Lesson Six: The CAGED guitar system & movable chords

This article, found on a guitar site, does a pretty good job of explaining the CAGED method of playing chords up and down the neck of the guitar.

Here's a diagram that goes with the article:

Are you familiar with what guitar chord diagrams are supposed to represent? Here's a flash mini lesson on that:

The rectangle, though upright, represents the first few frets of a guitar neck, up near the headstock.

When you are playing,   the diagram in your mind needs to tip over to the right to match what you are really doing.

This is assuming you don't play your guitar vertically like talk-show celeb/flamenco player Charo or AC/DC's Angus Young.

The bold line at the top of the diagram is the nut -- the bar of ivory or simulated ivory with slots in it which directs the strings from the tuning pegs down the fretboard. Each of the vertical lines is a string. Each of the horizontal lines is a fret. 

And in chord diagrams, when the blank diagram has been filled in with the fingering needed, there are dots here and here. Each dot is a a fingertip pressing a string; these dots often have a number to show you which finger to use. If you see an X above the bold line at the top, you don't play that string at all. If there is a "O" for Open, or a zero for no fingers, then the string is played just as it is without any fingers pressing a fret along it.

End of mini lesson! Okay, back to today's topics:

So the CAGED system is a way of forming one of five hand shapes over the fretboard, moving each fingering-position up or down as needed, sliding the hand without rearranging the fingers or picking them up and putting them down again.

Another way people express this idea is with the term "movable chords." This idea is especially helpful when CAGED chords won't work on an instrument because it doesn't have five strings, or  it does but the strings are tuned other than in standard guitar tuning. This second article talks about movable chords on a ukulele.

Ukulele chord diagrams work just like guitar chord diagrams, but with four strings instead of five. And different fingering patterns, because the standard uke tuning, going from lowest string to highest string,  is GCEA but the standard guitar tuning is EADGBE.

Here's a diagram from the linked article above about movable chords on the ukulele:

As you see, the author has noted that there aren't any unfretted strings when one lays the first finger across the strings. This across-the-strings pressure is like using that clip-on capo I mentioned in the last lesson. 

When people do this it is called a barre chord or a bar chord. On a uke, you can put your index finger across the second fret from the top and then put your second finger on the second string on the third fret, and the ring finger on the first string, fourth fret., and that gives you a B chord. (See fret diagram above.) If you slide your whole hand down one fret you get a C chord. (Next to the B chord is the above diagram.) Now your index finger is across the third fret, your second finger is still on the second string but it's on the fourth fret instead of the third fret, and your ring finger is still on the first string, but it's on the fifth fret and not the fourth fret.

Now here's another set of diagrams from that same article on movable uke chords.

Hoo boy, this is where it all goes to pieces, ha ha.  Okay, you can play a chord on most instruments several different ways. You can make a C chord, the kind we saw a couple minutes ago in the first ukulele example, with the first finger across the third fret, with fingers 2 and 3 on the second and first strings.  OR you can just press down on the fourth string at the third fret and play the other three strings open.  

Still with me? In the first uke example, you could go from B to C by just sliding your hand down one fret. But that won't work with any of the three diagrams in the next set. You can't go from C to D on a ukulele by just sliding your index finger from fourth string, third fret down to fourth string, fourth fret. Examining  the group of three chord diagrams above, it's clear that to get from C to D you have to shift the fourth string note down two frets and also add a barre at the second fret with your index finger. Not only do you have to move in a new way, but you have to switch fingers around. And then there is a different configuration for C-sharp (C#), the note between C and D.

Ta-da! We have come to the real purpose of the last two lessons! Why can't you just slide all the chord shapes down, especially when there are open strings? Because what matters are the patterns of the notes, relative to each other. You can move anywhere you need to be, musically, as long as you take all the notes with you in their same arrangement to one another. The open strings do not come along with you as you move. They stay where they are while the fretted notes jump, so the intervals -- the musical steps between notes -- are spreading out and then foreshortening in awkward ways that make the sounds clash. There are specific intervals that work, and there are many intervals that don't work. 

Sio it's good to know the CAGED system for guitar, and it's good to know which chords are movable when you play ukulele, but to really be free and empowered when you play, you need a basic -- but clear -- understanding of the note intervals we use in Western music. Exploring the "why" of that system will, I hope, bring together most of what we've covered in the lessons up till now.

Next time: Major, Minor, and Intervals