Forget The Complex Cumbersome Confusing CAGED System
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- Yet another #lesson on the #guitar #CAGED system... Or not, as the case may be. Personally I think it is a cumbersome & needlessly complex way of arriving at what pentatonic shape to use. Here is a much simpler way of doing it. I made another video on the topic a while ago, using a different way of arriving at the same information & you can check that out here: • I'm Done Teaching The ...
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Watching your videos as a total beginner, trying to get some hope this complex instrument is going to sing soon :)
Great stuff I wish I had known this years ago. It's a bit complex but with a bit of work I think I could get there . Thank you John.
I sort of use a bit of both of those systems. Since your soloing revolves around your chords, I just memorise which chord shape has the relevant pentatonic shape. So the D Major barre chord on the 5th fret always has pentatonic shape 5 in it. I suppose my limited number of chord shapes I play makes this easier to remember
Think I could do with your book, John.
*Anyone new watching this, you have just found the best guitar teacher on UA-cam!* 👍
Aw... Cheers mate 👍
Looks like a good way for programming a sytem to generate a solo output. Personally, I'd rather grope around and take joy in finding tones or sequences by "informed accidents". That's probably not so much different from CAGED, but it'subconscious.
I learned the stuff CAGED teaches, without ever hearing the name, I taught all that stuff, without ever saying CAGED.
Lots of ways to learn it.
If CAGED works for someone, cool
If another way to learn it works, coll
This is exactly the point I was going to make. If you're around my vintage, you've done "CAGED" all your life without ever having heard the word. And that's because it's basic music theory! Even before you learn any music theory, you learn very, very early on that an E shape becomes an F at the first fret, that an A shape becomes a B on the 2nd fret. Another name for it is common sense.
I never got to grips with patterns and boxes so I am trying to memorise all the notes on the fretboard until it's second nature. It's starting to open up the neck as I'm visualising things in terms of notes instead of patterns. It means I can play the major scale on several strings or just one string without ever getting lost. I think when you're playing under pressure you can forget where you are with patterns, leading to disaster.
High five to that! Keep going with Determination and Perseverance, wishing you every success!
🕊️💖🤘
Thank you, you are right it needs a lot of determination and perseverance because it is really time consuming and tedious, but I think the rewards and pay-off are there if you put the time in. The thing that inspired me to do it was Justin Sandercoe saying that learning the notes opens up the neck in a way that no other method can do. Also recently I saw a Rick Beato video with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai where Joe said that when he started giving lessons to Steve he was resistant to learning the notes so Joe put up a sign on the wall saying "If you don't know the notes you don't know sh*t". I wish somebody had told me that decades ago. It seems so obvious now but I didn't realise it when I was a beginner, I was always looking for short-cuts 😄
Patterns are a useful way of getting off the starting blocks, but as you say, they have their drawbacks. Before you know where you are your head is full of shapes that are difficult to relate to each other. The solution is to UNDERSTAND what you're doing & that is best achieved by being able to visualise the note names and locations. It makes EVERYTHING easier in the long run.
You're right John it's such a solid base to build on but I can understand why not everyone wants to do it, playing riffs and solos is a lot more fun but without understanding what you're doing it can only take you so far. Keep up the good work!
@@iainh631You're welcome. I say that to you as much as I have to remind myself of the very same.
There you go...in a nut shell
Still too complicated (for me). Just play the scale from the respective root note where ever it is on the fretboard and no matter which string it's on. As long as you know where your root notes are you'll always know where the other notes in the scale are as the relationship between them never changes. R, b3, 4, 5, b7, etc, Same for all scales.
I don't know why this isn't the default. Once you compensate for the shift on the B string, it's only one pattern, and you actually need to know if you are playing a root or 5th or 6th, or where to put back the 4th and 7th in major pentatonic to get a Major scale, and this is the fastest easiest way there. Just learn one pattern wwhwwwh and the intervals between strings (or 5th, one down, one over, octave 2 down 2 over, or 3rd, one down one back and 3 down one forward, or 7th, right behind the ROOT).
