Master the CAGED system on Guitar!

1. About This Course: Hey, this is Jacob Lamb. Welcome to this course on learning the caged system on the guitar. In just 45 minutes, we're going to master exactly how this works by looking at each of the five individual shapes, getting exercises for each one, and then learning how to use them practically out in the real world. This course takes things step by step so that nobody gets left behind. And it also comes with a PDF for those visual learners, a PDF of all of the exercises, and even interactive exercises for the guitar Pro users. I'm really looking forward to getting started. So let's dive in together. 2. Chords vs. Chord Shapes: Okay, we've got our heading and we've got our tabs. Let's talk about the most important thing here, and that's the distinction between chords and chord shapes. Cords are specific notes. For example, in a C chord, we've got the notes, C, E and G. Now, that's not something you need to memorize, but just an example that we've got these notes in a chord. Now, anywhere on the neck of the guitar that we play those three notes, it will always be a C chord. The most common open C chord that we know is also those notes. We've got C, E, G, C and E. So some of them are repeated, but they're definitely those three notes. Now, the reason we play C in this position is that we're hitting those three notes. But this position is a chord shape, one of many. In fact, I could play CE and G maybe up here, and that's still a C chord. So a chord shape is just the way we're hitting the three specific notes of a chord. 3. How CAGED works!: Let's see an example of this. We've got our C cord and I could slide that shape up, and it's no longer a C because we've left some of the open strings behind. So maybe I take my C and readjust my fingers so that my first finger can kind of follow along as I slide it up. Now I've got the exact same shape and this would be a D cord as a C shape. So we've got two different cords as one shape. We can also flip that. So, instead of playing different cords as one shape, we're playing the same cord as many different shapes, and that is exactly what caged is finding ways to play one cord up the neck as different shapes. Here's where everything clicks. Those five shapes that we're playing a cord as are a C shape, A shape, G shape, E shape, and D shape. And what does that spell? Caged. 4. Accessing the TAB exercises: Like I mentioned in the intro, this course has got a ton of tabs, and some of them might even be interactive for you. So I want to make sure that you have access to those before we get started because I really think that they'll make this course a whole different experience for you. Now, either in the next lesson or in the description of this course, you're going to find the PDFs, both the PDF with the graphics, and the one with all of the exercises for this course. If you have guitar Pro for interactive tabs, those are going to be spread out with the lessons they're paired with. So all of the C shape exercises will be before the C shape lesson if you've never heard of Guitar Pro, but you are interested in interactive tabs. The link for both the computer version and the tablet version are in the description. The computer version does a lot, but it's a little expensive. The app version is about $5, but you get to see the tab played out with a drum track in the background and also the frets on the guitar that are being pressed. So that's really handy. But of course, you do not need anything extra for the course. If you don't want it, you can always use the PDF. 5. The C Shape: Now that we understand how caged works, we're going to learn these five shapes and how they connect so that we can play caged ourselves up the neck. And we're going to start with the C shape down at the bottom. The C shape is, of course, the start of caged. And if we know a C cord, we know the C shape really well. This shape has got three unique tones like we talked about before, C, E and G, but we're strumming through five strings. So it's going to be really useful for us if we name the tones in this chord. C, E, G, C and E. Or another way to think about that if we number our notes is one, three, five, one, and three. Later on, when you want to use cage to play songs or write songs or make solos, it's going to be really useful to know those numbered tones for each shape. That'll come in handy later. So here's our C shape. Now, of course, we're not always playing it from down here, so let's also look at it from another position. Maybe I'll start it from the seventh fret. So what I need to do here is make a C shape. But also move the open strings along. So I'm going to adjust my fingers to still play that C shape and have a bar. I can think of my first finger kind of as a capo and playing that s shape on top of it. Only difference is, it's not a piece of metal. It's my finger, my own flesh. So I've got this shape. Playing from the seventh fret as my root, remember one is right there. This is an E chord as a C shape, which is pretty cool. If we can remember that the root is where our pinky is, the one, then whatever fret that is is the name of our chord. For example, if I moved it down, so now my pinky's on a D fret, I've got another way to play a D chord. 