THE CAGED SYSTEM 1: BASIC CHORDS

The CAGED system is a convenient way of thinking about chord and scale shapes. It makes it easy to link
positions together and create larger scale patterns and alternative chord voicings.

PREREQUISITES

To make full use of this article you should first have a basic knowledge of common open position chords –
especially C, A, G, E and D major chords – and have at least a vague understanding of barre chords, what they
are and how they work. Its also helpful if you know what notes in each of these open chords are the root. Beware
that this is not necessarily the lowest note in each chord, and that most chord shapes have the root occurring
simultaneously in different octaves (more on that later).

But for those who need a refresher, here are the basic chords you’ll need.
The roots in each chord are marked ‘R’. The note names of the roots are the same as the letter name of the chord
– so the root of a C major chord, is C and the root of A major is the note A etc.

BENEFITS OF THE CAGED SYSTEM

The CAGED system is a simple way of visualising how common chord shapes, scale shapes and arpeggios inter-
relate and overlap with one another. The CAGED system works for all chords, scales (including the blues scale)
and even modes, and works in both major and minor keys. It gives us a way of linking up smaller shapes into a
larger ‘fretboard map’.

If you want to easily navigate the neck then the CAGED system is a good place to start (though there are other
more complicated ways of visualising the fretboard)
THE CAGED SYSTEM

If you hadn’t gathered by now, the CAGED system is an acronym of the C, A, G, E and D chord and scale
fingering patterns. Each of these open chords has a movable barre chord shape. The most common barre chord
shape being the ‘E shape’ barre chord, which can be found by taking the regular open E chord, moving the chord
up a fret, and adding a barre behind it.

If you are familiar at all with barre chord construction it should be clear how these two shapes are essentially
identical. Note that when you play the ‘E shape’ barre chord, although it is known as being an ‘E shape’, its
actual root (letter name) will change. For instance an ‘E shape’ barre chord at the first fret is an F chord, while
an ‘E shape’ barre chord at the fifth fret is would be an A chord.

If this sounds like double dutch read the Wikipedia entry for barre chords first.

BARRE CHORDS FOR THE OTHER SHAPES

All common open chord shapes can be made into a barre chord, simply by moving the shape further up the neck,
and laying a barre behind it in lieu of the nut. The barre chord shapes of C, A, G, E and D are listed below (click
the pic for a larger and clearer view).
Also, note that even though the ‘D shape’ chord isn’t technically a barre chord (since it doesn’t actually use a
barre), it is still a movable shape, and can be treated exactly the same as the actual barre chords.

MAPPING THE FRETBOARD

Now, for simplicities sake lets begin mapping the fretboard for the D major chord, beginning with a D major
chord at the second fret using the ‘C shape’ barre chord.
We could also play a D major chord using the ‘A shape’ at the fifth fret.

Note that both the ‘C shape’ and ‘A shape’ D major chords are built off the same root, D, on the fifth string. Its
good to draw both of these shapes on the one fretboard diagram. This way we can easily see how the two chord
shapes relate to one another, and we can see that the two shapes overlap at the root note on the fifth string.
As well as having a root on the fifth string, the ‘A shape’ barre chord also has a root on the third string. The only
other barre chord with a root on the third string is the ‘G shape’ barre chord. Since the ‘A shape’ and ‘G shape’
barre chords share the same root they can also be drawn together on a single large fretboard diagram.
As well as having a root on the third string, the ‘G shape’ barre chord also has a root on the sixth string. The ‘E
shape’ barre chord shares this root on the sixth string.

Finally, the ‘E shape barre chord’ share its root on the fourth string with the ‘D shape barre chord’.
Of course, we can also arrange all of these chords onto a single large fretboard diagram (click the image for a
larger view).

And there we have it – every common chord shape laid out in a key on the fretboard with all roots overlapping.
And, as we would expect, the chords came out in the order C-A-G-E-D giving us the CAGED system. Of course,
when you get to the end of the word CAGED the process just repeats itself in the next octave – the image above
shows how the final ‘D shape’ links onto the next ‘C shape’.

