CAGED chords on GUITAR

as you play the guitar and move around the fretboard to different chord positions different chord shapes there's a helpful way to look at these chord positions using What's called the Caged chord system it's not really a system but just a way of looking at how the notes are laid out on the instrument so in this video you'll see what caged chords are exactly how they're formed and why they're so useful there are already some really good videos on caged chords so why another one why this video because you're going to gain a kind of x-ray vision into the underlying music theory of these chord shapes so you can really really understand them to apply in your own songwriting starting with what caged chords are let's play the c major chord for example and this will make sense looking at the fretboard from this position of actually holding the instrument this chord c major has three notes c e and G and played together at the same time they sound good if we label every note position on the fretboard you can see that the three notes that form C major c e and G show up in multiple places on the guitar C is positioned in these spots on the fretboard like here on the second string first fret and also here on the fifth string third fret and on the third string fifth fret and so on up the fretboard and at the same time the E note is in these positions on the fretboard while G is in these locations and based on how these notes are laid out on the guitar where they're positioned in relation to each other these groupings form different chord shapes that you can play with your fingers for example this shape down here is the most common way to play the c major chord pressing this combination of notes c e and g into what's called its open position of the C chord it's open because it's played at the top of the neck like this with a couple of the notes like this High e and this high G played using open strings that is with without pressing any of the Frets on these two strings and that's why it's called the open chord and an open C major chord specifically and looking at the other groupings of this chord that are available you can play C major in different positions if we take a capo and we borrow this chord we can play c e and G in this position or if we slide it up we can play c e and G in this position or slide it up even further you can play C and G like this or if you keep going way up here you can also play c e and G like this so instead of a capo though you could also just use your finger as an organic Capo and play C major as a bar chord like this or you can move up here or you could play C major like that or you could play C major up here or C major up here this is the same C major chord but played using alternative inversions or fingerings of the notes which are again C e and G in every example in every chord shape so again this is the open C and guitarists call this the a position of the c major chord and it's a because if we slide down here and play an open chord it's the same shape of a but instead of c e and G and barring the chord up here if you slide it down you have a C sharp and e with a couple of open strings and that's an a major chord so if you just play the same shape so this Bard finger is basically acting like the nut of the guitar so if we just slide it up it's basically the c major chord but in a position and if we slide up here we can play the c major chord in What's called the G position we slide this shape down here it's the G major chord because you're playing uh g b and d e and with some open strings and this high G is a G major chord if we slide that position up here and instead bar those notes that's c e and G or you could play the same chord playing this high C there and then this chord is the c major in What's called the E position because if we slide this all the way down it's e major with e g sharp and B with some open strings but instead of barring those there you don't need to because the nut is already letting you play those open strings if you slide that same shape up here it's C major with c e and G and then this position is called the C and D position is C major in D position because you have c e and G you slide those fingers down here it's the D major chord so that's why we call it C major in the D position because it's the same fingering to play the open D major chord so together these five shapes or inversions of the same chord in our example C major are laid out like this across the fretboard in the C shape the a shape the G shape the E shape and the D shape which is why it's called the Caged chord system the Caged c-a-g-e-d pattern because of how the notes are naturally arranged on the guitar this is pretty much what caged is referring to this sequence of chord inversions as they rise up the fretboard and what's cool is that this same pattern applies to any chord on the guitar for example if we focus on this a major chord instead made from notes a C sharp and E the same predictable groupings show up this inversion of a major is the a shape since it's the a major chord itself played in an open position then moving up to this grouping it's again the a major chord A C sharp and e but in the shape of an open G chord slid up a couple of frets the a major chord in the E shape e shape e shape and again the same pattern is present c a g e d only it starts on a since a is the lowest open chord in the sequence and the same goes for all of the other chords on the guitar including say F major F sharp major G major foreign in every case the various inversions of these chords can be played in a c-a-g-e-d or caged sequence which is very cool now you could stop there as most people do and it's already some good Insight knowing that each chord the different inversions of these chords follow this pattern as they rise up the fretboard is really helpful as you navigate the guitar but it's still a lot of memorization I mean we've looked at what the Caged pattern is and sort of why it's