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The true value of the CAGED system

2,891 views · Published 23 March 2016 · 7:20 · Indexed 14 November 2026

Channel: New Secret Guitar Teacher · 2016 · Music

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CAGED system. Guitar fret board orientation. Finding notes on guitar. Comparing guitar fret board with notes on the keyboard.

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Special animation sequence of Cat in a Tumble dryer by Charlie Minnion. Visit Charlie's website: http://www.charlieminnion.com/

Video script:
Here and there on the internet you may have come across a few seemingly authoritave articles that criticize the CAGED system.

In my view the guys who have written these articles have actually done considerable damage to those guitarists seeking a better, more complete grasp of how the notes on the guitar fret board are laid out.

Once fully understood, it is easy to see that these attempts to knock the CAGED system are based on an incomplete understanding either of what the system is or of how it is best used.         

In my role as a strong advocate of the CAGED system, I have decided to run a series of lessons dedicated to helping guitar students (and some guitar teachers it would seem) better understand the system.

The CAGED system, properly learned and applied, restores to the Guitar Player the advantage that the keyboard player has when it comes to being able to easily locate notes, chords, scales, arpeggios and modes on the fret board.

One of the first things a keyboard player learns is how to use the pattern of black keys on the keyboard to locate notes. For example, the note C can always be found just to the left of the group of two black notes. And this is true no matter how far up or down the keyboard you go.

The same idea can then be applied to each of the other natural notes - each has a unique position relative to the groupings of black notes. The note D is always found between the group of two black notes...E always comes just after the group of two black notes...F is always found just before the group of three black notes ...and so on.

Compare this to how the notes are laid out on a guitar fret board and, unless you have been initiated properly into the CAGED system, you'll find yourself about as well-oriented as a cat in a tumble dryer.

Let's take a look at exactly how the arrangement of notes on a keyboard relates to those on a guitar fret board.                            

Guitars come with different fret board lengths, but I have never seen one with more than 24 frets. 24 frets gives you 4 complete octaves from bottom E to the E at fret 24 on the top string.

On a keyboard this range of notes is shown here in a nice straight line. But one major obstacle to understanding the layout of notes on a guitar is that, unlike a keyboard, the fret board has a two-dimensional layout. 

It's as if you took a two-octave stretch of keyboard from E to E to E   ...snapped it off...then stretched it... ...and squeezed it until it was just a string
Then you grabbed another two-octave chunk of keyboard ...this time from A to A to A

and used that for the next string...then a chunk from D to D to D...for the next string...G to G to G for the  next one...then B to B to B...and finally the top two octaves from E to E to E.

In effect, we have sliced up a four-octave stretch of keyboard into six chunks
and laid them next to each other. And if that was it, you would still have a reasonable grasp of what is going on with the fret board. However, because these segments all have to be effectively left-justified like this.

The result is an apparently totally random layout. And it is this mess that we inherit as the layout of notes on a guitar fret board.

In the next Sound Bite we'll look at how the CAGED system of fret board orientation comes to our rescue and helps us out of this mess.

If you found this little lesson interesting, you'll be pleased to know that on the SGT site we have a course that takes you through the CAGED system every step of the way.

It shows you how you can use it to find every note, chord, scale, arpeggio and mode; in any key you choose; in any direction; at any part of the fret board.

You can access the site from this link on the screen.... or from the link near the top of the description.

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