The CAGED System And How It Changed The Way I Play Guitar

One of the strangest things I've realized about my guitar playing journey is how long it took for me to discover what the "CAGED" system is all about. CAGED is a way of organizing the guitar's entire fingerboard by basic chord shapes. The concept is not new by any means, although the catchy name is of fairly recent origin. In all the method books, lessons, and learning I've done on the guitar I never really knew what the concept was all about and how powerful it can be for a guitarist. I'm very glad I finally learned more about it!

I'll try to put it as simply as possible: CAGED refers to the five basic open position chord forms we all learned within the first month or so playing guitar. These five chord shapes also form the foundation of everything we can possibly play on the guitar. Chords, scales, arpeggios, and anything else you can play on a guitar are all connected to these five basic chord forms. Knowing how CAGED works can clarify so much about the way the fingerboard is laid out you'll be blown away. The crazy part is just how simple it is.

As a former piano player, I like to think of CAGED as the guitar's equivalent to the repeating layout of black and white keys on the piano keyboard. Like the layout of the piano's keys, CAGED provides a solid reference to where you are and what you have available to play under your fingers at any particular moment. The other great thing about CAGED is that the shapes occur up the fingerboard only in that order and reverse when going back down: DEGAC. For an example, the E shape always follows the G shape when ascending the fingerboard, and C always follows A when descending.

Here are the basic open chord forms for reference:

I've highlighted the roots in this chord diagram to show what I call the basic "root shapes" of each; this is what I'm really using with CAGED anyway, as it allows all the other types of chords such as minor, diminished, and augmented, to be used within this system.

Next is a diagram of all the CAGED shapes up the fingerboard where the roots are all C.  Remember, when we talk about CAGED we are not referring to the names of those chords. We are only using those names as references to the basic shapes the provide for us. Notice how all these shapes connect up and down the fingerboard. This is where the magic of CAGED becomes apparent. No longer are you boxed in to playing only things that lay across consecutive strings; you can now see how they relate up and down the fingerboard as well:

The way this works is so simple and yet so profound in the way it organizes everything for us. Its a great way to understand the fingerboard, and it seriously changes the way you look at the guitar from the time you see those patterns fall into place. Next time I post about CAGED, I'll show how it works more in depth with the things we actually use: chords, scales, and arpeggios.