CAGED chords
The five open chord shapes — C, A, G, E, D — and how they tile the whole neck as major, minor, and dominant chords. For students who can hold the guitar and strum.
CAGED chords
Every chord shape on a guitar is one of five in disguise. Learn the open C, A, G, E, and D shapes, and you’ve learned the raw material for every major chord on the neck — then minor and dominant chords turn out to be the same shapes with one note changed. Of all the tuning systems I’ve studied on this planet, this one hides its pattern best; once you see it, the fretboard stops looking like a wall of frets and starts looking like five shapes repeating forever.
Four exercises: the five open shapes, moving them up the neck, turning them minor, and adding the seventh.
Exercises
- Exercise 00Interview✓Tell your tutor what you already know about this course's topic and what you want to get out of it.
- Exercise 01The five open shapes✓Learn the open C, A, G, E, and D major chords, get every string ringing cleanly, and loop through all five to a slow metronome.
- Exercise 02Moving the shapes up the neck✓Discover why a chord shape keeps its sound when you slide it up the neck, learn the E-form and A-form barre chords, and find the same chord in five places.
- Exercise 03Minor shapes✓Hear how lowering one note turns a major chord minor, and learn the open Am, Em, and Dm shapes plus the movable E-form and A-form minor barres.
- Exercise 04Dominant sevenths✓Add a seventh to the five shapes, learn the open C7, A7, G7, E7, and D7, the movable forms, and where dominant chords live in real music.