The CAGED System For Guitar Explained

0:00 caged is such a confusing topic right but I'm going to tell you one thing it's not your fault it's all because of the first word you learned when you started playing guitar and it's chords okay so let me show you how I teach my students and hopefully by the end of this video C is never going to be a problem again let's start right from the beginning how many letters are there in the musical alphabet I'm gonna tell you seven okay and they're the same as the alphabet it works the same musical alphabet normal alphabet works exactly the same so we've got a let me see if you can see that yep b

0:46 c d e f and g seven letters seven notes seven chords whatever you want to call it right there's seven and I'm going to start with a for a we have a chord shape some but some people play like this some people play like this now I want to challenge you to think of this as a note let's just get one note okay that a note over here what happens to that note if you move it up the fretboard it's going to become another note right we we can all agree on

1:35 [Music] that it's basically going to become all the other notes so this note becomes another and another and another all the notes on the fretboard cool now this note belongs to that a chord a chord to that a shape chord okay so if that note we move it here becomes another note what do you think will happen to that shape to that chord shape if we move it over here if one note becomes another note one chord shape

2:22 becomes another chord huh so chords are not really a thing shapes are so we've got an a shape that if we move it it starts becoming all the other chords okay so this is why we have bar chords because if you realize an a shape utilizes open strings if I start moving that shape and playing all six strings start sounding and funky so we need a bar behind that to act like a nuts so I move that chord

3:08 [Music] shape and it starts becoming all my other chords so a b c d e f f g all the other chords A B C D E F G all played with the same a shape check it out a b exactly the same shape with the bar behind it like if the nut followed C following the musical alphabet A B C all play with the same a shape not a chord a shape d e f g so that's a shape

3:54 that we can move across the fretboard to play all the other chords let's look at the other chords and see what's happening okay so we have an a shape this we have what about a b-shape do we have a b-shape do you know of a b shape a Bop chord no we don't have a b shape to play a B chord we need an a shape that's the normal play way to play uh B chord so we do not have a b-shape what about a c-shape do we have a cop

4:40 shape we do right that shape right there that's a c shape so we do have a c shape awesome do we have a D shape huh we do have a D shape that's cool a d open shape all right so we have a D shape do we have an e shape we do have an e shape I'm going to play like that e shape yay okay here comes the fun what about the F do we have an F shape can we play an F with open strings can we play an F no the normal way the

5:29 the common way to play an F check out this shape what shape is this let me bring that down one fret towards the headstock and remove my index finger because I don't need it anymore it's behind the nut what shape is that let me change my fingers e shape so an F is just an e so an F is just an e moved up one fret huh e f F check it out e f musical alphabet what comes after f e f g again we're using this shape chord shape not chord anymore you just switch you you got to shift your

6:15 mentality from this is a chord to this is a chord shape we use this chord shape to play this chord F and to play this chord g and we can use it to play the next chord A and the next chord B and the next chord c and the next chord D so again we can use a chord shape to [Music] play all the other chords H okay so we do not have an F shape no no no no no do we have a g shape yes we have it open G

7:03 shape okay so this is what confuses everyone and again you need to understand these are all these that I underlined are not chords they are shapes shapes that we're going to move across the fretboard same as one note turns into other notes these chord shapes are going to transform into other chords let me demonstrate for example one that is very hard to understand is a c shape that's the common way to play C but if I switch my fingers there's open strings in that shap in that shape right

7:49 so if I switch my fingers that's still a c chord right now I'm going to place a bar behind it this is extremely uncomfortable what is the next letter in the musical alphabet c d so I'm playing a d using a c shape I'm playing a d chord using a D shape what's the next letter in the musical alphabet e I'm playing a E chord using a c-shaped can you see the c-shape what's the next letter in the musical

8:35 alphabet F huh what's the next one G so I'm playing all these chords using one shape which is the C shape and I'm just moving it across the fretboard okay I can do it with d also so I'm everyone plays D like this I'm going to play like this so I can place a bar be behind it okay so D what's the next one e let me see so that's an that's an E chord using a D shape what's the next one F an F chord using a D shape what's the next one G G chord using a D shape hopefully this

9:22 is making sense I'm using every one of those five shapes to play any of these chords okay I'm just moving the shape and as as far as I move it up the fretboard it's starts becoming all the other chords okay as long as I bar behind it and that bar follows the chord shape okay now we've got seven letters 1 2 3 4 5 six seven seven chords but we only have five shapes and if we reorganize those chord shapes we start getting let's put the C over here yeah you you can see where this is going right we're going to put the a

10:09 over here we're going to put the G over here oh it's coming together we're going to put the E over here and we're going to put the D over here spells cage so the the five shapes we use to play any chord are the C the a the G the E and the D shapes and what cage States is the sequence in which we can find those chords so let's start with C Okay C we're going to play a C chord now

10:57 we're not thinking in shapes we're thinking in chords I want to find all the possible ways to play a C chord the first way I found was using a c shape that is my shape okay c-shape following caged what will be the next chord shape shape that allows me to play a C chord a so I'm going to move an a up the fretboard till I find a c chord A B

11:44 C pretty cool right so now I can play a C chord with a c shape and with an a shape hopefully that is clear I'm I'm going to demonstrate C and now the next chord shape to play C to play a C chord is going to be an A A B C see how it's the same chord it sounds a little different because notes are located in different spots but it's the same chord cool right what's the next chord shape that allows us to play a SE chord

12:29 if we follow cage we already used the C shape we used the a shape now we're going to jump to a g shape so if we play a g like that and we place a bar behind it extremely uncomfortable g a b c so I'm gliding that g all the way changing that note g a b c whoops let me see if I can make that ring out okay extremely uncomfortable but doesn't mean that it's not doable so we use the c-shaped to

13:16 play a C chord an a shape to play a C chord and a g shape to play a nasty sounding not very well played c chord okay what is the next next shape that we can use to play a C chord if we follow C it's an e so I'm going to be going e f g a b c so now we used a c shape to play a C chord an a shape to play a C

14:02 chord A G shape to play a C chord and an e shape to play a C chord I'm using shapes to play chords okay the last shape I can utilize to play a C chord if we follow cage is D okay and it's right here so okay so if I get that D shape I'm going to play like this d e f g a b c that's a c chord also okay hopefully that makes sense that we can utilize any one of those

14:49 chord shapes to play any chord and following cage we know what sequence those chords shapes are in okay so let's just to to wrap it around let's just play [Music] um an F chord let's start with an F chord okay the common way to play an F is using an e shape okay e f okay so we're we're playing an F chord but we're using using an e shape so following that what will be the

15:36 next chord shape we can use to play an F A D shape so we've got d uh let me see okay d e [Music] f so we used e over here and we use D over here same chord different chord shapes now uh-oh we don't have any more chord shapes well we just jumped at the beginning the next shape to play an F is a c shape so we're here c a b c d I'm tired e AB b c d e f

16:29 and so on so we used an e shape a D shape e shape D shape c-shape the next shape we will use would be an a shape and the next one a g- shape and turn back to the E shape over here okay hope this helps hope it clarified and if you have any questions just comment below and I'll try to answer them okay ciao see you in the next one for