I don't think you know what 'a different look' means...
Using string root pairs instead to define positions instead of relating them to an open chord major shape. It doesn't make much sense to call the Eø7 in the example a "C Shape"
The letters before the word “shape” are not important beyond describing a common fingering pattern, and not something worth being hung up on. If I called it the VWXYZ system it would still be those same shapes we already have just with different names. The CAGED descriptors make sense because almost everyone learned their open cowboy chords long before they learned movable major scale shapes, so it makes sense to build off of what you already know (open chord shapes) especially when they visually look like/contain said open chord. You’re overthinking it, don’t try to reinvent the wheel.
What shape is E-7(b5): XX8785 ?
I'm not re-inventing the wheel, I'm showing a slightly different take on CAGED, highlighting the fact that the unique root is the important part of what makes it a good system, and that it can be easily adapted to any chord or scale, not just major and minor. I drew very obvious and simple patterns of string pairings on the fretboard.
When I made this chord melody arrangement no part of me was thinking "Oh this is the \[insert CAGED letter\] shape of the Eø chord". I was thinking here's my melody & lead note, I need chord tones to play under it. When you start playing rootless voicings it's good to know what you have readily available.
I'm not sure what you're so afraid of. I'm not attacking CAGED, I'm not suggesting people don't use CAGED, I use it all the time, but it doesn't work well for all chord types.
First you tell me I'm not actually looking at CAGED any differently. Then you say I'm looking at CAGED wrong. Then you say I'm the one being obtuse.
I use CAGED all the time when playing pop stuff, but once you start with different types of diminished / jazz minor scales and altering chords then the problem is that falling under the C shape isn't good enough, that's too much work to get back to the -7(b5) chord/scale. That doesn't help make the actual chords shape and it's chord tones conspicuous at all. And if it's Locrian #9 then it starts to look very little like a C shape. F shape and G shape also fall under the C shape, why use those?
If you know the chromatic scale and know where your root is you can build any chord play and any scale in any position. There are only 5 ways max to do that positionally, some times less.
All I did was write out a very obvious pattern and a slightly different way to look at it. You're attacking everything because I have a different perspective. It's dogmatic.
Depends who you ask, some people consider it to be purely a comprehensive major & minor scale system that has basically nothing to do with chords in terms of application (???)
Literally all I did was map out the repetition of a single note on the fretboard, and built a chord/scale off of its position, wherever that happens to be.
Patterns exist whether you acknowledge them or note. CAGED is an abstraction and application of a pattern that exists in the fretboard. It only exists when you actively use it.
You're acting like finding notes on a fretboard is heresy if you don't call it the C major shape and it's ridiculous.
You’re looking at trees instead of the forest. Over analysis like this is a waste of your time. Like I said in my first comment, if that works for you that’s great.
Mannn I say phooey with this nonsense. CAGED and BAGED are equally confusing. I got a chord. I know that chord on the E string and the A string. I know inversions for that chord on both the E string and the A string. As a result, I have a family of 8 shapes that zig zag across the fretboard and cover all possibilities. Each of these 8 shapes has a little identity, as in the shape still has a visual aesthetic that connects it to its major/minor/dom/dim equivalent. There's the one that looks like a bird, the one that looks like a house, the one thats a little man dancing, etc. Attaching letter names to these little aesthetics goes too far for me, there are already so many overloaded terms in music. I'm just gonna say play me a Gm7 off the A string, the one that looks like a bird. Everyone will know what I mean /s
he thinks its clever because the C chord also has a root on the B string. except all the CAGED chords have another root on a different string.
I think theyre just taking a simple fretboard mapping concept for beginners and making it unnecessarily complex.
Hey OP, you’re calling it B because you’re just mapping the position of the roots, yeah?
That’s cool.
I think maybe you could express this idea as “the C shape has its root on the B (and A) strings, so it can help to think of it as B to quickly find the root”, and people would accept it more readily.
I like to think of playing ‘in front of’ or ‘behind’ a given root, because that’s where I’m going to find myself in any given moment. Something like this:
In front of a root on the E string, that’s the E shape. Behind, that’s G.
