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  #31  
Old 06-21-2017, 10:08 AM
jimrivera jimrivera is offline
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Originally Posted by SunnyDee View Post
Beautiful. This one shows how they fit together in a scale, too.

http://www.dee.email/OPEN/triadcolorsscale.jpg
Here are the forms/patterns for the scales (major, major pent, min pent):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5za72eaw01...0pent.pdf?dl=0
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  #32  
Old 06-21-2017, 10:12 AM
SunnyDee SunnyDee is offline
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Originally Posted by jimrivera View Post
Here are the forms/patterns for the scales (major, major pent, min pent):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5za72eaw01...0pent.pdf?dl=0
Yes, these are scales vertically in a "box." The other pic is scales (the major in this case) horizontally along the neck. Both are good stuff.

This set of boxes is an example of one of the "shapes" that I would look at differently, though. Most people feel they need to memorize each different shape as if they are unrelated. I see them as just one shape for each scale, because the scale intervals are always the same. It doesn't seem different to me to start in a different place or on a different finger. I start on any scale degree in any key and make the same intervals from there to where I'm going.
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  #33  
Old 06-21-2017, 09:11 PM
mattbn73 mattbn73 is offline
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CAGED thinking is a good basic reference for major chords. Once you start getting into minor and such, you get into parallel-versus-relative-minor relationships and I would think the value of naming things that way diminishes , but I never really learned a method for it out of a book or anything.

As far as G shapes and their usefulness, I wouldn't have thought anyone ever uses the FULL shapes, but that's not really the point. The partials based around G shape are some of the most valuable in lead playing.

"Gimme Three Steps" and the bridge to "Sweet Home Alabama" are classic G-form licks. I'd certainly think of them as chord licks more than just single note licks. There are countless others.
But it's about partials. Any open G chord based lick - bluegrass or rock – can be played up the neck, but I think it's a waste to ONLY learn them as if they're static block chords. I don't think that's the point.

Last edited by mattbn73; 06-21-2017 at 09:17 PM.
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  #34  
Old 06-22-2017, 10:29 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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I haven't read this whole thread, but I agree with mattbn73. The shapes are things you visualize, to help map out the fretboard and see patterns.

I taught myself the fretboard, many decades ago, spotting that chord shapes were a handy memory aid. I was using capos a lot too, which was also revealing. (I still remember the revelation when I discovered you could play an F chord as x-8-7-5-6-5. This was when I was still struggling with the 1st fret barre, and this higher position was a lot easier. Hey, it looks like a C shape...)

The capo also made it obvious that a "G" shape on 3rd fret gave you a Bb chord, and "D" shape gave you F.

It was a kind of no-brainer to work the fretboard out in this way.

I also knew all my major scales in open position, and saw how they fitted around the chord shapes. So it was equally obvious that if I played (say) an E major chord in a C shape at fret 4, then the open position C major scale pattern could be moved up 4 frets with it. (And of course all the other chords in the key came from the same notes too.)

This didn't seem like some amazing discovery, it was just obviously how the fretboard worked. It was many years later that I discovered people called this "the CAGED system", and wrote books on it! People made money out of describing something that's staring us all in the face!

Of course, if you learn the fretboard in some other way, CAGED might seem pointless, or confusing (why use those names for the shapes?)
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  #35  
Old 06-22-2017, 11:57 AM
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My experience was much like that described by JonPR, a rather 'organic' development. I used various shapes from a chord book that I have lost a long time ago which made it clear that the same shape could be moved as needed. I used them as I needed and never learned them by rote, and at wouldn't have understood if someone referred to the CAGED system. I see systems like that more as a framework, a reference rather than something that needs to be learned from A to Z...
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  #36  
Old 06-22-2017, 01:51 PM
rbachman rbachman is offline
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Originally Posted by jimrivera View Post
I created two study guides to help - BUT THEY ARE for LEFTHANDED players so the diagrams need to be reversed for righties:
Thanks I am lefty !!
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  #37  
Old 06-22-2017, 02:18 PM
zhunter zhunter is offline
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Maybe a little more complicated than CAGED but I much prefer a method taught to me way before CAGED was identified as a system.

Every scale builds a chord series. Take the I chord and voice it root on first string. Then develop shapes for all the chords in the sequence I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, VII such that they fall within two or three of frets as much as possible. Do the same thing, I chord root on 2nd string, third string etc. Along the way, it will become obvious that shapes repeat since the roots on the different strings are close to the same frets (1st and 6th string as an obvious example). If you can't figure out the shapes, get a chord resource to guide you.

Staying within the narrow confines of a few frets and working across the fretboard to find chords and not up and down will develop fretboard knowledge, expose voice leading strategies because it be more apparent where the common tones lie and economy of movement since all chords are close. I like to think of it as angular versus the more linear up and down the neck approach. When the whole exercise is done, I won't guarantee you will want to use every shape, but I guarantee you will find some very handy ones. And your playing will be much more compact. And never stop looking for shapes. As familiarity grows, that is when happy accidents start to occur.

This approach ultimately arrives at a similar place to CAGED but with much broader scope since all diatonic chord shapes are addressed.

