Do You NEED The CAGED System to be a Good Guitarist? 

I just wanted to let you know that this is a very nice way of handling a sponsorship and making it more than just advertising. Letting us know what you got out of it, giving us an introduction and then pointing us in the direction of the sponsor. It actually works (this was also the case regarding the Tim Miller arpeggios, it actually made me go back and look at it again (since I bought it a couple of years ago) ). Good job!

Thanks for the shoutout, John! Love your playing btw - smooooooooove af!

I like to teach CAGED with this type of hierarchy: chord shape < exploring chord extensions (crucial) < full box arpeggio < full scale box. This way it's just a matter of adding one or two notes at time, but still keeping the focal points in a clear position. The problem with online explanation of cadeg online is that people approach it for a "modal" way of playing, like you use pentatonic scales instead of thinking about the melodic power of chord tone based lines. That way it doesn't make a lot of sense, but as soon as you get to the point of navigating through some changes, even simple blues, I see lightbulbs turning on every single time :)

Thanks for sharing this John. Love your channel. Another great guitar channel I like is Nashville guitarist Guthrie Trapp. He really opened up the CAGED system to me. But instead of thinking in terms of playing the entire chord shape utilizing all 6 strings, he breaks it down to focusing just on smaller triad shapes within each chord shape. Worth checking out his YT channel. Love his melodic approach to playing, and it's all based around simple triad chord ideas based on the CAGED system.

I took Eric's course on TrueFire when it first came out and it was really helpful to me. Now I move around the neck much more easily. The part about the shapes around minor chords was something I never looked at before. And Eric's RU-vid channel has some good content.

I sort-of use a cut down version of CAGED, where I use just A, E and D. If you look at the A and G shapes for a chord, they actually share a triad on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings. From that triad, it's an A shape if you "look from behind" or G shape if you look ahead of it. Thus, I just look at that triad as a single point of reference where there are scale notes either side. It's the same with the C and D shapes except the shared triad is on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd strings. E's on its own. In effect it's the same as CAGED but with 3 reference shapes instead of 5.

I love Caged! It truly has helped my fretboard vision immensely! I use it for Major and Minor Scales and arpeggios and Dominant arpeggios, Maj 7, min 7 etc! It’s not as limited as some think it is being only tied to cowboy chords. It’s the only thing that’s ever clicked for me

I'll never forget when I sort of came up with CAGED myself as a young player. It really opened things up. I never had lessons either but I don't remember anybody talking about CAGED in guitar magazines or anything else way back then. I'm guessing teachers taught it, but probably didn't have a universal name for it or something. Either way I wish I had figured it out sooner, because in high school I had all the finger dexterity and all of that...I just had trouble gluing it all together. It would have saved me a few years. Haugen is a good teacher, too. Really chill guy.

Making a phrase up and repeating it up the neck is gold. It will help open the fret board up for me more. Thanks for your content John.

I watch a lot of your videos, this is my first post on them. I find much of what you do very interesting and informative. I also really enjoy your playing. This video was perhaps the best explanation of caged, it really made sense to me!

This system is a great way to learn the neck. Going through each inversion and naming the notes and thinking of each root, third, fifth etc is priceless in its value as a guitar player.

A cool thing i've been doing to open up the fretboard is practice all modes 3 notes per string. Thanks Max Light for the recommendation!

Something that doesn't get discussed enough with CAGED is that it's a system for seeing chord tones vs non-chord tones. The 5 chord shapes connected up the neck more-or-less highlight the available chord tones. When you pair the rest of the major scale notes around them, you get an elegant system for quickly visualizing chord tones within the scale. It also extends beyond just triads, you can also connect drop 2 voicings to this framework and quickly see how the chord tones relate to the underlying scale positions. In this way, I actually don't think it's 3nps vs CAGED, I think the two are just two different perspectives of the same issue. And the more perspectives you have of something, you more deeply you understand it IMO. I think there's even more to understand if you really want to grasp the fretboard deeply - close and open triad inversions, drop 2 and 3 chords, interval shapes, the note names across the fretboard, and practicing playing on one string at a time.

