord. Common notes between two shapes are indicated with a diamond. Cto A Shape AtoG Shape 10 In almost all cases, the common note(s) between shapes span a one-fret region. However, the common notes between the D and C shapes span a two-fret region. Pay attention to the placement of your first finger when setting. up the barre for the C shape. The common error is to place the first finger a fret higher than it’s supposed to be. Assignment #3 Play through the CAGED sequence starting on each of the CAGED chords in open position (like we did in Fig. 8 htpihwuw [Link]/articles/19900-7-the-quitarsts-gide-to-he-caged system pagen3 ans.anon “The Guitarists Guide to the CAGED System | 2013.08.01 | Promier Guitar and Fig. 9). Once you're comfortable with this, play the sequence in all keys. For example, start with a Bb chord using the A shape (an A shape barred at the Ist fret), then play the CAGED sequence in the key of Bb. Pay attention to the common note(s) between two adjacent shapes—this will help minimize errors in shifting and connecting shapes. Congratulations, you've made it to the end of the lesson and covered a lot of territory! The CAGED system provides a logical way of visualizing the neck using basic chord shapes you’ ve most likely known for quite some time. In this lesson, we've laid the foundation for being able to find chords all over the neck. It doesn’t stop there though. The CAGED system is just as useful for scales and licks. In fact, I think of the CAGED system as five containers where I can put fretboard information. New chords, scales, licks, and melodies can all be related to one of the five shapes, and this allows you to integrate this information into your playing quickly and effi ntl. SANTABARBARADK CALIFORNIA TT Ga al LISTEN TSE 5 nC click here Recent Articles by Mike Cramer Style Guide: Essential Blues Progressions Style Guide: Django Reinhardt and Gypsy Jazz Fretboard Workshop: Increasing a Lick's ROT Style Guide: Uptown Blues Related Articles The Guitarist's Guide to Writing Charts The Guitarist’s Toolkit: Sharpening the Rhythmic Blade Beyond Blues: CAGED Developments Beyond Blues: Understanding CAGED and the V Chord Style Guide: Essential Blues Progressions Login Write a comment 15 Comments Sort Subscribe RSS. Allsopp 142 days ago Have been playing for years and pretty much stil only playing open chords, Am just about o start working through a book on the CAGED system, but his article has htpihwuw [Link]/articles/19900-7-the-quitarsts-gide-to-he-caged system pagen3 m6