Then learn to shift the wwhwwwh pattern and you have all modes including Minor. And the same mental approach you need to roll through inversions.
It's the fastest most direct way there, and if you pay attention to even some of the notes names besides to root, you learn the entire fretboard.
On the other hand, most people who learn by patterns, can't build inversions, can't name the notes in a given Pentatonic scale, don't even know which intervals are removed and often have no idea how close to the major scale they are, and definitely don't know all the notes on the fretboard. That's not a good place to be for all that work, and in my experience it even makes it harder for people to really learn the fretboard and theory as they feel they are starting over.
In short, I agree completely and would submit it's the easier approach.
The way you described it mate was way more convoluted than it actually is. Basically you only need to know the notes on the 5th and 6th strings and you are away . And the fact it is described as CAGED is the order in which you find your shapes. I know the caged system but still don't know the Pentatonic shapes that well either. It is far easier than described.
I guess we disagree. The CAGED system is so-called because it's based around the C A G E & D chord shapes. It was first codified by Joe Pass who described it in the way that I did in my video. If you are well versed in transposing chord shapes up & down the fretboard (and I'm assuming you are) then it's a useful shorthand. But for learning scale patterns, and their relative locations, from scratch I genuinely think (based on 30 years of earning a living as a guitar teacher) that there are easier ways of mapping out the fretboard.
Your point about just needing to know the notes on the bass strings doesn't butter many parsnips. For example, if you are at the 3rd fret, and you need to play in Eb major, then how do you know which scale pattern to use? You know that the 3td fret notes are G & C, but how do you move on from there? You have to know that a C chord shape played at the 3rd fret will give you an Eb chord. Then you have to know which scale pattern contains that C chord shape.
To get a newbie, with no experience of shuffling chord shapes around the neck to do this... In the midst of a solo is a VERY tall order, even if they DO know the 5th & 6th string notes. The results I've seen over decades with my students has brought me to the conclusion I expressed in the video.
Your mileage may, of course, vary. If I can learn something from your way of understanding CAGED, get in touch via the website & explain your method in greater detail. Even have a Zoom chat with me & you can explain why I'm wrong and I'll put it up on the channel.
@@JRobsonGuitar I am not saying its the be all and end all but a very effective springboard. And the comment about the 5th and 6th strings roots is,again,meant as a springboard to knowing the things you mentioned. Maybe I have learned by putting my cart before the horse,I don't really know? I just think the caged system is very handy,even for relative beginners or slightly experienced ones like myself. We all learn in different way,which you would know better than me with your experience.
Forget the cumbersome caged system - heres another just as difficult and cumbersome system, that you can only play by knowing the five pentatonic shapes and where to play them in different keys.............
"You can only play by knowing the five pentatonic shapes..." Kind of a requirement for the CAGED system too, it should be said. It's how you relate those 5 shapes to each other that's the issue in question. CAGED is one way of doing it. Over 3 decades of paying the rent & mortgage as a guitar tutor has taught me it's not the easiest way for a newbie to map out the fretboard. I've been doing it this way for a while now & the results I've had with my students confirm the conclusions I outlined in this video.
@tokairic3925 A bit unfair, it's a different way of looking at it that may help people - it certainly has for me. I think the problem is people seem to want some magic explanation that will allow them to avoid any need to learn, memorise or put effort into learning the instrument. The hard truth is that doesn't exist. If you want to improve you need to put effort and work in. As a hobby guitarist I don't get to play as much as I'd like, but things like this help me work out ways to make my practice and learning a bit more efficient. Music theory can take many years (decades even) of practice, and when you appreciate that, you realise just how helpful these shortcuts are to opening up the instrument, but it doesn't shortcut you having to put some effort in.
Learn these, then move on to the modes. Ye shall see the Light.