Use Five Open Shapes to Find Major Chords Anywhere
This is Episode 1 of my Play ANY Guitar Chord podcast. Instead of memorizing hundreds of chord shapes, I use the CAGED system: five chord shapes you probably already know (C, A, G, E and D) to find major chords anywhere on the fretboard. The series starts with major chords, then moves on to minor, 7th and extended chords.
What I cover:
- What the CAGED system is
- Moving the shapes up the neck
- Applying the shapes to other chords (D major)
- Prerequisites for success
- Understanding chord intervals: root, 3rd and 5th
I start with an open C chord and move it up the neck through the next shapes in order: the A shape, the G shape, the E shape (a barre chord) and the D shape. Every one of those is still a C major chord, just played in a different position. Then I do the same thing starting from a D chord, which goes D shape, C shape, A shape, G shape and E shape.
You don’t need to play every string of every shape. Some of them, like the full G shape higher up, are a handful. CAGED is mainly a way of visualizing where the chord lives, so partial chords on three or four strings are fine.
To follow along you need two things: the five open shapes, and enough barre chord ability to hold at least a partial barre. The other key idea is knowing which note in each shape is the root, which is the 3rd and which is the 5th. That is what lets us change the shapes into minor chords in Episode 2 and add 7ths after that.
Free Episode 1 Chord Chart
Download the free Play ANY Guitar Chord Episode 1 chart (PDF). It has two pages of CAGED fretboard diagrams, one for C major and one for D major, from the open position up to the 15th fret.
If you’ve taken one of my Udemy courses or my free Guitar Chords & Strumming for Absolute Beginners course, I touch on CAGED there too, but this series goes into much more depth.