Moving the shapes up the neck

The open shapes from last time seem stuck at the end of the neck — they lean on open strings. This exercise unsticks them. A shape slid up the neck is the same chord quality with a new name, and the barre is the trick that brings the open strings along.

Why a shape survives the move

A chord is major because of the distances between its notes, not the notes themselves. Slide every note of an E major chord up one fret and every distance is preserved — the result must still be a major chord. The only thing that changed is the root, so only the name changes: one fret up from E is F, so the chord is F major.

The catch: open strings don’t slide. Your fingers moved up one fret, but the open strings stayed at fret zero. The fix is to bring the nut with you.

The barre: a movable nut

Lay your index finger flat across all six strings and it does the nut’s old job. The remaining fingers make the old E shape above it. This is the E-form barre chord:

E-form barre at fret 1 (F major)
  E A D G B e
1 1 1 1 1 1 1   ← index barres all six strings
2 . . . 2 . .
3 . 3 4 . . .

(Diagrams as before: columns are strings, low E leftmost; digits are fingers.)

Barre survival tips: press close behind the fret, roll the index slightly onto its edge rather than its soft pad, and let the arm pull back toward your body instead of squeezing with the thumb alone. Pluck string by string — the G and B strings die first. A clean barre takes most humans days to weeks; keep visiting it.

Naming the chord: find the root

In the E form, the root sits under your barre on the low E string. Know that string and you can name every E-form chord:

Low E string:  fret 1=F  2=F#  3=G  4=G#  5=A  6=A#  7=B  8=C  9=C#  10=D  11=D#  12=E

Barre at fret 3 with the E shape: G major. Fret 5: A major. Fret 8: C major.

The A-form barre works the same way, with its root on the A string:

A-form barre at fret 2 (B major)
  E A D G B e
2 x 1 . . . 1   ← index barres; skip the low E
3 . . . . . .
4 . . 2 3 4 .

A string:  fret 2=B  3=C  5=D  7=E  8=F  10=G  12=A

Many players flatten the ring finger across the D, G, and B strings instead of using three fingers, letting the high e go silent. That’s fine.

One chord, five places

Here’s the payoff of the name CAGED. Take C major. Play it as the open C shape; then the same notes’ worth of chord appears again and again up the neck, each time wearing the next shape in the sequence C → A → G → E → D:

C major, five ways
C form   open position
A form   barre at fret 3
G form   around fret 5
E form   barre at fret 8
D form   around fret 10

After the D form the sequence wraps around to C again at fret 12. Any chord, anywhere: the five shapes tile the whole neck, in that fixed order. You don’t need to play all five today — the G, C, and D forms make awkward barres — but the E and A forms alone already put every major chord within reach.