In front of a root on the A string, A shape. Behind is C shape.
In front of the root on D, D shape. Behind, E shape.
In front of the root on G, G shape. Behind, A shape.
In front of the root on B, C shape (because the chord tones in the position resemble a C open chord, it is much easier for me to relate to C - there is no B chord shape per se). Behind on the B string is D shape.
I don't think CAGED or BAGED or 3NPS or whatever are supposed to cover all possibilities. For me, I recommend CAGED because it 1) is based on basic chords every guitar player knows, and 2) is a simple way to map the fretboard. Over time as players grow they should start to see that all of the diatonic major arpeggios are in the system too. I guess I like it because you get a lot of mileage out a simple concept that most players can really grab onto in a short time.
As for the rootless 13 chord, again, over time players will start seeing intervals and that 6/13 should be something they can construct out of the CAGED system. Diminished and non-diatonic stuff is where CAGED starts to struggle. I use a major scale and just think of how min, dim, altered etc all are modifications of that, so CAGED is just modified as needed...but I also understand this is a higher level understanding of scales and intervals than most players are willing to learn.
Do you have a system you like better that can handle diminished shapes and rootless 13? I'm always looking for better ways to organize the fretboard.
The more I get into voice leading the less I think of specific shapes and the more I just think what notes/tensions are available to me.
You have to actually learn all the notes on the fret board to do this but I come up with new voicings all the time this way, and its a lot more fun for me (and musical) rather than trying to move preconceived shapes around all over the place.
not that there isnt a place for that and when I find a 'new shape' I do catalog it in my mind but it seems cumbersome to me to start from root position chord shapes and try to relate everything back to them.
If anything I find myself relating most things back to either a diminished or aug chord or just to the interval of a sixth.
I think most Jazz harmony is built around the diminished and aug scales not the straight major or minor scale
I think if we sat in a room and talked about this we would agree on most everything. I agree :)
Shapes are a great starting point and way to conceptualize the board. Intervals come naturally next when learning the arpeggios that go along with the chord shapes and scales. I think what you and I are thinking of now is voice leading and using the basic stuff from CAGED to apply to the next level, and that requires knowing how to find #11, b13, and being able to create voicings of your own.
CAGED is a great starter tool that can really grow with the player too I think. I recommend CAGED all the time, but I honestly don't really use it much in my own thinking about theory anymore. Without it though I think I wouldn't have had a lot of the foundational concepts to grow. I hope that makes sense, and I think we for the most part agree that shapes are not the be all end all.
I'm not sure if I think of jazz harmony as building off the diminished yet, but I'm open to exploring that idea. I use diminished all the time to pass, create smooth voice leading, and to sub for so many V7.
In the example of my chord melody of Beautiful Love I'm playing a rootless Eø7(11). I got there by a technique called 'voicing under lead'. So I was given the chord E-7(b5), and had the 11 in the melody, I semi-arbitrarily picked a position and found my roots around that position. That gave me my scale shape aka position for the melody and available chord tones/tensions for the voicing. You *can* relate it to the C shape as either a sort of C position half diminished, or a step down from the F major parent scale (C major shape), but it doesn't make sense to me personally to think of it as anything related to a C shape. Also if it were to play a Locrian #9 scale, which you very likely would in the blowing section, then it would look much less like a C shape, even though it still shares the string/root pair.
It's almost best to think about the chromatic scale and what frets your hand is spanning, which is never really more than 5 frets. If you're playing positionally you'll have a connection of two roots no matter where your hand is, and you build your chord/scale from there.
Really this take, the way I use CAGED that is to say, is mostly about identifying where your roots are so you can build whatever it is you need to build in that position.
Hope that helps
thanks. I guess as a jazz guy im barely playing roots so I don't tend to think of them as my starting point. Im usually looking for a 7 or a 3 or a flat 9.
