Chords Up The Neck: First Steps

Lesson #635 • Oct 30, 2025

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About This Lesson

In today’s lesson I’ll teach you recommended first steps for playing chords up the neck. This is a topic 4 different members on the Song Notes website have emailed me about in the past couple months, so I’m excited to offer this lesson for all those who want to add this ability to their guitar skillset.

My aim is to keep this as simple as possible: I’ll focus on major chords, show 3 must-know shapes for each chord, and don’t get bogged down in the rich details of CAGED, triads, or moveable open chords.

Don’t miss my print-friendly practice guide… it’s 8 pages worth of rich diagrams and visuals to help you visually connect the dots. I also include several bonus pages I don’t go too deep into during my lesson, including minor shapes and CAGED.

0:00 Lesson Overview
2:01 Shape 1 for G
5:49 Shape 1 for G, C, D
9:32 Shape 2 for G, C D
15:29 Shape 3 for G, C D
19:43 All Shapes, Mix & Match
22:26 This Works for All Chords
24:01 Farewell & Next Steps

Instructional PDF 8 pages

Lesson Discussion

Jam Tracks

Here’s some play-along jam tracks for you to use while practicing. These mimic the jam track I use during my lesson. Each track is slow, played at 60bpm, in 4/4 time. Chord changes are shown on screen. For each key, I’m going through the same I-IV-V-IV progression, which is a great way to practice the three major chords found in each of the most common keys.

Key of C

Key of D

Key of E

Key of G

Key of A

Here’s a few lessons I’ve made if you want to go further with the up-the-neck topic, specifically regarding CAGED and triads. Print-friendly guides are available for most of these lessons, which you can find on each lesson page.

Barre Chord Strength Training Exercise (Left Index Finger)

Barre Chords & How to Avoid Them

Simpler Ways to Play F Major

★ Instructional PDF

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Chords Up The Neck: First Steps

About This Lesson

Instructional PDF 8 pages

Lesson Discussion

Jam Tracks

Key of C

Key of D

Key of E

Key of G

Key of A

Related and Recommended

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Browse Related Lessons

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