Howdy, my friends! Quick Q&A video here, where I answer a question about where CAGED is – and is not – helpful when it comes to learning songs.
If you’re not familiar with CAGED or the “CAGED system” or “CAGED shapes”, see my lessons linked below. It’s a short-hand way to refer to the repeating pattern of shapes (C-A-G-E-D) that are found in every key, for every chord. By learning to recognize these shapes and how they connect with each other, it really illuminates the fretboard and makes it easier to jump around.
So does it help with songs? Yes and no.
“No” in that, if you’re just learning the chords and/or riffs and/or strumming exactly how teacher demonstrates in a song tutorial — that may be all you need! No need to get deep with theory concepts that describe what it is you’re playing.
But “yes” – CAGED can help in a few ways. If you want to improvise over a song, or move a song’s riff up (or down) an octave, or play accompaniment over another musician…. knowing your CAGED shapes will help. You might also find that CAGED-shape awareness might make learning riffs easier… in that you immediately recognize any given riff is coming out of a certain CAGED shape you’ve practiced many times.
See my video for some additional context. I’m using Scarlet Begonias by the Grateful Dead as my example song here (if played in the Key of G), specifically the main riff based on the G major chord. Normally you’d just want to play this riff in open position — which doesn’t required any CAGED awareness.
But – suppose you want to move this riff ANYWHERE up the fretboard… knowing your CAGED shapes will help! And I’ll show how. Let’s get into it!
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