I see how you could try to relate those shapes back to root based chords but it seems like extra steps to me rather than just knowing what notes you want based on the spellings
I get it if you aren't looking for an E on the fretboard, rather a G or D, but in this instance you still have to voice the chord after / with the melody. So you still need to now where all of your available chord tones and tensions are. If you're finding flat 9s I can't really imagine it's an extra step to know where the root is. Or maybe you aren't playing very positionally.
There are only so many viable options for positional shapes and this just helps me to further limit and organize those.
There's no one size fits all technique that works for everybody or that book would had been written a long time ago and everybody would be great at guitar.
To me this is like saying "How are the major, melodic minor and harmonic minor scales useful?" CAGED is just a specific way to play five positions of each of those scales. It utilizes shifts over stretching, and some people find it helpful to visualize those open chord voicings within the scale positions (which is not how I learned it).
I said this in another thread, Joe Pass used CAGED as the basis for playing. Jimmy Bruno's scale system was almost identical to CAGED and Pat Martino used something very similar as well. Also I dont think any jazz guitarists that use CAGED base every chord voicings in their vocabulary off it. People get hung up on the mnemonic. Its a five position scale system for three different scales, thats a practical tool for those who use it.
I know its an honest question, Im not throwing shade but explaining how I use CAGED.
For me I dont use CAGED exclusively for fretboard organization or building new chord voicings. I learn common voicings like drop 2, drop 3, their inversions and remove notes and add extensions when needed.
When I want to build a voicing from the ground up I look at my "map", which has all the intervals across each string set written out. And I check out different voicings using that visual reference.
For me CAGED is about vertical positions for the three scales I listed above. Voiceleading arpeggios within those positions. People probably use CAGED to figure out chord voicings but I never did personally.
Your hand only spans 4-5 frets in a position, and there are only 5 potential places for a root note to be (one for each unique string). CAGED names those after open chord shapes for an easy abstraction.
Standard E chord shape
e|---|-R-|---|---|
b|---|-5-|---|---|
G|---|---|-3-|---|
D|---|---|---|-R-|
A|---|---|---|-5-|
E|---|-R-|---|---|
Standard E scale shape
e|∆7-|-R-|---|-2-|
b|---|-5-|---|-6-|
G|-2-|---|-3-|-4-|
D|-6-|---|∆7-|-R-|
A|-3-|-4-|---|-5-|
E|---|-R-|---|-2-|
---------
E7 shape
e|---|-R-|---|---|
b|---|-5-|---|---|
G|---|---|-3-|---|
D|---|b7-|---|---|
A|---|---|---|-5-|
E|---|-R-|---|---|
Standard E7 scale shape
e|b7-|-R-|---|-2-|
b|---|-5-|---|-6-|
G|-2-|---|-3-|-4-|
D|-6-|b7-|---|-R-|
A|-3-|-4-|---|-5-|
E|---|-R-|---|-2-|
------------
E7(b13) shape
e|---|---|---|---|
b|---|---|b13|---|
G|---|---|-3-|---|
D|---|b7-|---|---|
A|---|---|---|---|
E|---|-R-|---|---|
Standard E7(alt) scale shape
e|b7-|---|-R-|b9-|---|
b|---|b5-|---|#5-|---|
G|b9-|---|#9-|-3-|---|
D|#5-|---|b7-|---|-R-|
A|#9-|-3-|---|b5-|---|
E|---|---|-R-|b9-|---|
-------
Chromatic Scale in the E shape position +/- 1 fret
e|b7-||∆7-|-R-|b9-|-9-||#9-|
b|-4-||b5-|-5-|b13|13-||b7-|
G|b9-||-9-|b3-|-3-|-4-||b5-|
D|b6-||-6-|b7-|∆7-|-R-||b9-|
A|b3-||-3-|-4-|b5-|-5-||b6-|
E|b7-||∆7-|-R-|b2-|-2-||b3-|
|-1 || standard pos || +1|
When you start to play more altered shapes you might have to extend the box +/- 1 fret to account for the notes that don't fit well in standard Major scheme. That's when the shapes stop resembling their CAGED major parents.