6. C Shape Exercises: Let's look at three exercises to get comfortable with the C shape. This first one is really simple. We're just moving our shape up and down from C to C sharp to D and back down. Let's try it together and remember that you've got either the PDF or the interactive tab to play this along with. Oh This next exercise is using that C shape to play a whole chord progression from C to D to G. So we'll be shifting our shape from starting on a C note to a D note to a G note. Finally, for our last exercise, we're going to be going up the sea. And when we reach the top, shift up two frets, come down. When we reach the bottom, shift up two frets, come up, shift up two. So it's kind of like a little warm up. Whenever we hit the top or the bottom, we're always shifting up by two frets. This time, especially, I want us to focus on playing one note at a time. So far, we've been holding a shape down and kind of plucking the shape. But here, we're going to be lifting fingers between notes. We're always going to do that moving forward. It's just really useful to visualize shapes like that unless, of course, we're playing chords purposefully. When you're comfortable with the C shape and those exercises, let's move forward and look already at changing keys with caged. 7. Changing Keys: We know now that caged is a map, a way to visualize a single chord across the fretboard. But I want us to think about changing keys for a moment because for so much of this course, we're playing exercises and learning the shapes in the key of C. But caged isn't restricted to the key of C. It starts with a C shape doesn't mean we have to play in the key of C. We can start caged from higher up like a D. Once we start from a different position, the whole shape moves with us. So more than memorizing the exact frets we're playing for this course, it's more important to memorize the distance between the frets, which we will cover, and then the shape itself. Don't think about this as a C chord. Think about this as a C shape because when we move it up, we have a C shape up here. We need to think about the next shape and then the next shape. So we can use caged in really powerful ways to play chords we might not even know yet. Like, if we came across a C sharp, well, we don't really have an open cord for C sharp, but we do know now that we can take a C and slide it up by a fret and go, Oh, hey, that is a C sharp cord. And if we put the caged shape after it, we've got a whole bunch of ways to play a C sharp cord. 8. The A Shape: We know the C shape really well now. Let's take a look at the A shape. Next one in caged. Now, one of my favorite things about caged is how we move between the shapes. We can think of the bottom fret we're playing in each shape as the starting point for the next shape. Now, specifically, this starting point, we can kind of visualize a capo being right there. So at the bottom of my C shape, I've got this capo and on top of it, I play an A chord, except again, the capo is our finger. So I've got my C shape, lowest fret, bar, and play the A shape on top of it. This now is a C cord with an A shape. The tones here are one, five, one, three, and five. We can hear that it's the same as our C chord. But kind of a different voicing, right? The notes are in a different order, which is really neat because when we're song writing, it gives us more options to play the same chord, or when we're playing with someone, it allows us to play the same chords without stepping on their toes. 9. A Shape Exercises: Just like we did for our C cord C shape, we've got three exercises for our C cord A shape. And starting with exercise number one, we're just moving again, up and down. And remember, when we move up or down with the same shape, we're actually changing the cord. So again, we're going from C, up a fret to C sharp, up a fret to D, and back down, same thing like we did for the first shape. Exercise number two here, we're actually moving between shapes, both for a C cord. So C shape A, shape, and then a Dcord C shape, A shape. So we're changing shapes and we're changing cords. For our final exercise for the shape of A, we're going to work up and down the C shape, the A shape, and then focus on cords back and forth. We haven't done cords yet. So something like this. 10. The G Shape: Next, we have our G shape. Again, if we play our A shape, remember the lowest fret is where our capo goes. And then we put a G on top of this. Now, a full Gchord is really difficult to do when we're also holding down the capo. So we can pick if we want to play the lower portion or the higher portion. Both of these work as a shape, but I like keeping the root at the bottom and playing this lower portion from C, A and G shapes. Now, our tones here, and we'll keep that high note in there are one, three, five, one, three, and one on top. So again, always starting with that root. So together, we have CCord C shape, CCord A shape, and C cord G shape. Now we can take a look at our three exercises. 