This made NO SENSE until they started using it..

i just wanted more i realized that all my solos kind of sounded the same any time i picked up the guitar to improvise i always started with the same type of idea now as i was growing more and more frustrated with my inability to speak musically i started really getting into david gilmour and jeff beck so that was my introduction to the caged system so the cage system is one of those topics that comes up quite a bit in guitar education and each time it's brought up it's explained as a way of visualizing the fretboard this kind of begs the question so what the caged system has a very unique sound and it actually sounds really really good now i wasn't always a caged player as a matter of fact i started with the three note per string system the three note per string system just like cage is not only a way of visualizing the fretboard but it also has its sound nothing wrong with the sound of the three and opera string system there's a lot of players who use it it's a system that like the name says organizes the the scales on the fretboard in a way that you will always have three notes per string and the advantage of that is that it's easy to memorize the positions often times have pairs or more than a pair of strings that use the same exact frets the same spacing in the fingers and it's also a great system to play fast and that's really why i chose the 300 string when i started playing when i was 15. you know i was a typical teenager i wanted to play fast impress people and that's pretty much it so i got really good at playing using the 3-note per string system and that was great i could play a lot of different things i could play fast i could play solos but eventually i got really frustrated with myself i got frustrated because i i just wanted more i realized that all my solos kind of sounded the same any time i picked up the guitar to improvise i always started with the same type of idea 300 per string is more of a sequence based idea because it always has the same number of strings it's easy for your fingers to feel that they are gaining control over the instrument and when your fingers have too much control over the instrument it can't be a bad thing and that's because you as a being is no longer in control of your music but your fingers are see the ideas should come from within not from comfort zones so that was me and that lasted for quite a while just relying on the 3-0 per string system because i didn't know anything else now as i was growing more and more frustrated with my inability to speak musically and express the ideas that that i wanted to express i started really getting into david gilmour and jeff beck and i found that these guys had something that i really did not have so i couldn't quite put my finger on what that thing was pun intended but i really wanted to play that way so the only thing i could think of is that these guys heavily use the minor pentatonic scale you know the one that we all start learning now that scale is not a 300 per string position and that's actually why i kind of went away from using that uh pentatonic scale because i wanted to play fast you know typical teenage ego stuff so anyways i started really listening to these guys and even though my playing really at the time had nothing to do with what i was listening i wanted to discover what made these players unique and and i i thought that was more than just the pentatonic scale and eventually i realized that what makes them unique is that they seemed to play notes and choose notes that really matched the chords [Music] this touches on the problem that i had with my 300 per string system if i recorded an improvisation over a backing track and i removed the backing track well that improvisation quote unquote right improvisation really wasn't an improvisation it basically was the same exact thing that i would repeat over and over no matter what the chord progression was in contrast the guys i was listening to if you took away the chord progression you could almost hear the chord progression without needing to hear the chord progression [Music] so that was my introduction to the caged system really quick for those of you who don't know exactly what the kids system is i'll make it very simple for you on the guitar you can fit any musical idea whether it's a chord a lick a scale in one of the following five buckets bucket one is for ideas that have their root on the fifth string and spread on the left side of that root bucket two is for ideas that have the root on the fifth string and spread on the right side of that root bucket three is for ideas that have the root on the sixth string and spread on the left side of that root bucket four is for ideas that have the root on the sixth string and spread on the right side of that root bucket five is for ideas that have the root on the fourth string and spread on the right side of that root only five buckets and you can fit any musical idea in one of these five buckets alright so why is it called caged let's take a look at each bucket in the first bucket we could fit ideas with the root on the fifth string and spread on the left side of that root now one of the chords that would fit that bucket is the c chord roots on the fifth string the chord happens on the left side of that root the second bucket well we can fit the a chord in the third bucket we could put the g chord the fourth bucket the e chord and in the fifth bucket the d chord c-a-g-e-d caged that's where the name comes from now that you're up to speed with how the cage system works how does it sound different now let's go back to these blues rock guys whenever they're using the minor pentatonic scale they are using the caged system now they might not be aware of it but it's very caged based if you look at the first position of the minor pentatonic scale and a for example well that position has the root on the sixth string the skill happens on the right side therefore it's going to fit the fourth bucket all right we said earlier that these guys sound very different than what i was doing the 300 per string system and then it has a lot to do with the positions they're using that system they use the caged system kind of forces them to play a little slower than the three note per string system which is a very fast system and and the other thing that's really interesting about that system is that it really fits chord shapes if you take the a minor pentatonic scale we just talked about you can fit an a minor chord within that position and it makes it very easy to target the notes of that chord if i was to use a three note per string system over that chord shape i quickly transitioned outside of the zone of that chord and that makes it difficult for me the player to visualize the notes of the chord i just have to go by ear and that can cause problems sometimes not only that but because the cage system is more of a narrow system a narrow position it kind of forces you to be more conscious about the notes you're going to play you can't rely on automatic speed here i mean i guess you can but you're pretty limited you don't have as many sequences that you would have with a 300 per string system which means that you've got to focus on something else and that's something else is the note you're targeting and the melodic development of things and this makes your improvisation a lot more fitting to the [Music] chords now the beauty of the cage system is that because you can now associate directly a scale with a chord position it makes it very easy to improvise over chord progressions that don't follow the same key your chosen note is going to be super targeted and it's fail proof as long as you follow the chords it's going to sound very melodic and you're going to be able to hear that chord progression without needing to hear the chord progression [Music] record something over a backing track take the backing track away you can still hear the chords now i hear some of you say that uh that's all good but the cage system requires for me to relearn all the scales in five different positions that's a lot of work well the good news is that it's not because as a matter of fact you really don't need to memorize scales if you do this this video explains the concept check it out it'll do wonders for your playing i'll meet you right there

Channel: David Wallimann

Views: 257,410

Keywords: guitar, electric, axe, fx, fractal, audio, wallimann, lesson, music, gear, fusion, rock, blues, guitar rig, bias, positive grid, modes, music theory, scales, pentatonic, ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, locrian, minor, major, david wallimann, guitar solo, backing track, vola, vola guitars, vola oz, guitar lesson

Id: i6RRIrAvePw

Length: 9min 34sec (574 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 02 2022