The CAGED System for Guitar

You probably already know you’re open chords like C, A, G, E and D amongst others. However, you may not know a few things about the open chords, such as:

• The chords form shapes
• Where the roots of each chord are
• You can shift the chords up the neck and create new chord with the same shape

Take a look at the 5 chords (C,A,G,E,D) in open position and note what strings the roots are on for each shape.

Here’s a C major scale over one octave on the guitar with no open strings. Keep in mind in forms one big movable shape. For example if you moved it up two frets (one whole tone) it would be a D major scale. Note the location of the roots (C).

We can break this shape into 5 smaller shapes. Within each shape is a chord shape you might be familiar with. In the key of C, these 5 chord shapes are all C major chords. Don’t think of these as scales, try to visualize the shape instead.

A Shape – can you see the ‘A chord shape’ chord on the 5th fret?

G Shape – can you see the ‘G chord shape’ on eight fret?

E shape – can you see the ‘E chord shape’  at the 10th fret?

D shape – can you see the ‘D chord shape’ at the 12th fret

C shape – can you see the ‘C chord shape’ at the 15th fret

Okay so how is this useful you might ask. Good question! Let’s say we’re playing in the key of F major. We can first identify the 5 F chords that are available to us, each with a different shape across the fretboard.

For each chord shape we then play the scale shape in order to get the shape into our brain. Go back to the 5 shapes and see if you can relate each chord shape to the scale shape. One thing that may be confusing is that we call a shape, C shape, for example when we’re playing an F chord. That is the difference between a chord and a shape. A shape is movable and allows us to play different chords. For example, take the E shape at the first fret shown above. You are playing an F major chord. If you shift it up two frets you will know be playing a G chord (using the E shape).

After a while you will just know the 5 locations of any major chord up the neck and the notes around the chord that belong to the related scale shape.

Due to the confusion nature of the CAGED naming convention, I prefer to number the 5 shapes rather than use letters. Some teachers may not agree with this as there are different preferences out there. Here are my numbers:

C shape = shape 5, A shape = shape 6, G shape = shape 7, E shape = shape 2, D shape = shape 3
Note: There is no shape 1 or shape 4, leaving only 5 shapes.

I explain this further in my courses along with video content and demonstrations. Don’t get too hung up on the names. Instead learn the 5 chord shapes and 5 related scale shapes. Remember these are not scales! There are notes that belong to the key.

Once you learn this is one key (say C major), try it in other keys. This will help you really get the shapes down. Note that these patterns just shift up and down the neck for different keys. Also note the same pattern exists as you go up the next spelling the word CAGED…in the key of C you get ADCAGEDC etc. For now stick to all non-open strings.

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