Have you been playing guitar for awhile and want to develop skills to move all across your fretboard? Learning this technique will help with solos and adding onto performances and when playing with live bands.
I’m not talking about scales, but using a five-part chord method to perform riffs in a song. The CAGED system is a method compromised of 5 basic ‘open guitar chords,’ (C, A, G, E, and D open chords) and you use this method all across the fretboard. What happens is that you take the root note of each chord to slide up on the fret and ‘bar’ it and go through the C, A, G, E, D chords; another way to have the same sound higher up on the neck, but the shapes of the chord changes to C, A, G, E, or D.
I have not mastered this system (I only got around to trying out the CAGED system in the key of ‘C.’ I got stuck halfway into the second video so that’s going to take awhile 🙂 The chord shape that feels the trickiest for me is the barred G and D chords higher up on the neck.
1. CAGED system and how to play: view HERE. Towards the end of the first video, he gives a mini practice session you can jam along with.
2. Playing LEADS: View HERE. The second video goes a bit deeper into the skills to develop solo leads and rhythm playing. Best of luck!
Here’s another link in written form with visuals that may help you: BLOOP!
Have any of you mastered the CAGED system? Try it out and share how it went 🙂
My music canvas 