So to easily remember how all of the chord shapes inter-relate and overlap with each other, you can recite the
letters of the word CAGED to quickly recall the sequence.

THE CAGED SYSTEM 2: THE MAJOR SCALE AND THE MINOR

PENTATONIC SCALE
Posted on June 10, 2009, by Ty Quinn, under Lead Guitar, Scales, The CAGED System.

« Essential Open Chords | Blank Music Paper »

In CAGED Part 1, we saw how the CAGED system can be used to help beginner-intermediate players to visualise
the chords shapes across the fretboard. Today we’ll apply the same idea to scale shapes.
As we’ve seen (see CAGED Part 1), for fingering patterns to overlap we need to ensure that the roots link up
properly. As long as we know our root octave shapes we can build ANY shape scale, chord or otherwise, around
it. So lets begin by simplifying the CAGED system to its barest – the octave root shapes.

SIMPLIFIED CAGED SHAPES

The CAGED shapes as we know it so far, with the full chords:

Stripping the above chord shapes of everything but the roots (marked ‘R’) gives us the following:

THE MAJOR SCALE

You should already familiar with this basic major scale shape:

The positions of the roots in this scale match the ‘E’ shape in the CAGED system.
Accordingly there are four other standard major scale shapes which fit around the roots of the remaining shapes
‘C’, ‘A’, ‘G’ and ‘D’. Here is a complete diagram of the major scale shapes in the CAGED system. Each scale
fits perfectly within the octave shapes

Below is the same diagram but with a few notes added in grey. These grey notes are outside the octave shapes
but are still notes of the scale.

THE MINOR PENTATONIC SCALE

The minor pentatonic scale is one of the first scales we learn, and is certainly one of the most common scales in
the majority of guitar music. Its definitely a good idea to learn the minor pentatonic in all CAGED positions.
Note how these shapes also built off the CAGED octave shapes.

If you just want to know the scale shapes then the above diagrams are all you really need to know, but those
interested in knowing how I arrived at those shapes can read on.

(VERY BRIEF) THEORY

For a fretboard map of the C major scale, we need the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, and B in all of their different
possible occurrences on the fretboard. (Understanding which notes belong to what scale is beyond this article
but I’ll make a post on major scale construction in the near future).

By referring to ‘Finding the Notes Part 1′ and ‘Finding the Notes Part 2′ you can locate every possible occurrence
of the seven notes of the C major scale.

But realistically there will be precious few readers who can actually be bothered figuring it all out on their own,
so here is a complete diagram to move things along (complete for for 25 frets).

This large fretboard map is a little difficult to comprehend as a whole. The next step is to break it down into its
logical parts – one scale for each octave root shape.

… And Ta-Da we’ve found the CAGED shapes!

P.S. TERMINOLOGY

The CAGED shapes can also be referred to by position numbers, however the numbering system isn’t very
intuitive since the numbering starts from the letter ‘E’ in CAGED, rather than sensibly starting with the letter
‘C’.
 So…

 Position 1 refers to the ‘E’ shape chord or scale

 Position 2 refers to the ‘D’ shape chord or scale
 Position 3 refers to the ‘C’ shape chord or scale
 Position 4 refers to the ‘A’ shape chord or scale
 Position 5 refers to the ‘G’ shape chord or scale

Why is the numbering system and the CAGED system so un-intuitively incompatible? I honestly don’t know
and unfortunately we’ve just got to accept it and deal with it.

Although many people will use the numbering system from time-to-time, on this site I generally refrain from
using it. Using the numbering system instead on the CAGED system can get very confusing very quickly –
especially when we study the 3NPS scale fingerings which are numbered slightly differently again!

THE CAGED SYSTEM 3: EXPLORING SCALES

Posted on July 29, 2009, by Ty Quinn, under The CAGED System.

