The CAGED System Explained: Connect All Five Shapes Down the Neck

This is a no stress, quick tip kind of breakdown.

A lot of people ask us about the CAGED system, so this is what it looks like if you use it on your fretboard and why it’s beneficial.

Why the CAGED system?

Most of us learn our open chords, then we learn barre chords, and then we get stuck. You can play any chord you want, but only in one or two spots, and everything above the fifth fret is iffy.

CAGED clears that up. It says there are only five ways to play any major chord, they always appear in the same order, and once you know them you can play any chord anywhere on the neck.

Then, the even more useful thing that it does is your scale shapes sit on top of those chord shapes. So when you’re soloing, you’re not hunting for notes in a scale pattern. Instead, you’re looking at a chord you already recognize and picking notes out of it.

Therefore, chords and scales stop being two separate things you memorized.

What CAGED is

CAGED is a system guitarists use that refers back to five chord shapes: C, A, G, E and D.

That is the way the guitar is laid out, so this ultimately makes sense.

Every one of those shapes has a string where the root note lives. On the C shape, A shape, G shape, E shape, and on the D shape. Once you know which string carries the root, you know what you are playing no matter where you move it.

My favorite chord shape for finding a root note is the D.

The five shapes, and where the root lives in each

Before we move anything, here are the five open chords CAGED is named after, and the string that carries the root for each.

• C shape: root on the A string
• A shape: root on the A string
• G shape: root on the low E string
• E shape: root on the low E string
• D shape: root on the D string

That root string is the thing to know. Everything else about CAGED falls out of it because once you know which string is carrying the root, you know what you’re playing anywhere you move the shape.

Start with the D shape

Take a normal D chord. Anytime I make that D chord, I know it is a D because the root note is sitting on my B string.

That is my D shape. When I take that shape and move it around, it becomes a different chord.

Move it up and now I am on an E, because the root note is sitting on an E. The shape did not change, only the name did.

And that’s is the entire idea behind CAGED in one sentence.

Moving down the neck in C

We are going to start high and connect our way back down all in the key of C.

We start on the D form of C, up at the 13th fret on the B string with the D shape held around it.

Then we work back to the E form and you will see how they connect.

The move that connects them

The most important thing to learn is that it is all about your top finger.

From the D shape, slide that top finger down a whole step, then take it down another half step. Strum through those notes, then take the G string with your pointer finger and slide that one down too.

And now you are in an E shape. As soon as you slide down, your fingers can form that E shape and it works automatically.

Then you keep sliding down from the E and you land on the G shape. That is what a G looks like way down at the nut, but we are playing it up here instead.

And then the same move again from the E shape. Use that top finger to drop down a whole step and a half step, and grab the G shape.

A note about the G shape

You can’t really strum through all of the G shape up the neck. It doesn’t sound right unless you hold down the full bar.

Down at the nut, the open G chord works because the nut is covering all those back notes for you, and they ring open and sound wonderful.

Up the neck you have to bar that space yourself. That is why most people will not just play that chord unless they really want to get into it; it’s a huge stretch and you rarely need it.

But the G shape still matters because the A shape is hiding right there next to it.

The awkward bit

The move between shapes is going to feel clumsy for the first week and that’s pretty normal.

Essentially, you’re having one finger do two jobs at once. It has to release the note it’s holding, travel, and land in a new shape, all while the rest of your hand is already halfway into the next position.

The way through it is to stop at each shape. Play it, hold it, let it ring, and only then make the move. Don’t try to play the whole descending run as one flowing thing yet; it won’t work well.

Get each landing clean first and the connections smooth out on their own.

Slow is better here. If you rush it, you’ll ultimately just learn a sloppy version and have to unlearn and relearn later.

Into the A shape, then home to C

From the G, the A shape is sitting right there. We are still in C, with the middle note as our root. There is our C.

The A shape sounds pretty good with all the notes ringing; better than the full G shape does.

From there I like to hop up and arpeggiate that section because really this whole thing is one long arpeggiation.

Then the top finger of that shape moves down a whole step and slides down a half step to make an E shape out of the top three strings. It’s the same move as before.

Tack on that bottom note and you’ve got the whole C chord to finish it off cleanly.

Why the order is C-A-G-E-D

This trips people up.

The letters aren’t a ranking or a difficulty order, they’re just the order the shapes physically appear as you walk up the neck.

Start on a C chord in open position. Move up and the next shape that gives you a C is the A shape. Keep going and it’s the G shape, then the E shape, then the D shape. Then you’re back to the C shape an octave higher and it repeats forever.

It’s five shapes and it’s always in that order and it’s always looping.

And because they always come in that order, each shape tells you what’s next to it. If you’re sitting in an E shape, you know the D shape is just above and the G shape is just below, and you know it without looking. It’s like a map.

And it works in every key. The shapes stay in the same order, they just start in a different place.

Common mistakes

• Thinking the shape name is the chord name: A “D shape” at the 10th fret is not a D, it’s whatever note your root string is landing on.
• Learning five shapes and never connecting them: The value is in the seams and not the shapes.
• Trying to strum the full G shape up the neck: It’s a monster stretch and you almost never need it, so just use the parts of it.
• Skipping the roots: If you don’t know which string carries the root in each shape, you’ve memorized hand positions rather than a system.
• Doing it in only one key: Run it in C, then run the same thing in G, and it’ll click.

How to practice it

1. Pick a key. C is the easy one to start with.
2. Find that note on every string, up the whole neck.
3. Play the five shapes in order, low to high, saying the shape name out loud.
4. Then do it backwards, high to low, the way we did above.
5. Once it’s smooth, pick a different key and do the whole thing again.

I’d honestly do it backwards first, the way we walked it here. Coming down, the moves are easier to see, and once it’s in your head going down, going up makes sense wayy faster.

The full run

D shape, E shape, G shape, A shape, And then good old C.

I hope this helps you explore your fretboard a little more, and challenge your fingers in a way you have not yet. That is the feeling you get when you finally finish something on guitar and it is yours, and you can pull it out whenever you want to.