In this final installment of the CAGED Basics Series, we're back to the beginning examining the share zone between the E shape and D shape. We discuss how all these CAGED Shapes are the only available triads on the fingerboard, and explore the vast variety of ways to approach interesting voicings.
The homework helps hammer this fact in, and the practice sections open you up to the whole fingerboard, exploring different ways to actually play with the CAGED System.
While this is the final installment of the series, I'm planning to build on this foundation with future CAGED System lessons that continue to really dig into useful, practical ways to use this cool system to get to know the fingerboard, get to know music theory, and achieve more fingerboard freedom in your own creations.
Welcome to the final shape in this series: the E shape. You are probably already familiar with this shape! It's one of the most common bar chords and usually the first movable shape folks learn on guitar. In this lesson, we put it all over the fingerboard and show how it connects to the G shape. In the next lesson, we'll put all the shapes together!
Post your homework and questions on the community forum and please post some audio or video of your practice sessions if you find some voicings of G and E shapes that you enjoy!
Here is the Jam Track: A Major I IV V IV Also attached below in mp3 form.
Once you're familiar with the relationship between these two shapes, move on to the final lesson in this series.
This is the fourth installment of my CAGED Basics series, where we tackle the G shape. This shape shares three notes with the A shape and has some nice familiar voicings.
In this lesson we're talking about the A shape, which is linked to the C shape. Just like the previous lessons, we dive into the variety of triad voicings we can get out of the A Shape as well as the most common 4, 5, and 6 string versions of this movable chord shape. We also talk about how the A shape connects to the C shape and how you can get some interesting movement between the two shapes.
In this third installment of my CAGED Basics series, I show the similarities and differences between the D Shape and the C shape and how they are linked together to create an awesome map of roots, thirds, and fifths. We also work through some homework together AND I show some fun examples of how to practice the surprising variety of voicings you can play to a chord progression between these two shapes.
Post your homework and questions on the community forum and please post some audio or video of your practice sessions if you find some voicings of C and D shapes that you enjoy!
Here is the Jam Track: A Major I IV V IV Also attached below in mp3 form.
Once you're familiar with the relationship between these two shapes. move on to the A shape.
This is the second installment of my CAGED Basics series, where we focus on getting to know the D Shape. While this might seem like a simple concept at first, getting comfortable with the variety of voicings the D Shape has to offer can take a bit of work! The more time you spend getting to know each shape in this series, the easier it will be to move on to the next lesson.
This lesson is fairly straightforward, especially if you've already worked through my Music Theory for Guitar Course. Work through the homework with me and then try out the practice tracks - even tab out some of your own D shaped chord voicings! These concepts apply to rhythm guitar, soloing, and just general creative guitar knowledge. By the end of this series you'll have a much stronger sense of how to navigate the fingerboard. Look out for the next lesson, where we discuss the intricacies of the C shape and how it connects to the D shape.
Here is the jam track I used for this lesson: A Major I IV V IV
I've also attached an audio version of the jam track at a variety of speeds. You'll find it with the PDFs at the bottom of this page.
Post your homework and questions on the community forum. Also, if you come up with some nice D shape voicings during the practice session, please post what you find, whether that is an audio recording, video link, or tabs!
This lesson kicks off my new CAGED System Basics series. In this overview lesson I give you a sense of what we'll be working on over the next handful of lessons in the series. Check out the PDF as well!
The following lessons will have homework sheets to help you visualize the concepts AND play along practice tracks for you to explore and experiment with using CAGED shapes in your own way!
The general idea of this series is to get you really comfortable with:
a) what the CAGED System is at it's core
b) how to get familiar with the 5 shapes
c) playing rhythm parts up the neck AND knowing their shape names
I highly recommend you watch the Music Theory for Guitar Series before getting into this series, otherwise you might get a little lost.
