Monthly Archives: October 2012

CAGED Chord System (explained)

Posted by lkp550

You may wonder, sometimes, how some guitar players can come up with a chord out of anywhere on the neck at a moments notice and it always sounds good. This is because they’ve had years of practice, but it’s also because they have picked up techniques for learning what to play and where and when to play it. One of these techniques is called “The CAGED Guitar Chord System“.

Not only is this system based on the C major scale, but it’s also based on the most common chord played. Sure, it leaves out other chords like B, F, and all the sharps and flats, but you’ll see later on how these will all tie in. The one thing to remember with the CAGED system is what and where your root note is.

In the example above the CAGED system starts with the C chord (the red box), hence the name. The root note is the C on the third fret of the A string. Notice the open notes on the G and E string. In essence, they form the D chord, only two frets up. If you fumble when changing chords, playing a D to C or C to D transition can be done from here until you learn to transition to the C’s real position.

In the purple block, you can see how starting on the root note of C using the A bar chord will also produce another C chord. In the green block, the root note is on the 8th fret of the low E. If we place our G chord over that, we get another C chord. This one would be better suited for a capo. Do we see a pattern? We’ve used the C, A, and G chords to locate different places to play a C chord. In the yellow block, you can see we took the E bar chord and started it on the same C root note on the E as we did the G chord. Finally, remember that D chord that was part of the original C chord? If we place that starting on the 12th fret, we get another C chord.

Always remember: the order of the chords never changes even if the starting point does. For example, if you decided to start on the E, the order would still remain the same, only with a different starting point; EDCAG. As shown below, they still follow the same pattern, just from a different starting point. This also changes the root note.

Can anyone another pattern? Look in the green block…it’s seven of the notes in the C#m pentatonic scale, which is the minor pentatonic of what major? Come on now…it begins three frets up from it’s major counterpart…it’s even the chord we started out with…you guessed it, the E. In fact, CAGED is so useful in learning where scales are with in a key, if you know which order of CAGED you are using, you’ll definitely know where to find your corresponding scales are. You may be thinking why, if the C#m is at the end or the EDCAG, why isn’t the Am at the end of the CAGED? It’s really not where the chord shapes end up, it’s where the root notes are. If you look on the EDCAG, the C is on the 8th fret of the E, and what block is it in? Yep, it’s the green block…and three frets up from C is A, hence the beginning of the Am pentatonic. Below is an image of the EDCAG with the pentatonic note fills.

Another good feature about the relationship between the CAGED system and the pentatonic scales is where to play during a solo. This proves to be a good tool for those of you learning to improvise or trying to come up with a catchy solo. Say you were playing in the key of E and you wanted to come up with a catchy solo. You could introduce the solo with the pentatonic notes of the open low and high E and the B, as well as the notes on the first and second fret, then zip your way up to the pentatonic starting on the twelfth fret to really dramatize the solo. Did that guy just go from E to A? No problem. If you know where the A formation is, the purple block, you should be able to solo around it like you own it. It’s not really that you are playing around the A chord, you are playing around the A formation, however, this brings you down to box 4 pentatonic scale which begins on the B note and makes it seem like you are playing right where you need to…which, essentially, you are.