CAGED Part 1: The CAGED System

T he CAGED system is a way to look at the fretboard that will allow you to learn scales, chords

and arpeggios all the way up the neck. By the end of this tutorial you should be able to construct the
pattern for any scale or arpeggio yourself all the way up the guitar neck. This may seem daunting,
but by the end of this section I hope you will see that it’s quite achievable.
The system breaks the neck up into 5 positions and you can then learn your scales and other
material in each of these 5 positions. This material is a great next step in viewing the fretboard after
your proficient in the scales taught in my guitar scales section.
First I’ll detail how the five positions are formed and where they are. We will then look at the major
scale in each of the 5 positions. Following this, I’ll show you how to view each of the 5 positions in
terms of intervals and how to use this so that you can construct the pattern for any scale or arpeggio
in any of these 5 positions yourself simply by knowing the intervals that comprise the scale.

Forming the 5 Positions

5 Open Chords
Lets start by looking at the 5 most common open chords:
My guess is if your reading this you will already know these chords, but if not you can learn these
chords and some other open chords in the open chords section of the site.
The red dot on each of the chords is the root of the chord and will indicate which chord it is. So for
example the red dots on the C chord are all C’s on the guitar neck. The red dots on the E chord are
all E’s and this is the case for all 5 chords.

Forming Barre Chords From Our 5 Open Chords

The next step is to form barre chords out of each of these 5 chords. This involves moving the chord
shape up the neck and using a barre to play what was the open strings in the original chord. If we
play these barre chords on the 5th fret we have:
You can see that each of these chords corresponds to one of our original open chords. For example,
the A barre chord here corresponds to the E shape of the original open chord. My guess is most
readers will be familiar with this chord. Similarly the D chord here corresponds to the shape of the A
open chord. You do not need to be proficient at playing all these barre chords. For example the
barre chord based on the G open chord is quite difficult. We are looking at this material more to
understand how to find the CAGED positions.

Once again, the root notes are in red and occupy the corresponding position that they did in our
open chords. As we are now on a different fret the root note will be different than for the open chords
above, so for example we have an A chord that uses the shape of the E open chord as the root
notes are A’s when played at the 5th fret.

Those of you familiar with barre chords will realise that each of these chords can be played
anywhere up the neck. A you move them to a different position, the root note changes and therefore
the chord name also changes. For example, using the barre chord formed from the E shaped open
chord we could have G, A or C chords on the 3rd, 5th or 8th fret as follows:

To know what a chord is when it is moved like this you need to know the notes of the fretboard so
you can tell what the root note is. I recommend learning this through our guitar notes fretboard
trainer.
5 Patterns for Each Chord
Once we’ve gotten this far, we have 5 chord shapes that can be used to form any major chord by
moving them up and down the neck. This also means we can play any major chord in 5 positions
using a different one of these shapes.

For example, if we are playing a D chord, we can form 5 different D chords in different positions
using these 5 patterns as follows:
Note that each of these chords is now played in the position up the neck where the red dot, or root
note will now be a D, giving us our D chords. This also means that the fret that each of these chords
is played at is different for each shape.

These 5 positions are the 5 CAGED positions in the key of D and can be viewed as:
We will name thee positions based on the open chord shape that ws initially used in deriving the
position such as the E shaped position, the A shaped position and so on.

To give another example, if we are in the key of B, we can find the 5 CAGED positions by positioning
each of these barre chords to be B chords as follows:
As you can see the fret that each position is played at is different depending on the key. For
example, B has the same corresponding CAGED positions as A but located at different frets so the
root notes are Bs.
This illustrates how to find the 5 CAGED positions on the fretboard in any key. A few things to note
here. The order of these positions is always the same and is the same as in the name “CAGED”.
The position corresponding to the C shape is followed by the position corresponding to the A shape,
which is followed by G, then E, then D and then back to C again.

Additionally, with the 5 positions, the entire fretboard is now covered. There is no region of the
fretboard that doesn’t fit into one of these 5 positions.