« Scale Charts: Diatonic Modes | Scale Charts: Major, Minor(s), and Pentatonics »

We’ve seen how CAGED is essentially a fretboard map. By simplifying the neck down into easy to grasp pieces
we make the neck easier to navigate. But simply understanding the system won’t improve our playing, we need
to find ways of applying the fretboard map. This post looks at CAGED as it applies to scale shapes.

SCALES

Once a player can effortlessly move through in any shape and play in any key anywhere on the fretboard, they
begin to see the fretboard as a single coherent whole,and accordingly, their improvisations and melodies become
more free and less formulaic. Most importantly the player begins to develop a direct relationship between what
they hear in their head and what comes out through their fingers.

So the goal of this post is to link up each of these scale shapes by finding ways to transition from one shape to
the next.

For these examples we’ll use the E and D shape minor pentatonic scale as its one that most people will be familiar
with (E and D shapes are aka patterns 1 and 2). And we’ll work in the key of A at the fifth fret.
SHIFTING BETWEEN SHAPES

The most direct way of joining these shapes together is to develop hybrid scale patterns which begin in the ‘E’
shape but finish in the ‘D’ shape. A common way of moving between these two shapes is by shifting on the g
string (the third string).

So in this example we begin in the E shape and when we reach the last note on the ‘G’ string, we slide our third
finger up into the ‘D’ shape position.

Of course we could also join these two positions up by making the shift with the index finger, not the third finger.

SHIFTING ALONG OTHER STRINGS

To develop a complete fretboard map, we also need to practice shifting on the other five strings. The following
example includes all possible ways of shifting between the two positions. For each string we can shift with two
different fingers, which totals 12 possible ways of playing the scale.
Of course these examples only cover linking up the ‘E’ and ‘D’ positions – you should link up the other positions,
too. (If you need help figuring out basic scale shapes you might like to revise your diatonic scales. Next week
I’ll make a bunch of pentatonic and blues scale charts as well.)

OTHER POSSIBILITIES

Once you have a solid understanding of the fretboard, you can test your knowledge by ascending and descending
with the shifts in different places.

Or try changing direction (ascending or descending) several times throughout the scale:
Also you could try linking three or more shapes together. This example links up the ‘G’, ‘E’, and ‘D’ shapes.

Incidentally, this pattern is one of my favorite ways of fingering a minor pentatonic scale, since none of the notes
that are a tone (whole step) apart are on different strings. This means it is well suited to whole-step slides,
hammer-ons and pull-offs. You should also try and develop other fingerings that you personally find appealing.

MAXIMISE YOUR MUSICALITY

Like I said earlier, the reason to develop such a strong understanding of the fretboard is to strengthen the
connection between what you hear in your minds-ear and what comes out through your fingers. To this end, I
suggest that you take your favorite riffs from your trick bag and, using your new scale knowledge, begin
translating them and re-interpreting them for other parts of the fretboard, and transposing them into different
octaves.

Hopefully thats given you some ideas on building your fretboard knowledge for scales, melodies and soloing.
Next time we’ll look at expanding our chordal knowledge to spice up our harmonies and rhythm work.

THE CAGED SYSTEM 4: 7TH CHORDS

Posted on August 27, 2009, by Ty Quinn, under Chords, The CAGED System.

« Lead Tone 6: Adding Compression | Finding the Notes on the Fretboard Part 2 »

Like we did in the first CAGED article, today we are going to begin with the basic open shapes of the various
seventh chords, and then develop moveable, and barred versions of those open chords.

MAJOR SEVENTH CHORDS

These are the most basic major seventh chords, in open position.

Using the CAGED principle we can turn these into moveable chord forms, which will allow us to use the chords
anywhere on the neck – not just as open chords.

MINOR SEVENTH CHORDS

Here are the minor seventh chords, again in open position.

