Be A Better Acoustic Guitarist: How to Master the CAGED System

The CAGED chord system—a visual aid based on the open-chord shapes C, A, G, E, and D—can be a terrific ally for navigating the guitar fretboard. If you’ve done any work with the major-triad version of this system, you know something about its versatility. And as you might imagine, dominant-seventh CAGED chords—remember, major triads with flatted sevenths added—can be equally useful. You might already know many if not all of the chord grips, but in this lesson you’ll move them up and down the neck of the guitar and find new ways of connecting the shapes in some common chord progressions. You can use these CAGED chord shapes on any song you know and with any luck, the system will become a tool that will help stimulate your creativity.