Also, using the fretboard trainer to learn the fretboard notes so you can find any given root note on
the fretboard will be quite a task in itself. As your learning this you can start to get by through
knowing the notes on the bottom 3 strings and finding a position by its lowest root note.
We have used these major chords to find our 5 positions, but you can form any chords, scale or
arpeggio in any of these positions. They are not limited to major chords. In order to do this it is useful
to view the position simply in terms of the root notes and remove the other chord tones. I the key of
D, our 5 CAGED positions with root notes are as follows:
And similarly in the key of B this would be:
Another way to view these patterns is the position of your hand relative to the lowest root note:

The E shaped pattern has a root note on the 6th string and you tend to play other notes at that fret or
higher frets.

The A shaped pattern has a root note on the 5th string and you tend to play other notes at that fret or
higher frets.

The D shaped pattern has a root note on the 4th string and you tend to play other notes at that fret
or higher frets.

The G shaped pattern has a root note on the 6th string and you tend to play other notes at that fret
or lower frets.
The C shaped pattern has a root note on the 5th string and you tend to play other notes at that fret
or lower frets.

Finally, these positions are also often referred to by an alternative numbering name as follows:

E Shaped Position: Position 1

D Shaped Position: Position 2
C Shaped Position: Position 3
A Shaped Position: Position 4
G Shaped Position: Position 5

In the next section we’ll take a look at the major scale in all 5 CAGED positions.

CAGED Part 2: The Major Scale

The Major Scale in All 5 CAGED Positions

T he next step is to learn the major scale in all 5 CAGED positions. To form the major scale for a

CAGED position, we take the position with just the root notes then add the other notes of the major
scale to that position.
This forms the 5 positions of the major scale as follows:
For each of these, the red dot is the root note as it was when we were looking at our barre chords
and will indicate the key of the major scale. For example if you play one of these patterns at a fret
where the red dots would be A then you would be playing A major.

If you are not familiar with the major scale, I recommend reading about it at our major scale lesson.
You should memorize and become familiar with all of these major scale patterns. In order to do this I
recommend practicing the scale ascending and descending and do this with great repetition. When
you do this you should start the scale at the lowest root note, ascend to the top, descend to the
bottom then ascend to the root note again. By starting and finishing on the root note this should help
ingrain the sound of the major scale. You should then practice sequences of these patterns. You can
read about this in our page on scale sequences. After this you can start to come up with licks and
phrases on the scale and start to play over backing tracks. You can find backing tracks for the major
scale at our major scale backing tracks resource.
In the next section we will see how to view each of these positions in terms of intervals that will allow
you to construct any scale or arpeggio all the way up the neck.

CAGED Part 3: Intervals

Viewing the Positions in Terms of Intervals

N ow that we are familiar with the 5 positions and the major scale in each position the next step is

to start to view each position in terms of intervals.

At some stage I’ll devote a full section of the site to intervals but for our purposes here, lets take a bit
of a simplified look at what intervals are.

An interval is essentially the distance between two notes. You can see this distance as the number
of frets between two notes on the same string.

Looking at the major scale on a single string, we could number the notes of the scale as follows:

Each number here refers to an interval between the root note (the red dot) and the numbered note.
The names of these 7 intervals are as follows:

1: Unison
2: Major 2nd
3: Major 3rd
4: Perfect 4th
5: Perfect 5th
6: Major 6th
7: Major 7th

We can then number the notes not in the major scale by using the number of the major scale note
that is 1 note up and putting a b (flat) in front of the number.

We then have:

Each of these new flattened notes also forms an interval with the root of the scale. These intervals
are called:

b2: minor 2nd

b3: minor 3rd
b5: diminished 5th
b6: minor 6th
b7: minor 7th
This same numbering scheme can be applied to the major scale in the CAGED system as well as
the major scale on a single string. Looking at the major scale with the E shaped CAGED position we
can number the notes as follows:

Note here that once we get to the 7th note, the next note is the root. We are only going to look at
intervals in terms of their distance of a note to its next lowest root here so the numbering goes back
to 1 and starts again for the next octave.

These numberings refer to the same intervals for the major scale on a single string but are simply
placed across all strings in a position.