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  #38  
Old 06-22-2017, 04:17 PM
s0cks s0cks is offline
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CAGED, in essence, is just how the different chord shapes lock together up the fretboard. If you start with open G, the next G is the E-shape rooted on 3rd fret, the next is the D shape rooted on 5th fret, then C, etc....

However, the phrase CAGED method or CAGED system seems to be used interchangeably for many different learning techniques. E.g. the 5 box CAGED method.
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  #39  
Old 06-22-2017, 06:04 PM
mattbn73 mattbn73 is offline
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Originally Posted by s0cks View Post
CAGED, in essence, is just how the different chord shapes lock together up the fretboard. If you start with open G, the next G is the E-shape rooted on 3rd fret, the next is the D shape rooted on 5th fret, then C, etc....

However, the phrase CAGED method or CAGED system seems to be used interchangeably for many different learning techniques. E.g. the 5 box CAGED method.
Yep.

The whole "system/method" notion irritates me, as it seems to confuse everyone who is unfamiliar with it. It's just not. It's like talking about the "F-A-C-E system" or "Every Good Boy Does Fine" method. It's simply a basic layout acronym. Pretty helpful for being that, but that's basically all that it is.

Individual methods with "CAGED" in the title are just THAT: individual methods.
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  #40  
Old 06-22-2017, 06:17 PM
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Originally Posted by jimrivera View Post

I got the concept, but mastering the roughly 55 shapes is what is the issue. I have gotten about 22 so far, and am starting the next set of 22.
55 shapes????? My GOD man, divide that by 11 and that's all you need! I manage with only 5 shapes, two of which you probably already know, which are in the form of your Major bar chords. The trick, if you can call it that, is knowing where your root notes are within those shapes. Once you have those down, it's a matter of moving them up and down the fingerboard.

I usually tell my students to learn the 5 shapes in one key, moving them up and down the neck. Then they'll learn the next key, and the next, using those same, exact shapes. By the time they're doing the 3rd or 4th key, (even sooner than that), they see exactly how it all falls into place.
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  #41  
Old 06-22-2017, 07:19 PM
jimrivera jimrivera is offline
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Originally Posted by Toby Walker View Post
55 shapes????? My GOD man, divide that by 11 and that's all you need! I manage with only 5 shapes, two of which you probably already know, which are in the form of your Major bar chords. The trick, if you can call it that, is knowing where your root notes are within those shapes. Once you have those down, it's a matter of moving them up and down the fingerboard.

I usually tell my students to learn the 5 shapes in one key, moving them up and down the neck. Then they'll learn the next key, and the next, using those same, exact shapes. By the time they're doing the 3rd or 4th key, (even sooner than that), they see exactly how it all falls into place.
Yes, its 11 per shape. The advantage of knowing them is the ability to play the same chord, say Emin7b5, in many different places all over the neck, depending upon what string the root is on. The C-shape has a 5th string root like the A-shape, but will sound differently as each pulls in different adjacent notes to form the chord.

Knowing more of the system provides the player with much more flexibility in terms of playing, it provides a vast selection of chord in one's tool chest.
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  #42  
Old 06-22-2017, 07:31 PM
stanron stanron is offline
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The CAGED system can be about a whole lot more than just chords. As JonPR said you can link scales to each of those chord shapes and use those scales to play melodically or improvise in any key anywhere on the fretboard. Around each of those five shapes you can visualise a root, IV and V. There will also be a ii, a iii and a vi. Of course most of this information is only going to be of use if your playing is up to the standard where you can actually play with it.

It's not the case that you have to learn CAGED before you play melodies or scales. You'ld do just as well or be better off learning lots of tunes first.
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  #43  
Old 06-22-2017, 07:35 PM
jimrivera jimrivera is offline
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Thanks I am lefty !!
Have you found any of the charts useful?
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  #44  
Old 06-22-2017, 07:45 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jimrivera View Post
Yes, its 11 per shape. The advantage of knowing them is the ability to play the same chord, say Emin7b5, in many different places all over the neck, depending upon what string the root is on. The C-shape has a 5th string root like the A-shape, but will sound differently as each pulls in different adjacent notes to form the chord.

Knowing more of the system provides the player with much more flexibility in terms of playing, it provides a vast selection of chord in one's tool chest.
What actual songs are you playing that you have been putting this to use?
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  #45  
Old 06-23-2017, 06:27 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jimrivera View Post
Yes, its 11 per shape. The advantage of knowing them is the ability to play the same chord, say Emin7b5, in many different places all over the neck, depending upon what string the root is on. The C-shape has a 5th string root like the A-shape, but will sound differently as each pulls in different adjacent notes to form the chord.

Knowing more of the system provides the player with much more flexibility in terms of playing, it provides a vast selection of chord in one's tool chest.
Yes, but I think that the system as it is described has too much density for its own good. Years ago, before anyone ever heard of this system, we learned how chords and scales worked together in by harmonizing them first and then applying that to the fingerboard by means of identifying where the root notes were. While it took some work, it was much less complicated in structure than the 55 shape CAGED system.... at least in my experience.

For what it's worth, many of the old-time jazz and blues players rarely depended on scales other than perhaps as exercises. Instead, they depended on improvising around the melodies creating variations and inventing motifs.

Not to say that learning the system is wrong. If it works for you, then all the power to you. Personally, I think there are easier methods for learning the fingerboard, but that's just me.
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