The CAGED system: one chord, five places on the neck

How it works

Grab an open chord, slide it up the neck, and let your first finger stand in for the nut. Same shape, new chord. Do that with all five open shapes and they lock together along the neck like puzzle pieces, sharing a few notes wherever they meet.

So what do you get out of it? You can play a chord higher up without hunting for it. You can see the scale sitting around the chord you're on. And when you solo, you've got somewhere to go besides that one box you always end up in.

How to read the diagrams

• The neck is on its side, like tab: high e on top, low E on the bottom.
• R is the root, the note the chord is named after. It's the colored one.
• 3 and 5 are the other notes in the chord, shown in dark circles.
• An × means you don't play that string. Fret numbers run along the bottom.
• Tap any note to hear it.

One C chord, five shapes

All five of these are C major. They go up the neck in order: C, A, G, E, D.

CAGED system chart: all five shapes at once

Here's every C, E and G from the nut to fret 15, with each shape marked along the top. Press a letter to hear that shape played one note at a time, and watch where the notes land. Once you pass the D shape, the C shape comes back at fret 12, an octave up from where you started.

Finding the shapes in any key

The order never changes. Only the starting point does. To place a shape, count the frets from its open chord up to the chord you want. A G chord with the E shape sits 3 frets up, because G is 3 frets above E. The table below does that counting for you. Each number is where the shape's nut would be, and a 0 means it's just the open chord.

Try it with G and the E shape. Put your first finger across fret 3 and make an E chord above it. That's the G barre chord you've probably played a thousand times.

The scale inside each shape

Here's the part that changes how you see the neck. Every chord shape sits inside a playable piece of the major scale. These diagrams show C major around each one. The numbers are scale degrees. Solid notes are the chord you just learned, and hollow notes are the rest of the scale.

CAGED for minor chords

Every shape has a minor version, and only one thing changes: the 3rd drops down a fret. You'll see it marked b3 below. Three of these you already know as open chords.

The C and G shapes are trickier. In open position, their 3rd is an open string, and there's no fret below open, so you leave that string out. Higher up you can reach those notes, but the stretch is awkward. Most people play a few strings of those shapes, or just go to the A or E shape.

How to practice it

1. Stick to one key. Spend a week in C or G. Once you know it in one key, moving it is easy.
2. Find the roots first. Say out loud where the root is in each shape. The roots are your landmarks, and everything else hangs off them.
3. Go back and forth between neighbors. Play the C shape, then the A shape, then back. Listen for the notes they share.
4. Add the scale. Play the scale around one shape and end on a chord note.
5. Change key. Move the whole map somewhere new. Not sure where you landed? Check it with the chord identifier.

Where people go wrong

• Trying to hold every shape as a full chord. The moved G and C shapes are awkward. Just play a few strings of them.
• Learning all five in one sitting. Two shapes you can actually use are worth more than five you only recognize.
• Forgetting to listen. CAGED shows you where the notes are. Your ear still has to pick the good ones.

Want to see this in another key, or with a different scale? The Scale Explorer draws any scale across the whole neck.

Frequently asked questions