About This Lesson

In this lesson I return to the topic of CAGED, and demonstrate how any of the five shapes gives us all we need to play a chord, arpeggio, pentatonic, or diatonic scale. This realization was incredibly helpful for me, as I initially thought CAGED was only use for playing chords up & down the neck.

In my video I show a few ways to approach practicing all this, even if we stick to just one of the CAGED shapes. But remember — everything I show here can be used in all five shapes, whether major or minor!

• 0:00 Guthrie Trapp’s Example
• 1:06 What is CAGED?
• 2:53 Practice Idea - Chord & Arpeggio
• 6:07 Practice Idea - Add the Pentatonic Scale
• 8:22 Practice Idea - Add the Major Scale
• 10:26 Final Advice

Instructional PDF 11 pages

Lesson Discussion

Audio Practice Tracks

Here’s a bunch of single-note jam tracks I made you can use when practicing, as I demonstrate in my video lesson. Because these are single note tracks (played by the bass and synthesizer), you can use either major or minor CAGED shapes when practicing. Each track is ~5 minutes long, which make for great bite-sized practice sessions.

Just be sure you pick the correct track per the root note you’re using – and not the shape you’re practicing! For example, if you’re using the C practice track, find a “C” on the fretboard and use that as your root note in any of the corresponding CAGED shapes. If you’re new to the CAGED shapes, I might suggest starting with the E shape (sixth string root) or A shape (fifth string root).

Guthrie Trapp’s Video on this topic

Here’s the YouTube video from Guthrie Trapp that I cite in my lesson above. Let me note that Guthrie’s YouTube videos are not step-by-step tutorials. Rather, he focuses on improvisation and inspiration — showing what’s possible with the techniques he demonstrates. I absolutely love his videos for this reason — they never fail to fire me up with encouragement and motivation. See Guthrie’s website for additional information on his online courses, tour dates, albums, and newsletter.

Related Lessons I’ve Made

Here’s a list of other recommended lessons I’ve made that may help with this lesson. These tackle CAGED, arpeggios, playing scales, reading fretboard diagrams, and using scale degrees.

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