We can then go through this process and number the notes of the major scale relative to their root
note for the other CAGED positions and we get:
At this point you want to go back to the guitar and continue practicing your major scale in all 5
positions but you want to start to see each note you play in terms of the number here. You might
want to play the scale slowly and think the number your playing to yourself as you play it, or even
say it out loud. You could then practice this with the scale sequences and your own phrases based
on the major scale.

This is best learned at the fretboard while playing the scale rather than trying to memorize it from the
diagrams I’m showing. Use the diagrams to understand the concept and ingrain the numbers while
playing the scale on the guitar.

Once you feel you have a good grasp of the number of each note, you need to recognise that the
notes between the major scale notes are also our flattened notes. Similarly to when we formed these
intervals on a single string, each number is the number of the major scale note that is a note up, but
flattened.
In our CAGED positions, this then allows us to number all of the notes in all the positions as follows:

I’m providing these diagrams for you to understand the concept, but similarly to the major scale
notes you want to start to recognise these flattened notes on the fretboard while playing rather than
memorising the diagrams. Use what you’ve learned with the major scale as the basis and recognise
the flattened intervals by the major scale note next to the interval.

We have now looked at each CAGED position in terms of the intervals that comprise each note in
the position relative to the root note of the position. A proper treatment of intervals would be a bit
different that what I’ve presented here, but I think this is the best introduction for the purpose of
seeing these intervals in the CAGED position.
Viewing Scales and Arpeggios in Terms of their
Intervals
Using these intervals, you should be able to see that the major scale is constructed using the
intervals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. It is possible to define any scale or arpeggio in terms of which of these
intervals comprise the scale.

Lets look at the old faithful Minor Pentatonic.

It is composed of the intervals: 1, b3, 4, 5, b7

Using this and our interval knowledge of the CAGED positions, we can then form the pattern for this
scale in each position. Take the E shaped position which we have seen has the intervals:

Now simply pick out the notes that are 1, b3, 4, 5, and b7 and we have our common minor
pentatonic shape:
Remove the number from the chart and you have the familiar pattern:

You can then apply this to all 5 positions to form the minor pentatonic shape in all CAGED positions
all the way up the fretboard.

Lets take another example. Lets form the dorian in the C Shaped CAGED position.

The dorian is formed from the intervals: 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, 6, b7

The intervals of the C shaped CAGED position are:

Filling in these dorian intervals here we have:

And if we remove the numbering from the chart we have a dorian scale as follows:

I hope this has illustrated how to form the pattern of any scale or arpeggio in any of the CAGED
position by simply knowing the intervals that comprise the scale.

I would start to devote regular practice time to picking a different scale or arpeggio and figuring out
the pattern for it in all 5 positions on the fretboard using your interval knowledge we ingrained with
the major scale. This will not only allow you to form scale patterns yourself but also further ingrain
your knowledge of the intervals in the CAGED positions while you do this.

You would then also treat the repetitive playing of the pattern to ingrain it as a different exercise but I
see value to slowly constructing these patterns in its own right.

You should know the intervals that comprise any scale or arpeggio you learn as part of learning the
scale and I’ll provide the interval formulas here of a number of scales and arpeggios so you can
practice forming the patterns, then go on to practice the patterns if you want to also master the
scale:
Major Scale: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Minor Pentatonic Scale: 1, b3, 4, 5, b7
Blues Scale: 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7
Natural Minor Scale: 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7
Dorian Mode: 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, 6, b7
Mixolydian Mode: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, b7
Phrygian Mode: 1, b2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7
Major Pentatonic Scale: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6
Harmonic Minor Scale: 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, 7
Melodic Minor Scale (Jazz Form): 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Phrygian Dominant Scale: 1, b2, 3, 4, 5, b6, b7

Major Arpeggio: 1, 3, 5
Minor Arpeggio: 1, b3, 5
Diminished Arpeggio, 1, b3, b5
Major 7th Arpeggio: 1, 3, 5, 7
Minor 7th Arpeggio: 1, b3, 5, b7
Dominant 7th Arpeggio: 1, 3, 5, b7

These formulas should provide ample material for you to practice forming the patterns in the CAGED
positions from the formulas.

I hope this has been helpful!