Dude! As a former piano player this should really speak to you. What you are hinting at here is the key to becoming a more masterful and melodic guitar player. It took me forever to discover this myself - and I didn't realize it's power until I discovered Guthrie Trapp. His playing is so what your ear wants to hear and so melodic (not wearing you out) - and he's a huge proponent of this. BUT, you have to give it a chance and learn how to use it entirely - as you hint here it's not just the shapes. What you do is first learn the shapes - then learn the pentatonic around the shapes as you suggest here. Then, you learn the arpeggios around the shapes, then the scale for major, minor and mixolydian (what you'll realize is if you know all those, them and their variations pretty much cover everything). The goal is when a chord passes, say C chord, to be able to see it across the neck as one thing visually. The power that gives you is when you are playing a solo - you can always shift you mind into a shape. In fact, Guthrie would say ANYTIME you are playing you should know what shape and position you are playing out of. Think about it - on piano when you play a scale, you can see the chords in the scale easily. This is because we have a contrast of white and black keys and it makes it easier for our human mind to identify the patterns. On guitar this is much more difficult because not only everything looks the same - but it's not linear (but rather a matrix) and to further throw a kink in the strings area 4th apart but one is a minor 3rd - which throws all patterns off. Where does it help you? What if you are playing in a key but then an outside chord comes along. How are you going to accent the notes in that chord - if you don't know what they are? Are you going to memorize all the keys and scales for every chord and variation in existence (not likely). BUT, if you can visualize it - you can easily hit it when it passes. I'm really passionate about this so hopefully I've conveyed it well. Don't just pass over this - it is probably the most important thing you should explore more to become a greater player - no matter how good you already are. Example of melodic playing here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HLYddCmG900.html

Nice video. Honestly, I was not aware anyone played guitar without the CAGED ideas giving structure and logic to location of the scales, roots, chord tones, and modes etc. all over the neck. To me, it is the essence of the guitar neck. I think everything we do to visualize the neck differently helps us. The other thing that helps is to play another instrument, like a fiddle or mandolin, which is tuned differently.

I think the CAGED system is a great way to transition from pentatonics as you can kinda fill in the major and minor scales after (as well as modes if you can see the scale degrees well). I also find it good for diatonic arpeggios as well. For the D shape though I actually just use the 3 notes per string pattern starting on the E shape root as I think it fills out the fretboard better in my head.

I've been percolating on the CAGED system for several months now. It hasn't yet completely clicked together. But a thought came to me 17:54, something that will help me click things together. I need to practice slow picking an open chord, and naming the scale degrees as I play them. My fingers know the open chord shapes, but my melodic mind doesn't know which scale degrees each finger is responsible for in each open chord shape. I think if my chording fingers knew what scale degree they were responsible in each shape, it would help me link together a riff from one form to another in different zones on the neck. Cheers. Thanks for the video.

Great video. You approach the guitar much like I do. I have that same tendency on the open shape as well. You the first guitar videos I checked out in my 15 years of playing, and they are really awesome. I play mostly by myself so listening to you talk is super helpful and giving me some context of where I can improve.

Every time I think about something that I could learn to improve my playing or my sound you post a new video about it, thank you very much John!

This is one of my favorite exercises. However, I've been crazy lazy in that I basically use it to build triads so that I don't have to worry about some of the more complicated fingerings. Also, it helps me to look at the "E" form more as an "F" form. I get that they are the same, but, when I'm building simple chords on the higher strings, it's just a better reference for me.

The history of the caged system is interesting to look up. In particular who defined the term. It came from an article/lesson in Guitar Player magazine in the 80's. Well I found that interesting. The only system I had ever heard of in the 70's was Box System and I first heard of that thru the book Improvising Rock Guitar, by Pat Thrall who later was with Pat Travers band.

I find it a great frame work to put chords and scales into context, in the past I'd learned chords, bar chords and pent scale boxes but they seemed disconnected to me.Erics caged course really worked for me and makes it a lot easier to put things together on the fret board, also the fact that he concentrates on showing it in a relatively easy manner without daunting high speed shredding really helps. Like any course or teacher perhaps it's not for some, but it really works for me. Also it gives me confidence to then 'add on' other notes to these structures to play other scales from these positions.

I like to think of it as the five chord shapes relate to the 5 pentatonic box shapes.

John, thank you for finally explaining the caged system in something we get now. (Open Chord) Shapes! HELLO PLAYERS! Your Videos Are Indispensable. Even for me playing on/off pro for roughly 50 years. I wont even go into your tone! Its tone to die for buddy! Thank You! J.S.

Just started learning about this system in my lessons it looked alot more complicated on other you tubers videos but your examples set it out nicely. Cheers

John, of course you know this, but I've found a very useful extension of this is to break each form into triads, both major and minor. For example, if you play a D major chord in the C shape, root on fifth string, the top three strings make up the traditional D major triad (A-D-F#), then strings 4,3,2 make up another D triad (or inversion) consisting of F#-A-D, and so forth for each three-string combination (5,4,3 and 6,5,4). Knowing those shapes quickly and intuitively after a while is very useful.

I believe it's important to know all of the most important/popular fingerboard mapping systems. One reason is, so that in the heat of the moment during an Improvisation, you'll have the most freedom. Specifically, The Caged System, as well as the 7 Position, 3 Note Per String, and 4 Note Per String Systems and any other personal system that works for you. Thanks.

One thing cool about it is how well it meshes with playing Jimi/SRV/Mayer style stuff where you're fluidly mixing chords and melodies. I love that style. *Very generally* I tend to find CAGED folks to play a bit more melodically and 3NPS folks to be a bit more "shreddy". I stress that first part because iirc John, you're a 3NPS guy for the most part and play very melodically, sometimes throwing in a shreddy bit. All these systems probably have great value as paths towards a full understanding of, and full musical fluency on, the guitar.

