pentatonic, CAGED etc clear guide and maybe exercises

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

CAGED is referred to as a "system" because it is a systematic means of seeing the fretboard.

Right.

What I was trying to say was that it's often promoted as if it's some kind of secret, or a method that you apply, to "unlock the mystery" of the fretboard, when it's actually staring you in the face when you see it. It's obvious - a natural result of learning the 5 major "cowboy" chord shapes. We all learn those (or should!) before ever thinking about venturing up the fretboard.

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by Starter

Hi,

I've been trying for a while to figure out the relationship between chords, the CAGED system, pentatonic and other scales, etc. I wonder if people have advice for a clear and reliable resource.

All the resources I've encountered are pretty confusing. They talk about "E chords" when they mean "E-shaped chords"; they identify the "boxes" by numbers, but there seem to be at least two understandings of what box #1 is (the E shape or the G shape). The final straw was discovering that what a blues player might call the "Long A" is considered a CAGED G-shape; makes total sense NOW, but had me confused for a really long time.

I'm sure getting there on my own is its own reward, but if anyone has a sure fire guide or introduction please say. Ideally it would be one you could listen (and watch) to as well as read.

Many thanks,
will

Hi Will, PM sent.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by JonPR

Right.

What I was trying to say was that it's often promoted as if it's some kind of secret, or a method that you apply, to "unlock the mystery" of the fretboard, when it's actually staring you in the face when you see it. It's obvious - a natural result of learning the 5 major "cowboy" chord shapes. We all learn those (or should!) before ever thinking about venturing up the fretboard.

The "secret" claim is people trying to make money from it. I am reasonably sure that many of us get those annoying youtube videos that make wild claims about the "secret" method of learning guitar that takes years off the process and then it turns out that the idea is simply yet another presentation of the CAGED system.

I wrote my paper simply as a way to organize what I was learning for my own use. Then, somebody decided to start a completely free guitar learning web site and asked in one of the old usenet forums for submissions of free materials to put up. This was well before any such site existed yet. I massaged my paper for general consumption and provided it.

As far as I am concerned, the CAGED system and basic diatonic theory are so well known that I can't imagine charging people for the information or claiming that there is some big secret involved. Yet, there are those who will shamelessly do just that.

If one were to gather all your (JonPR) posts from this forum over the years answering folks' questions, that could be packaged into one heck of a course and sold by some unscrupulous person in much the same way. It is unfortunate that there are people like that, but then I guess there is little we can do about it except to continue to provide helpful information, common among guitar players, for free.

Anyway, all that said, we are definitely in agreement.

Tony

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

Here is a link to a paper I wrote that gives rather complete coverage of the CAGED system, and coverage of the 5 major and pentatonic scale forms...

Tony - thanks for posting this. Just started reading it last night. Very helpful.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Tony - thanks for posting this. Just started reading it last night. Very helpful.

Sure thing. I am glad the paper could be helpful. Also, I provided a full bibliography at the end so you know where I got all the information. I did the research back then, pulling multiple resources together, but did not invent any of it. It might be helpful to check out some of those sources too.

Tony

[Andyrondack]

Just to point out, it's not necessary to learn caged system or scale shapes in order to know your way around the instrument or understand how to use music theory.
Horn players or any players of melody instruments who play improvised music over chord progressions know how to play chord progressions and scales without first creating imaginary shapes and patterns, think about how you might learn to play a chord progression on the trumpet.

[hubcapsc]

without first creating imaginary shapes and patterns

There's nothing imaginary about shapes and patterns that are arrived
at independently. Tune your guitar up the normal way and look for them,
they'll be there.

-Mike

[KevWind]

Backing out of the specifics of the discussion . Here is the unfortunate truth about all these systems, written out lessons, charts, or youtube video's, or simplistic "just do this or that" etc. etc.

The lesson is always clear to the teacher

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Backing out of the specifics of the discussion . Here is the unfortunate truth about all these systems, written out lessons, charts, or youtube video's, or simplistic "just do this or that" etc. etc.

The lesson is always clear to the teacher

Considering that many people have benefitted from learning one system or another from various lessons delivered in various ways, somebody is getting the message with some degree of clarity.