11. G Shape Exercises: For exercise number one, we're going to be walking up and down, all three shapes moving up, and then moving back down. So C shape, A shape, G shape, A shape, C shape. Here we go. Exercise two focuses on chords, again, moving from our new G shape down and up. But this time, we have three shapes to play between instead of just two. Our last exercise focuses on changing chords. We'll be playing each shape from C down a whole step or two frets to a sharp. And we'll do that for the second shape, and we'll do that for the first shape. But you'll notice the first shape, we're kind of out of room to slide down. So we need to make quite the jump here, which is kind of the opposite of what caged is for, but we have to make a jump, not down two frets, but the octave of this shape so that we can actually play it. You'll see what I mean as we play through. 12. Using CAGED to play chords: Caged is really useful for chord progressions. Not just because we can expand a chord up the neck, but also because we can play different chords so close to one another. Sort of like inversions on the guitar, if you're familiar with those. As an example, I can play all five shapes from the same fret and have five different chords right next to each other. From the fifth fret, I can play the C. Hey. G, E and D shapes and actually be playing an F, D, C, A, and G. Another cool thing we can do with cage is combine these shapes with bar chords or power chords. That way, we can have these movable, slidable shapes but also not have to stick to them. If I know an A bar chord or even an A minor bar chord or power chord, well, I still have all these other shapes around here, like a G shape, C, A, D, and that power chord. So cage really becomes powerful when we start combining it with other techniques. Sometimes in a song, we have the same chord over and over. And your audience might fall asleep if you've got a C chord. For I don't know, 16 bars. That's a lot. And it's not all that interesting. And there's lots of rhythmic things you could do with your pick to make it interesting. But caged is super powerful here as well, where it can make the same chord interesting for a long time because it sounds like you're shifting cords, even though you're really not. And for you as well as the player makes it a lot more exciting. 13. The E Shape: We've only got two more shapes to learn, so let's crank through them here, and our next one is the E shape. If you know bar chords, the E shape's going to seem really familiar with you because it is exactly a normal bar chord. So let's take our G shape here, and we know that the bottom fret is where we put our imaginary capo. And on top of this capo, we play an E chord, and we get our E shape. Again, if you know bar chords, this is exactly how we play a C bar chord from the eighth fret. Now, your tones here are one, five, one, like a power chord. Three. There's that five again, and one. We're really expanding our chords up the neck. So let's have some fun with these next three exercises. 14. E Shape Exercises: We've got four unique shapes now for a single chord, which is really cool but can be really confusing at the beginning. So our exercises now won't just show the chord name, but also what shape we're playing. Our first exercise is just working up the single notes of these four shapes like this. Our second exercise is a chord progression that goes between C and F. But every time we're playing C and F, we're in a different position. Now, again, all these positions are marked down on the sheet, but it sounds something like this. Okay. With that one, you'll notice when we play F as an E shape, that's the F we typically learn when we learn our first F chord. Exercise number three is finally changing our key from a C. We need to practice these shapes somewhere different. So let's do them in the key of E, which means we're starting our C shape from the seventh fret. Now, we're going to be doing single notes on the way up all of the shapes and then chords on the way down. Really important thing to remember on the way down is that our highest note is where we're putting our capo finger. So when we're coming down, the lowest note becomes the highest note. That'll help. Having that one fret that's always the same really helps. But here's what exercise number three sounds like. With four shapes mastered, there's only one more to go. Let's jump into learning the D shape. And then we'll see if we can't use caged practically. 15. The D Shape: Welcome to the last shape of caged the D. Now, we're back in the key of C, and we're in an E shape. Now, this one's a little bit interesting. Remember, the bottom fret becomes our bar, our capo, but we don't actually need to bar because just like a regular D chord, we're actually going to start this one from the fourth string. So I can just put a finger there on the fourth string, and on top of this, build a D cord here. So this is a D shape, but a C cord. So from our E, up here. Now, our tones here are one, five, one, and three. 