The Guitar Secret that all the Pros Use to Remember Every Chord
You’re about to learn a simple secret that will unlock the whole guitar fingerboard. It’s rumored that Jimi Hendrix used this concept to get complete fingerboard knowledge. I know that once I learned the following technique my guitar playing knowledge improved out of sight. The system makes it easy to remember every chord shape, anywhere on the fingerboard. Now wouldn’t that make playing guitar easier and more enjoyable? Well, let me take you on a tour of the CAGED system.
Through some of the simple lessons, you might remember there are five basic chord shapes – C, A, G, E, and D. Join these letters together, and they spell the word CAGED. If you don’t already know these chords, I suggest you head straight for the #first rhythm chapters.
The five basic chord shapes CAGED form the shapes that all chords are derived from. These chord shapes are all of the major chord types, and all the other extended and altered major/minor/dominant seventh, diminished and augmented chords are derived from these five basic major shapes.
The CAGED system breaks down the fingerboard into the five chord shapes, which correspond to five fingerboard positions and five basic fingering patterns. If you play a C major chord utilizing the five CAGED shapes, you would be playing the chord in five different positions on the fingerboard – hence the five fingerboard position concept.
The five major chord fingerboard positions each have a major scale pattern. All other scales and modes are then derived from these patterns. When laid end–to-end, the five shapes, positions and patterns cover the whole fingerboard from the lowest to highest points in any key. This makes the CAGED system incredibly powerful, and simplifies learning because the guitar is broken down into basic shapes and patterns.
Caged Chords
The Five Shapes and Five Fingerboard Positions
Want to know another great thing about CAGED? Well, you already know the five shapes from the basic Major open chords. That’s right, you learned them in the early chord chapters. To explain the CAGED system, I’ll show the chords using 6-string inversions to cover the whole fingerboard, and all six strings. I know that when we learned the chords we didn’t play some strings in certain cases (represented as an X in the notation). We’ll learn more playable forms in the next example. Try not to get confused, just remember that you don’t have to play the full six string versions for a chord to be considered or derived from the particular shape.
Here are the five chord shapes:
Practice playing them as they are written, using the 6-note forms. The number 1 next to the chord boxes indicates the fret location. These five shapes are the ‘CAGED’ chord shapes. They’re being played in fingerboard position #1(POS #1). Position 1 covers the 0-3 rd frets.
To demonstrate how we can use the CAGED chord system to unlock the fingerboard, I’ll isolate the C Major chord, and play it in the five shapes. This will automatically create our five fingerboard positions.
We’ve now covered the entire fingerboard playing a C Major chord.
The C Major Chord in the (C) shape is in POS #1 frets 0-3
The C Major Chord in the (A) shape is in POS #2 frets 2-6
The C Major Chord in the (G) shape is in POS #3 frets 4-8
The C Major Chord in the (E) shape is in POS #4 frets 7-11
The C Major Chord in the (D) shape is in POS #5 frets 9-13
OK, so that’s the chords using six string inversions. Now let’s get some easier fingering positions through playable inversions. Here’s the same five C Major chords, but using more playable inversions. You’ll see that they still come from the same five Major shapes. I’ll also include the chord note values Root (R), third (3) and fifth (5).
Take some time to revise and fully understand the CAGED concept, and make sure you can play these shapes before moving on. A good basic understanding now will help you digest the remaining CAGED content.
So, you’ve got C Major under control? Excellent! Let’s apply CAGED to the A Major chord, again beginning with complete six string inversions, and then more playable inversions.
Six String Inversion
Playable Inversions
To complete your understanding of Major chords using CAGED, follow the same process to create the five shapes for the remaining G, E and D Major chords. I’ll provide the chord boxes, but to advance your learning, print them out and fill in the blanks.
So, the systematic learning used by the CAGED system helps makes the fingerboard familiar, so that you can always see which simple Major shape any chord comes from, no mater how complex the chord. Being able to define the origin of any chord gives you formidable knowledge of the fingerboard, and brings great freedom to your playing.
Any chord you’ll ever play will be based around one of the five shapes and positions that CAGED unlocks. So you can learn how to adapt your CAGED knowledge for any chord variation, we’ll use the C minor (Cm) chord as an example. Again, let’s start with the six string inversions and then more playable inversions of the chords.
Six String Inversion
Playable Inversions
It’s important to note that there can be more than one possible inversion of each chord in each position.
For Example:
We can keep extending and expanding the C minor chord to cover the other possibilities. For example, we can use the CAGED system to learn the Cm6 chords. We’ll now just show playable inversions of the chords.
Playable Inversions
Sometimes a certain chord may seem to cross between positions. Don’t stress out, this only happens a small percentage of the time.
Check out this example of the five Cm7 chords and positions
Playable Inversions
You’ve now got the tools to experiment by playing lots of different chords using the CAGED system. With a little practice, the CAGED concept can supercharge your playing. I recommend starting out with the basic inversions, and not moving on until you have a complete understanding of their shapes and positions. Push yourself by playing in different keys, too. For example, to play all the C# or Bb chords, just move all the C shapes up one fret. The CAGED system is advanced training, so remember to be kind to yourself as you learn. It can take some time to fully master, but you’re unlocking endless possibilities. Work through a few examples for yourself in a few different keys. Have fun and good luck!
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