What Is The CAGED Theory?

The CAGED system is a method of learning all the major chords on the fingerboard.  The basic idea is that there are five basic chord shapes that your hand can take - the C, A, G, E, and D major chords.  If you learn these five positions, and which chord note (the root, third, or fifth) each string is playing, you can alter them on the fly.  Moving the whole shape up a fret produces a chord a half-step higher; placing your fingers a fret lower on the strings that produce the third of the chord produces a minor triad instead.

Because there are 5 chord shapes, this means at any position on the fingerboard you have your choice of 5 major chords.  If you can shift one position in either direction, you have your choice of 15 (though there is some overlap -- when you have two positions for the same chord, you'd probably choose which one to use based on what chord you were going to after).

In other words, because of the relationships between the strings, the C-chord shape will always produce a major triad.  Which fret you play it at (which position you play it in, to be technical) determines what chord you actually play.  And if you know that in the C-chord shape, the note you play on the first and sixth strings is the third of the chord, you can change the fingering to make those strings sound a half-step lower and change the chord from a major chord to a minor chord.

The C-A-G-E-D system gives a memory trick for the sequence of chord forms that any single chord will move through as it travels up the neck.  Every one of these open chord forms could also be built as a barre chord and moved up the neck (though sometimes the fingering is tricky).

The fun part is that if you begin with a C chord, you can follow the word CAGED to play all of the inversions of a C chord going up the neck.  First you have C in the open position.  The next C chord is a barre chord at the third fret which takes the form, or shape, of an A chord.  The next one will be a barre at the fifth fret, form of a G chord.  Then a barre at the eighth fret, form of an E chord.  Finally, a barre at the tenth fret, form of a D chord.

The reason we make such a big deal about the word CAGED is because of the order of the letters in the word.  It is also the cycle of barre chord forms that EVERY chord takes as it repeats itself up the neck.  The series of forms repeats itself in order, so that if you start with, say, "E," the next form up the neck will be a D form (barre 2nd fret), then a C form (barre 4th fret), then the A form (barre 7th fret), then the G form (barre 9th fret).

Now let's play stump the guitar geek.  So what about chords that aren't in those five letters?  How about, say, "F?"  Well, your basic F chord with a barre at the first fret is really just an E form moved up, right?  So the next F chord will take the form of what chord shape?  If you said a D form (from a barre at fret 3), put a gold star on your pick.