16. D Shape Exercises: These are your last exercises. Super cool. Like the other ones, we're going to start with single notes, working up now all the shapes of cage. Here we go. Really cool. Now we can play one ord in five different places up the neck. And we'll talk about how to actually loop cage, going back to that C shape so we could keep going if you wanted to play way up here. Exercise number two is the same chord progression in three different places. We're playing a 145. So in the key of C, that would be like C F, and G. But we're changing the key, which means we're changing the shape. So we're going to play it here in the middle. Nice and low where the cords actually match their shapes and then move it up by a fray. Here, I'll show you what I mean. If you can play those shapes down here barring the first fret, you can play them anywhere. I find that the strings get easier to press down the higher up you go. So pressing them down on that first fret. It's not an easy task, but let's look at our last exercise, which is a super unique one. Now, I want to teach you something with this exercise here, and it's that adding in one different note in a chord replicates through every shape. So for example, if I added in one note to my C shape, well, that one note could be carried over to the A, G, E and D. This is something that we do engaged to help us make riffs or solos, and it really brings out a lot of character in chords. So for example, in a C chord C shape, I'm going to add in a sus four note as I climb up. Now, all that means is that I'm adding in from one, three and five the four, one, three, four. But now that we know the tones in each shape, I'm going to do that in the A as well. So every time I come up to a three, I'm going to add in a fret above it. It sounds something like this. Uh So why did we do that? Well, again, it's to show that when we make one little change, it radically impacts the whole shape of cage. That sounded very different than any of the other exercises that we did. But that allows us to create some really cool riffs and solos. And it doesn't have to be that note. We can add in a different note. We can add in two notes, three notes, and just completely unlock the fretboard in a whole different way. So when we add to cage and blend in other things, it becomes a different monster entirely. 17. Flipping the Order!: Here's something really cool. Up to this point, we've been playing caged, starting from a C. And we've been doing that because that's what the word cage starts with. It makes sense. But we don't have to. We can actually start from any letter of cage that we want. All of a sudden, we've got these five different ways to get across the fretboard, but still following the same rule. So, for example, I'm playing a G chord down here in any song in the world, and I go, Man, I wish I could use cage to still get up the neck of the guitar. Well, we could. We just start from G. We can still from the lowest fret, go to E and D and C and A, back to G. We can start from any shape. That means that any open chord we know that fits one of these five shapes, we can now expand up the neck. But there's one super important change when that happens. From D to C, from the end of the word caged to the beginning of the word caged, our fret bar rule changes. Remember, up to this point, we've been able to bar or capo the lowest fret, and that's not the case right here and only right here. When we're moving from D to C, we're moving a fret down from the lowest fret. So, for example, I'm encaged. I'm playing C, lowest fret bars to A. Lowest fret bars to G, lowest fret bars to E, lowest fret bars to D. And now the second lowest fret. I can think about it as the one with the most notes on it. That's where I'm going to bar. To play the next C shape back to A, back to G. Once you're up here, that's difficult. But the point is, as long as we remember that little change there, we can start caged from any note. And I think that's super cool. 18. CAGED and Minor Pentatonic: Caged is really neat on its own, but it starts really showing its power when we combine it with other techniques. We talked about this a bit earlier when we thought through caged with bar or power chords. We can also combine caged with inversions, which is very similar. We're flipping the notes in a chord to play it up the neck of the guitar. So almost the same idea, just slightly different application. Or modes and scales. And this helps us to play chords around where we're also playing lead lines or solos. And that's really nifty. As an example here, let's match caged up with a minor pentatonic. If you're not familiar with minor pentatonic, it's sort of the first mode people learn when they want to do some soloing. So it's super simple. Here's the shape on the screen. Just two notes per string. This is not a minor pentatonic course, but it's useful to know for this lesson. A minor pentatonic. That shape starting from an A matches up with the key of C, which is really cool since that's where we've been playing caged from so far. I could play a chord progression down here like C to F. Easy enough. Now, the G shape is the closest one I've got to this mode. But just like there are five different positions for caged, there