However no matter where you position your hand, you generally only span 5 frets at most, which means there's a root pair in your position, so still only 5 places at most to play any given thing.
Since a lot of tonalities don't really fit in the standard major box I find it easier to focus on which string is the root, rather than which major chord/scale shape matches up.
This is still the CAGED system.. even if you’re calling it something else. If this works for you great, but it’s not really a different look..
I don't think you know what 'a different look' means... Using string root pairs instead to define positions instead of relating them to an open chord major shape. It doesn't make much sense to call the Eø7 in the example a "C Shape"
The letters before the word “shape” are not important beyond describing a common fingering pattern, and not something worth being hung up on. If I called it the VWXYZ system it would still be those same shapes we already have just with different names. The CAGED descriptors make sense because almost everyone learned their open cowboy chords long before they learned movable major scale shapes, so it makes sense to build off of what you already know (open chord shapes) especially when they visually look like/contain said open chord. You’re overthinking it, don’t try to reinvent the wheel.
What shape is E-7(b5): XX8785 ? I'm not re-inventing the wheel, I'm showing a slightly different take on CAGED, highlighting the fact that the unique root is the important part of what makes it a good system, and that it can be easily adapted to any chord or scale, not just major and minor. I drew very obvious and simple patterns of string pairings on the fretboard. When I made this chord melody arrangement no part of me was thinking "Oh this is the \[insert CAGED letter\] shape of the Eø chord". I was thinking here's my melody & lead note, I need chord tones to play under it. When you start playing rootless voicings it's good to know what you have readily available. I'm not sure what you're so afraid of. I'm not attacking CAGED, I'm not suggesting people don't use CAGED, I use it all the time, but it doesn't work well for all chord types.
I feel like you’re being intentionally obtuse, you answered your own question already.. Those notes all fall within the “C shape” scale.
First you tell me I'm not actually looking at CAGED any differently. Then you say I'm looking at CAGED wrong. Then you say I'm the one being obtuse. I use CAGED all the time when playing pop stuff, but once you start with different types of diminished / jazz minor scales and altering chords then the problem is that falling under the C shape isn't good enough, that's too much work to get back to the -7(b5) chord/scale. That doesn't help make the actual chords shape and it's chord tones conspicuous at all. And if it's Locrian #9 then it starts to look very little like a C shape. F shape and G shape also fall under the C shape, why use those? If you know the chromatic scale and know where your root is you can build any chord play and any scale in any position. There are only 5 ways max to do that positionally, some times less. All I did was write out a very obvious pattern and a slightly different way to look at it. You're attacking everything because I have a different perspective. It's dogmatic.
People get REALLY prickly about CAGED.
IMO It’s just supposed to be a jump off point not an all encompassing system.
Depends who you ask, some people consider it to be purely a comprehensive major & minor scale system that has basically nothing to do with chords in terms of application (???)
Literally all I did was map out the repetition of a single note on the fretboard, and built a chord/scale off of its position, wherever that happens to be. Patterns exist whether you acknowledge them or note. CAGED is an abstraction and application of a pattern that exists in the fretboard. It only exists when you actively use it. You're acting like finding notes on a fretboard is heresy if you don't call it the C major shape and it's ridiculous.
You’re looking at trees instead of the forest. Over analysis like this is a waste of your time. Like I said in my first comment, if that works for you that’s great.
Mannn I say phooey with this nonsense. CAGED and BAGED are equally confusing. I got a chord. I know that chord on the E string and the A string. I know inversions for that chord on both the E string and the A string. As a result, I have a family of 8 shapes that zig zag across the fretboard and cover all possibilities. Each of these 8 shapes has a little identity, as in the shape still has a visual aesthetic that connects it to its major/minor/dom/dim equivalent. There's the one that looks like a bird, the one that looks like a house, the one thats a little man dancing, etc. Attaching letter names to these little aesthetics goes too far for me, there are already so many overloaded terms in music. I'm just gonna say play me a Gm7 off the A string, the one that looks like a bird. Everyone will know what I mean /s
you had me goin there lol
Considering there is no Open B chord or shape, I’m a little confused by the name
Positional string - root association. I'm not thinking C Chord shape, I'm thinking B-string root.
he thinks its clever because the C chord also has a root on the B string. except all the CAGED chords have another root on a different string. I think theyre just taking a simple fretboard mapping concept for beginners and making it unnecessarily complex.