CAGED maj / EDCAG min the sequence is a lil different for minor. But all in all I think it’s something very useful I wish I learned this years ago. Guthrie Govan taught it to his students.

It's a very useful mapping system for string instruments tuned to traditional guitar tuning, but nothing else. The 3 note per string is far more portable, and thinking along interval relationships rather than a fixed tuning better informs a player for approaching alternate tunings so that in the end, the most effective way to map any string tuning is by interval relationships and the 3nps is just one way to get to thinking along that line.

wow , love it , very well explained

I had a breakthrough literally the other night. All the moveable chord and scale scale shapesi know just connected on the fretboard, I finally know where I am no matter what. Now I watch this find out that's been a thing, people call it CAGED. I reinvented the wheel I guess.

CAGED is great - maybe in the long run not as powerful as the Tom Quayle intervallic method, especially for soloing, but it's much easier to absorb and implement quickly than that method. 3NPS is good for shredding, but I find it doesn't integrate with chordal playing very well (and besides, a CAGED scale is 3NPS for 5 of the 6 strings anyway).

Thanks for this, it's extremely helpful for me personally... sadly I will never be able to barre a G major chord like that... the D shape with that root in the bass is difficult as well...I tend to resort to playing the 3rd in the bass instead, á la John Lennon Playing phrases in different places/positions around the neck is a fantastic excercise, again very helpful Thanks Jon

Go check out Guthrie Trapp’s channel John… He is a Nashville player. Don’t get me wrong you are a great player, but this guy is on another level, and he swears by the CAGED…

FAN Thank you JNC So much Help-FUL for this 65yo starter.

I'm curious about when/where the "CAGED" system originated. I first encountered it in Bill Edwards's well-know "Freboard Logic" book(s) from the 1980s. He discusses the ideas (including linking the chord shapes to pentatonic scales), but as far as I can recall he doesn't use the "CAGED" acronym directly. On page 1 (of the "SE" book) he introduces the "Five Basic Chord Forms, or shapes.... These forms are the C, A, G, E and D Forms." (He has the letters in bold.) I just did a web search, and found an interview with Edwards at GuitarNoise, where the interviewer refers to him as "the guy who... came up with the CAGED sequence." Edwards responds, "Oops. Well, that isn’t exactly accurate.... The chordal aspect had been termed the CAGED System before I was born." That said, I never heard the "CAGED" acronym until around 2000, when it suddenly (to my perception) started getting widely used. I'm curious if there's a person (or perhaps school program) that is most responsible for popularizing it. Anyone know? -Tom

I appreciate that a lot of people have had success with the CAGED system, but it's always seemed to me to be a convoluted way to think about the guitar neck. To start, it uses the abstraction of working with notes as letters... because they aren't... they are numbers (intervals). It was much easier for me to just jam/explore/memorize any given chord inversion across the neck, and I always think of a "scale" as covering the full neck, never just a small chunk in one position. Anything that locked me into one hand position was a thing to avoid doing.

Caged is a form of visual aid simply because the guitar is tuned the way it is..you simply cant escape it....nothing more nothing less....i know for example that if i start using the index finger in the sixth string ill go down on the E form territory(using the caged visualisation) or if i fret the same note but using the pinky ill most likely descend through the...G territory and i can instantly download in my brain the E or G shaped chords or arps or scale shapes if i want to BUT...the moment i learned to take intervals more seriously i found a better way to visualise the board which doesnt mean that the caged goes away or maybe the 3 note per string scales that i learned at one point is forgotten....all are like different cameras looking at the same thing from different angles...my personal approach after sometime on the guitar is to go from intervals to arpeggios and then to scales and chords using intervals as building blocks..... i try to see everything as root thirds,fifths sevenths and build the rest around them.....

Never learned th caged system. but even just looking at the diagram i can see its the 5 different 'box' positions of the pentatonic. I get that the idea is you transpose the shapes. but for me i found it must usefl when learning to know all the triads on each string groupings, then all the inversions with major,minor, augmented and diminished.

I'm not a fan of CAGED. Coming from a classical guitar background, I just learned where all the notes on the fretboard are. Once you have that down and are completely comfortable with it, you don’t need a system.

“Right, I’ve got a couple of hours to kill because my wife went swimming” - man, you don’t know how lucky you are 🤣🤣

What happened at 13:50 … Is he just recalling a lick?

Who in the UK do you buy your K-line guitars from?

What happened to you blue K line? Haven't seen her in a while. Nothing wrong with the yellow one tho. Blue's just a better match for your uh... Eyes? Mood?

Yeeah i need It 🤣

I never learnt the cage system tbh

The more interesting question is, do you NEED to be a "good" guitarist.

No, but I do know of an industry where being caged might make you a good husband

tldr; nope