are five different positions for the minor pentatonic, so that I can also solo. Up the neck of the guitar, right? Now, you don't need to know those five positions. This is just an example of a way we can use caged. And the way I would say is we can match up the shape with the position. So again, E here is where I could play the second position. I could have a D up here where I play third position. Why is that interesting at all? If you haven't clicked away, you're probably wondering, I don't know what he's talking about anymore. I was with him with the five shapes. Now he's lost me. That's really cool because it gives us a chance to play chords, solos and lead lines together all over the neck. We're kind of blending these two different ideas. And it's one example of something we can do with, like, 50 million other techniques. So caged expands and grows and morphs with everything else that you're going to learn. I would just say whatever you learn after this course, think about how you can play chord shapes around wherever you are on the neck. That's the main point. Cage gives you a way to play the chords in your song around wherever you are on the neck. 19. Soloing Shapes with CAGED: Playing caged around a minor pentatonic is a really good transition for using caged to improve our solos. If we want a solo over a chord progression, does caged really help with that? Well, it does, actually, and it does in a few different ways. First of all, we always want to solo around the chords we're playing. And I don't mean just physically on the neck, but I mean, it can be really cool, sound really good to solo around the tones of a chord. So if I'm playing a C chord, I'm playing C and G notes. We know that. Now I can use caged to solo maybe higher up, but I know I know that I'm playing the right tones that match up with the chord. That's gonna make your solos and lead lines blend better with the song that you're playing. We can even do it when we're changing chords. If I'm up here moving from F to C, I can make sure that when an F is playing, I'm playing the right notes and landing on a C. Almost sounds like the major Ionian mode if you are familiar with that. So we can solo around chord progressions and kind of match up tones with a chord, but cage also gives us a really clear path for playing arpeggios. Now, if you don't know what arpeggios are, you've actually been doing them. Arpeggios are when you take a chord shape and you're playing them one note at a time. So if I'm taking a C shape, and here I'm playing an F chord as a C shape, an arpeggio would be playing the notes one at a time. So we've been doing that in a lot of our exercises. The reason that's so cool is it gives us just a really clear visual of how to play all these tones over a single chord. Let's make this really practical for a minute because it does get so confusing without examples. Let's say you're in a band and we're playing through C to F, G. Someone says, Hey, Steve or Joe or Kathy, I need you to solo over that chord progression. Now, maybe you know a couple of mods, but you haven't quite worked on your soloing yet. So what do you do? Well, we're going to move caged around those chords. We know caged from a C we know caged from an F. And the G would get even higher or we can drop down and start it from the G shape. Now, all of a sudden, we've got this map of all the notes we could play in our solo shifting caged as the chords move. So if we start caged from the right chord that matches up with what the bands playing, you got a whole new way to look at the neck, even if we don't know how to solo yet. That's super cool and really powerful. 20. Final Project: If you've made it this far, you are a rock star seriously. You now understand how cage works. Five individual shapes, you've practiced moving between them if you've gone through that PDF or the interactive tabs, and you even know how to apply it a little bit to some chords, some soloing, and you've got it in your head. As you jump into your next course, combine caged with whatever technique you're learning. It's really combining things that makes it powerful. Now, before you leave, we've got a final project to do and show off what we've been learning. What you're going to do is make a chord progression. And then don't just play it as open chords, but play it as caged shapes. There's not really such a thing as extra credit here, but if you want extra credit in my book, you can combine it with other things. If you're familiar with any mode shapes, any inversions, any technique on the guitar already, try fusing it with what we've learned in cage and share a bit about what you're actually fusing. 21. Congratulations!: Congratulations on finishing this course. It's a huge achievement. Now, if you've got any questions or comments at all, you can always reach out at Jacob at jacob lamb.com. I love hearing from you guys and answering questions. It's honestly one of the best parts of my workweek. Or I've got more courses right at jacobam.com. There's a community of people learning there, and I would love to see you there. Congrats again and have fun learning the guitar. No.