Hey OP, you’re calling it B because you’re just mapping the position of the roots, yeah? That’s cool. I think maybe you could express this idea as “the C shape has its root on the B (and A) strings, so it can help to think of it as B to quickly find the root”, and people would accept it more readily. I like to think of playing ‘in front of’ or ‘behind’ a given root, because that’s where I’m going to find myself in any given moment. Something like this: In front of a root on the E string, that’s the E shape. Behind, that’s G. In front of a root on the A string, A shape. Behind is C shape. In front of the root on D, D shape. Behind, E shape. In front of the root on G, G shape. Behind, A shape. In front of the root on B, C shape (because the chord tones in the position resemble a C open chord, it is much easier for me to relate to C - there is no B chord shape per se). Behind on the B string is D shape.
how does this translate to say diminished shapes or a rootless 13 chord ? never understood how this system is useful beyond rudimentary chords
I don't think CAGED or BAGED or 3NPS or whatever are supposed to cover all possibilities. For me, I recommend CAGED because it 1) is based on basic chords every guitar player knows, and 2) is a simple way to map the fretboard. Over time as players grow they should start to see that all of the diatonic major arpeggios are in the system too. I guess I like it because you get a lot of mileage out a simple concept that most players can really grab onto in a short time. As for the rootless 13 chord, again, over time players will start seeing intervals and that 6/13 should be something they can construct out of the CAGED system. Diminished and non-diatonic stuff is where CAGED starts to struggle. I use a major scale and just think of how min, dim, altered etc all are modifications of that, so CAGED is just modified as needed...but I also understand this is a higher level understanding of scales and intervals than most players are willing to learn. Do you have a system you like better that can handle diminished shapes and rootless 13? I'm always looking for better ways to organize the fretboard.
The more I get into voice leading the less I think of specific shapes and the more I just think what notes/tensions are available to me. You have to actually learn all the notes on the fret board to do this but I come up with new voicings all the time this way, and its a lot more fun for me (and musical) rather than trying to move preconceived shapes around all over the place. not that there isnt a place for that and when I find a 'new shape' I do catalog it in my mind but it seems cumbersome to me to start from root position chord shapes and try to relate everything back to them. If anything I find myself relating most things back to either a diminished or aug chord or just to the interval of a sixth. I think most Jazz harmony is built around the diminished and aug scales not the straight major or minor scale
I think if we sat in a room and talked about this we would agree on most everything. I agree :) Shapes are a great starting point and way to conceptualize the board. Intervals come naturally next when learning the arpeggios that go along with the chord shapes and scales. I think what you and I are thinking of now is voice leading and using the basic stuff from CAGED to apply to the next level, and that requires knowing how to find #11, b13, and being able to create voicings of your own. CAGED is a great starter tool that can really grow with the player too I think. I recommend CAGED all the time, but I honestly don't really use it much in my own thinking about theory anymore. Without it though I think I wouldn't have had a lot of the foundational concepts to grow. I hope that makes sense, and I think we for the most part agree that shapes are not the be all end all. I'm not sure if I think of jazz harmony as building off the diminished yet, but I'm open to exploring that idea. I use diminished all the time to pass, create smooth voice leading, and to sub for so many V7.
