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It's a good system for seeing chord shapes and will help you get a more complete understanding of the fretboard. Hopefully though, once you have it figured out, you stop thinking about all the boxes.
We all think and remember things a little differently. CAGED may drive some people nuts.
I learned triads up and down the neck in string groupings of 3. Eventually I just saw all the chord shapes and how they link up. I stumbled upon what the CAGED system tries to teach. Building blocks.
It's a good system for seeing chord shapes and will help you get a more complete understanding of the fretboard. Hopefully though, once you have it figured out, you stop thinking about all the boxes.
We all think and remember things a little differently. CAGED may drive some people nuts.
I learned triads up and down the neck in string groupings of 3. Eventually I just saw all the chord shapes and how they link up. I stumbled upon what the CAGED system tries to teach. Building blocks.
That CAGED map of the fretboard never “disappears”, it is always there.
There are other “maps” through the fret board such as triad shapes, and such as three-note per string patterns.
However, if you wish to play “in position”, where your fretting hand may not move from a 4 to 6 fret area on the fretboard, CAGED shapes are just what will be under your fingers.
What I would really like to get across is this:
You are in open position and can only play notes to the 4th fret as that’s how far your fingers can teach.
Play an open E chord; now letter-name every note in that position; and then NUMBER-NAME every note in that position.
The notes in THAT E chord-shape are 1-5-1-3-5-1.
NOW: assign a NUMBER-NAME to every other note available in that position.
Here is both E strings:
1-b2-2-b3–3 (in the key of E).
Do that for all 5 CAGED shapes of E.
I have never seen anyone else teach this; it works extremely well.
- Dave
 
That CAGED map of the fretboard never “disappears”, it is always there.
There are other “maps” through the fret board such as triad shapes, and such as three-note per string patterns.
However, if you wish to play “in position”, where your fretting hand may not move from a 4 to 6 fret area on the fretboard, CAGED shapes are just what will be under your fingers.
What I would really like to get across is this:
You are in open position and can only play notes to the 4th fret as that’s how far your fingers can teach.
Play an open E chord; now letter-name every note in that position; and then NUMBER-NAME every note in that position.
The notes in THAT E chord-shape are 1-5-1-3-5-1.
NOW: assign a NUMBER-NAME to every other note available in that position.
Here is both E strings:
1-b2-2-b3–3 (in the key of E).
Do that for all 5 CAGED shapes of E.
I have never seen anyone else teach this; it works extremely well.
- Dave
No, that's all good. I've just stopped thinking about that kind of thing maybe 20 years ago. These days I just kind of play- more instinctively and less worried about "hand position" and stuff like that.
 
I know and use almost all of the caged shapes. I'm not sure if learning that system is something I would teach to somebody. My perception of it is that it has taken me a long time to now STOP thinking caged and just let the notes run together. Sometimes I can get it to work, but sometimes my brain flags a 'full stop' because I inadvertently followed my ear and moved into something more modal halfway through a pattern. Which of course happens every time you want to focus on adding more color. I mean its a great system for a rock rhythm player - I know that no matter where I am I have (at the minimum) major and minor chords under my fingers and I don't have to think about that much anymore. Want to solo over a fast G6 -> F6/9 change, you had better be prepared to think differently.

Of course, I have never been a person who could just learn by ear and accept it, I like, or even need, to learn what makes it tick - key, scale, mode, etc. I'm not sure there is a perfect system, If I had to learn again, I would want someone to teach me nothing other than chord tone patterns, i.e. arpeggios. Then let me fill in the other blanks later on. You can cover a lot of ground with 1,3,5, plus one bonus color tone.

C
 
Oh crap. That homesreen that suggests posts gets me everytime. I always assume they are new posts.

Uggh.
C
 
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