And here are the moveable CAGED shapes based on those open shapes.

DOMINANT SEVENTH CHORDS

The following diagram shows some of the most common open position dominant seventh chords. Note that
although there are other possible chord grips, only these five conform with the CAGED system.
And here are the moveable CAGED shapes:

If your wondering which of these CAGED shapes you should learn first, its probably a good idea to make sure
that you know the A and E shapes first and then learn the C and D shapes. The G shape is very rarely used in its
entirety, so it is probably the least important – although there are some very useful ‘chord fragments’ which can
be taken from the G shape, so don’t discount its usefulness out of hand, either.

THE CAGED SYSTEM 5: ARPEGGIOS

Posted on October 6, 2009, by Ty Quinn, under Arpeggios, The CAGED System.

« Chord Diagrams: Simple Triads | Arpeggio Diagrams »

So far our look at the CAGED system has been limited to scales and chords, but the CAGED system also works
nicely with arpeggios too.

WHY ARPEGGIOS?

Arpeggios can be thought of as scales with notes taken out, or as chords but with each note played one-after-the-
other rather than strummed simultaneously. So, unlike chords, arpeggios serve the melody – not just the
harmony. And unlike scales they more strongly support the harmony by leaving out the ‘unessential’ or ‘passing’
notes. Another advantage is that where scales typically have seven notes per octave, arpeggios can have as little
as three. So arpeggios allow us to jump from one octave to another more directly than with scales.

In short we need arpeggios as they provide the bridges between chords and scales, linking up the fretboard and
completing the fretboard maps.

THE MAJOR ARPEGGIO

This is the full fretboard map of the major arpeggio. If you go back to some of the earlier CAGED lessons you
can see how all of these notes also exist in the ordinary major scale. Since arpeggios can be thought of as scales
with notes missing, you should find that this arpeggio and the major scale match up.

This image below is the same as the full fretboard map above, but divided up into the smaller CAGED fingerings.

Of course, since arpeggios and chords contain the same notes you can also use the full fretboard map to find the
CAGED chords. For instance, the image below shows the C shape barre chord highlighted in red, the A shape
barre chord in blue, the G shape in yellow, the E shape in green, and the D shape in orange.

THE MINOR ARPEGGIO

Here is the full minor arpeggio fretboard pattern and the CAGED shapes below.
Like before we can still derive the CAGED chords from the arpeggio fretboard map. Again the C shape is in red,
the A shape in blue, the G shape in yellow, the E shape in green, and the D shape in orange.

OTHER ARPEGGIOS

Of course, since arpeggios are essentially just chords with the notes played sequentially, not simultaneously, its
is also perfectly possible to have major seventh, minor seventh and dominant seventh arpeggios. Below are the
basic shapes for each of these arpeggios.

MAJOR SEVENTH SHAPES

MINOR SEVENTH SHAPES

DOMINANT SEVENTH SHAPES

LEARNING THE PATTERNS

There was quite a lot of information presented here, and you’d be insane to dive straight in and try and learn it.
What I suggest is that you treat this page as a reference of sorts that you could come back to now and then, when
you feel like something new in your playing.

When you do try to learn a pattern, its usually best to play the relevant scale first then play the arpeggio. This
ensures that you are integrating the arpeggio with the knowledge that you already have – rather than trying to
learn it as a separate pattern. Likewise, practice the chord with the arpeggio to get familiar with the chord-
arpeggio relationship – and of course, practice the chords with the scales to learn how they also fit together.
After all the whole point of learning the CAGED system is to build a single coherent ‘fretboard map’. You want
to aim to see everything – chords, scales and arpeggios – as all being one and the same, but also unique in
themselves with their own purpose and applications. Chords, scales and arpeggios are the Fundamentals of music
and form the musical equivalent of the Trinity – three states as one substance – so learn them that way.

THE CAGED SYSTEM 6: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE ‘E’ SHAPE

Posted on November 3, 2009, by Ty Quinn, under The CAGED System.