Tony

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

Considering that many people have benefitted from learning one system or another from various lessons delivered in various ways, somebody is getting the message with some degree of clarity.

Tony

Agreed , and not in debate,,, and not my point, OTOH just as many haven't, which was my point of general observation .
Don't misunderstand I am not saying it's not a viable learning tool or not worthwhile
What I am saying is without specific back and forth teacher to student (which is not present in most of the online offerings) And (if) the student does not get it, there is little recourse, other than for the student to move on ....
And to that point is the value in the teachers, authors etc. realizing that often what seems perfectly clear to them, may not be to the ones they are trying to reach .....

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

without first creating imaginary shapes and patterns

There's nothing imaginary about shapes and patterns that are arrived
at independently. Tune your guitar up the normal way and look for them,
they'll be there.

-Mike

No they are not there, they are imaginary, all that's there is a grid of strings and frets.

[hubcapsc]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

No they are not there, they are imaginary, all that's there is a grid of strings and frets.

That's all this guy sees...



-Mike

[hatamoto]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nphFK6HFjY

[Spectre2020]

You might want to check out www.zombieguitar.com. The instructor (Brian Kelly) does a pretty good job at de-mystifying most topics. There's a lot of free stuff on his site, and you can get a lifetime membership for about $70 USD.

His site has literally hundreds of lessons, backing tracks etc

I find that the down side of his site is that there is so much stuff there that it can be confusing to navigate through it all.

He has a 45 minute(ish) lesson on CAGED that I believe you can access without paying for a membership.

It's worth checking out.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Agreed , and not in debate,,, and not my point, OTOH just as many haven't, which was my point of general observation .
Don't misunderstand I am not saying it's not a viable learning tool or not worthwhile
What I am saying is without specific back and forth teacher to student (which is not present in most of the online offerings) And (if) the student does not get it, there is little recourse, other than for the student to move on ....
And to that point is the value in the teachers, authors etc. realizing that often what seems perfectly clear to them, may not be to the ones they are trying to reach .....

You bring up some interesting points and yes, I agree with your statements regarding teaching/learning. I find that different teachers have different teaching styles and these styles seem suitable for different learning styles. In other words, the successful transfer of information seems at least somewhat dependent on matching student learning style to teacher teaching style.

As an example, when attending those typical hour long seminars given by a touring guitar player following his or her concert, I rarely walked away with anything solid that I could build on. The few fingerstyle festival event I have attended were similar for me. For some reason, I seem to do better when I can go off and assimilate the material on my own time. I do reasonably well with in-depth DVDs that rather than trying to cover everything about the guitar, focus on one small area for the entire DVD.

A well thought out DVD presentation works just as well, if not better, than interaction with a live teacher for that same amount of time.

I remember attending a Duck Baker seminar given at a local guitar shop back in the 1980s after his concert. I got nothing from that seminar other than the boost in motivation from being around other fingerstyle players and meeting Duck Baker. However, his DVDs from Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop are a whole other story. Duck is an excellent teacher and I get a lot out of these DVDs any time I revisit them.

Speaking of DVDs, some teachers just don't seem to come across nearly as well as others. For me, Robert Conti does an exceptional job teaching various aspects of jazz guitar such as chord melody arranging and playing, while other DVDs by other teachers just don't seem to connect with me nearly as well, but might for somebody else.

Some folks don't do well working out of a book, while others can go a long way with that same book. If I could do it all over again, I think the best learning environment was the local kids in my neighborhood or school who were learning to play guitar and egging each other on to bring something new to show everybody that they had learned by ear off a record or the radio. There are many guitar players we all listen to and admire who had little more than that sort of learning experience rather than books, DVDs, or live formal teachers.

Edit: Another factor to consider, which really comes first, is whether the student is at a level that would enable him or her to understand what the teacher is teaching. A good live teacher should be able to determine the student's level and gear his or her teaching to that level. When working alone (i.e. what we often call self-teaching) this seems to be a continual problem. We can purchase a book or DVD or online course that is either too basic (in which case we quickly get bored and drop it) or too advanced (in which case we quickly get lost and drop it). It seems to be rather chancy that we end up with self-selected teaching materials that are well matched to our present level.

Tony