arranged as it is but not fully so let's look a little closer at why this pattern forms a kind of musical circuitry up and down the fretboard there's actually more to the colors we've been using here I mean just by looking at them you can see how they help to distinguish each note from the others so every C note is red every e note is yellow and every G note is red orange in each C major chord for example but what's cool is that these colors also show the relationships between the notes in the c major chord and also any chord on the guitar I explain these relationships and how they inform the entire layout of notes on the strings and Frets in another video but here's the gist if you take the 12 notes of the chromatic scale and then rearrange them into the circle of fifths which is the pattern in music that explains how all notes are related just as all colors in the color wheel are related and then rearrange the notes back into the chromatic scale you can now see all of the musical relationships baked into the notes relationships like intervals of minor seconds and major sevenths in every key as well as major seconds and minor sevenths minor thirds and major sixths major thirds and minor sixths perfect fourths and fifths and tritones in every key where these patterns these intervals in music perfectly align with the colors so you can actually see these relationships these connections between the notes since they're now all visible in the colors in other videos I explain all of these intervals and relationships in way more detail but what matters here is that the chromatic scale and the circle of fifths the two most fundamental patterns in music together they combine to form the underlying framework of notes on the guitar fretboard where the notes on each string of the instrument rise up the fretboard in half step intervals to form chromatic scales with each string being its own chromatic scale while at the same time the notes on each fret are stacked in a circle of fifths Arrangement and this is why the notes are laid out like they are on the guitar because it basically sits at the intersection of both the chromatic scale and the circle of fifths as a kind of interlaced Matrix between these two patterns which makes it perfect for playing chords there's just a slight shift in this pattern at the top two strings where the circle of fifths pattern is shifted so the notes are moved up a fret on these strings but the relationships between notes are still consistent like I say I explained in other videos how this Matrix explains exactly how to navigate the fretboard since this pattern is perfectly consistent in any key but for our purposes here in understanding caged chords these colors help to guide not only your fingers but also your eyes and your mind as you play any chord for example in the c major chord if we plot every C note along with every G note C's fifth note in the circle of fifths you can see how C red is always directly above its fifth note g red orange on every fret since every fret is just a stack of notes aligned in a circle of fifths sequence accounting for this slight shift again at the top two strings and then when you add all of the E notes to complete the c major chord c e and G all of these E's are the major third interval in the chord where C is interval one e is the major third and G is the perfect fifth which explains more clearly Why the Caged chords make this formation the term caged is just a mnemonic to remember the pattern that these colors reveal more vividly and of course the relative positions of notes are the same up and down the fretboard so in the a major chord for example here are all of the a notes orange yellow where its fifth note E yellow is directly below it on each fret except again for the shift at the top two strings an A's major third C sharp blue green is positioned here resulting in the same formation of a g e d c the Caged chord pattern but with a in the lowest position and the same goes for all of the other chords on the fretboard these colors reveal the actual logic and layout of the notes and intervals in every key so you don't have to rely merely on memorization but now have a kind of x-ray vision to see the theory of these patterns Beyond just the letter names for notes to the underlying relationships between them and these relationships illustrate why the chords form the Caged pattern because of how each note is positioned on the fretboard in proximity to its respective fifth note and major third due to the fact that the guitar sits at the intersection of the chromatic scale and the circle of fifths and since all keys follow the same patterns these relationships between chords how they all form a caged sequence up the fretboard is consistent in every key so once you know how it works in one key you've already learned it for all of the other keys this is music theory by definition to see sound and now you can see that there's more to the Caged chord pattern than just memorizing chord shapes it reveals the fundamental structure of notes on the guitar how the notes are laid out in relation to one another and how they allow you to move swiftly between the chords in any key in music so hopefully this was helpful please let the algorithm know if you liked it and there's a PDF with these diagrams in the community if you want to check that out thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Mike George

Views: 69,145

Keywords: music theory, guitar, learn guitar, songwriting, colormusic, scale degrees, intervals, patterns, color wheel, geometry, key, composition, circle of fifths, music, learn to play, music lesson, guitar lesson, piano theory, guitar theory, chromatic scale, notes, chords, progressions, Pachelbel, sacred geometry, CAGED chords, fretboard, guitar chords, how to play guitar, guitar for beginners, beginner guitar lesson, chord shapes, how to play chords

Id: NokGJYC-6MY

Length: 12min 15sec (735 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 20 2022