« Changing Strings – Nylon Acoustics ('Classical' Guitar) | Chord Diagrams: Triads with Added Notes »

Today we’re going to examine a particular set of very common chord shapes, which don’t seem to fit in the
CAGED system…. or do they?

Take a look at this common major seventh chord shape:

At first glance the this chord shape doesn’t seem to fit into any of the typical CAGED positions. It has its bass
note on the fourth string which would normally indicate a ‘D’ shape chord. However a true ‘D’ shape major
seventh chord should have all of its notes in common with its parent scale the ‘D’ shape major scale.

For instance the actual ‘D’ shape major seventh chord has all of its notes in common with the ‘D’ shape scale:

But the “unknown chord” doesn’t derive from the ‘D’ shape major scale, since only two of its notes fit into the
scale shape.

But if we compare our “unknown chord” with the the ‘E’ shape major scale instead, it fits perfectly:
Since the “unknown chord” has every note in common with the ‘E’ shape scale it must be an ‘E’ shape major
seventh chord.

This also means that there are at least two ‘E’ shape major seventh chords – the one that we’ve just discovered,
and the shape which we looked at in CAGED part 4. I’ve reprinted the figure from part 4, for convenience, along
with the new ‘E’ shape chord and their parent scale.

To help understand how they all belong to the ‘E’ pattern, compare them and see how they relate.

MORE CHORDS LIKE THIS

For further demonstration, below are a few other chord shapes which fit into the ‘E’ shape CAGED scale shapes.
I’ve given examples with the chords built on the fourth string, and on the sixth string. More examples can be
found in the reference pdfs in the chord & scale diagrams section.
UNCAGED (THE CAGED SYSTEM PART 7)
Hopefully by now you understand how the CAGED system helps to navigate, and link up the fretboard. Maybe
you’ve even explored the chord & scale diagrams category to learn other patterns from the CAGED system.

But now its time to explore its short-comings, and wrap up this series (finally… phew!).

IDENTIFYING AN UNUSUAL 6/9 CHORD

The limits of the CAGED system soon become apparent when we start learning more interesting chords – like
this common 6/9 chord grip, for instance.

As we know, chords with their roots on the fifth string, must be derived from either the ‘A shape’ or a ‘C shape’
major scale. To determine whether this is an ‘A shape’ or ‘C shape’ chord, we need to compare the 6/9 chord
with those scales and see whether they share the same notes (like we did in CAGED Part 6).
The figures below, compare the 6/9 chord with the ‘A’ shape major scale. You can see that all of the notes in the
6/9 chord also exist in the ‘A’ shape major scale – suggesting that this chord must be an ‘A shape’ 6/9 chord (the
grey notes indicate the notes contained in the 6/9 chord).

But these figures below compare the 6/9 chord with the ‘C shape’ major scale and, as we can see, the 6/9 chord
also fits into the ‘C shape’ major scale.

That’s strange!? The notes in the 6/9 chord seem to fit into both the ‘A’ and ‘C’ shape scale patterns.

Lets look at the ‘A’ and ‘C’ shape scales drawn together on a single fretboard diagram.

Here we can see that our 6/9 chord is positioned exactly where these two shapes overlap. So this chord is on the
‘seam’, for lack of a better word, of the ‘A’ and ‘C’ shapes. Its chords like these where the CAGED system
begins to break down.

IDENTIFYING AN UNUSUAL MIN6TH CHORD

Here is another chord which is built right on the cusp of two different CAGED shapes. In this case it is a min6th
chord, and it falls right on the ‘seam’ of the ‘G’ and ‘E’ shapes.
See how this min6th chord fits equally into the ‘G shape’ and equally into the ‘E shape’?

Due to their ambiguity it is difficult to classify chords which fall ‘between’ two different CAGED positions.

So…

…WHAT TO CALL THEM?

Those of you who have been reading this blog regularly might have noticed that I arbitrarily assigned a CAGED
shape to some of these shapes in my triads with added notes page. There is no real standard for the assigned
letters that I chose, I really just went with common sense.

For instance take the min6th shape shown above (and again here for convenience).

I decided to call this an ‘E shape’ min6th chord. Why? Simply because there already existed plenty of other
shapes which belonged exclusively to the ‘G’ shape. Also, G shapes typically require a bit of a stretch with the
pinky, so even though it technically fitted into the ‘G’ shape it didn’t really look like a ‘G shape’ and I saw no
need to categorise it as such.

Hopefully though, by the time that you are learning extended chords, triads with added notes, or any other more
‘advanced’ chords, you’ll have already mastered the CAGED system such that you can visualise a complete
fretboard map. Remember the point of CAGED is to eventually link up all of the shapes and positions into a
complete whole. When you are thinking of the fretboard in this way, then it should be no problem to recognise
chords that simultaneously exists in two neighboring CAGED shapes.

THE END

Anyway thats it, finally. And if you made it this far, wipe your brow and pat yourself on the back.
 It was a long haul, and a lot was learned.

Happy playing,

Ty

RELATED POSTS:

 The CAGED System 1: Basic Chords

 The CAGED System 6: A Closer Look at the ‘E’ Shape
 The CAGED System 4: 7th Chords
 The CAGED System 5: Arpeggios
 The CAGED System 3: Exploring Scales

« Modes Explained 1: An Introduction | Installing A Tremolo (and Replacing the TremKing) »

Comment (RSS) |

If this site is helpful to you please consider supporting this site. There you can donate or find out about my store. Or, if you
are unable to financially contribute to the site you can learn about other ways to help out - such as social bookmarking and
social networking.

HAVE A QUESTION?

Please ask all questions in the ‘Comments’ section below, rather than using the ‘Contact’ page. This way
others can benefit from the answers, and anyone can join in the discussion.

ONE COMMENT

1. Steven says:
April 14, 2013 at 8:45 am

Hi Ty,

Thanks for the website. I love the CAGED system and believe that, not only is it one way among many to
visualize the fretboard, but is the fundamental deep grammar of the guitar. I believe that those who find
limitations of the system don’t fully see its power. I’d like to suggest one tiny thing that would perfect your
explanation.

The CAGED ambiguity of certain chord voicing like the ones you mention above, far from representing a
“breakdown” of the CAGED system, show the flexibility of the system to interpret the guitar’s unique
polyphony. The main strength of this system is that there are only and exactly 5 possible octave shapes in one
position — that’s because there are 5 open string notes (6 strings with the E repeated). As you point out, by
seeing the octave template, the degree of every other note in the scale or chord becomes visible. Ambiguity
comes when the voicing does not include both ends of the octave template. Root on 5th string, could be C or
A. And C6/9 is a good example.
This CAGED ambiguity is a “breakdown,” only if we hope the system will clearly categorize every chord as a
stand-alone structure, but music is a practical art whose beauty involves exploring, extending and dwelling in
such ambiguity. For example, a diminished seventh chord can be labeled 4 ways, and to know which way is
correct, you need to see how it resolves. But this is not a breakdown of tonality. It makes it more dynamic

Rather than seeing which name seems less stretchy, when I see a chord with CAGED ambiguity, I remember
that CAGED chords fit over CAGED scales. Then I see where the chords is going, how it resolves, what
CAGED scales the resolution fits over (itself, possibly ambiguous), and the ambiguity is often less confusing. I
try to remember that the purpose and strength of the CAGED system is making scale and chord degrees
visible, so that if we see a 9th, we immediately see the possibilities of its resolution down to the root, or up to
the 3rd, even if there are multiple ways to finger the resolution. The fact that this system doesn’t tell us what to
do with the 9th isn’t a breakdown of anything, but the very beauty and freedom of music.

Thanks for your time,

Steven