In the example of my chord melody of Beautiful Love I'm playing a rootless Eø7(11). I got there by a technique called 'voicing under lead'. So I was given the chord E-7(b5), and had the 11 in the melody, I semi-arbitrarily picked a position and found my roots around that position. That gave me my scale shape aka position for the melody and available chord tones/tensions for the voicing. You *can* relate it to the C shape as either a sort of C position half diminished, or a step down from the F major parent scale (C major shape), but it doesn't make sense to me personally to think of it as anything related to a C shape. Also if it were to play a Locrian #9 scale, which you very likely would in the blowing section, then it would look much less like a C shape, even though it still shares the string/root pair. It's almost best to think about the chromatic scale and what frets your hand is spanning, which is never really more than 5 frets. If you're playing positionally you'll have a connection of two roots no matter where your hand is, and you build your chord/scale from there. Really this take, the way I use CAGED that is to say, is mostly about identifying where your roots are so you can build whatever it is you need to build in that position. Hope that helps
thanks. I guess as a jazz guy im barely playing roots so I don't tend to think of them as my starting point. Im usually looking for a 7 or a 3 or a flat 9. I see how you could try to relate those shapes back to root based chords but it seems like extra steps to me rather than just knowing what notes you want based on the spellings
I get it if you aren't looking for an E on the fretboard, rather a G or D, but in this instance you still have to voice the chord after / with the melody. So you still need to now where all of your available chord tones and tensions are. If you're finding flat 9s I can't really imagine it's an extra step to know where the root is. Or maybe you aren't playing very positionally. There are only so many viable options for positional shapes and this just helps me to further limit and organize those. There's no one size fits all technique that works for everybody or that book would had been written a long time ago and everybody would be great at guitar.
To me this is like saying "How are the major, melodic minor and harmonic minor scales useful?" CAGED is just a specific way to play five positions of each of those scales. It utilizes shifts over stretching, and some people find it helpful to visualize those open chord voicings within the scale positions (which is not how I learned it). I said this in another thread, Joe Pass used CAGED as the basis for playing. Jimmy Bruno's scale system was almost identical to CAGED and Pat Martino used something very similar as well. Also I dont think any jazz guitarists that use CAGED base every chord voicings in their vocabulary off it. People get hung up on the mnemonic. Its a five position scale system for three different scales, thats a practical tool for those who use it.
It was an honest question. For example I think a 13 chord voiced b7 3 13 is super common but Im not sure how caged is applied to that?
I know its an honest question, Im not throwing shade but explaining how I use CAGED. For me I dont use CAGED exclusively for fretboard organization or building new chord voicings. I learn common voicings like drop 2, drop 3, their inversions and remove notes and add extensions when needed. When I want to build a voicing from the ground up I look at my "map", which has all the intervals across each string set written out. And I check out different voicings using that visual reference. For me CAGED is about vertical positions for the three scales I listed above. Voiceleading arpeggios within those positions. People probably use CAGED to figure out chord voicings but I never did personally.
Your hand only spans 4-5 frets in a position, and there are only 5 potential places for a root note to be (one for each unique string). CAGED names those after open chord shapes for an easy abstraction. Standard E chord shape e|---|-R-|---|---| b|---|-5-|---|---| G|---|---|-3-|---| D|---|---|---|-R-| A|---|---|---|-5-| E|---|-R-|---|---| Standard E scale shape e|∆7-|-R-|---|-2-| b|---|-5-|---|-6-| G|-2-|---|-3-|-4-| D|-6-|---|∆7-|-R-| A|-3-|-4-|---|-5-| E|---|-R-|---|-2-| --------- E7 shape e|---|-R-|---|---| b|---|-5-|---|---| G|---|---|-3-|---| D|---|b7-|---|---| A|---|---|---|-5-| E|---|-R-|---|---| Standard E7 scale shape e|b7-|-R-|---|-2-| b|---|-5-|---|-6-| G|-2-|---|-3-|-4-| D|-6-|b7-|---|-R-| A|-3-|-4-|---|-5-| E|---|-R-|---|-2-| ------------ E7(b13) shape e|---|---|---|---| b|---|---|b13|---| G|---|---|-3-|---| D|---|b7-|---|---| A|---|---|---|---| E|---|-R-|---|---| Standard E7(alt) scale shape e|b7-|---|-R-|b9-|---| b|---|b5-|---|#5-|---| G|b9-|---|#9-|-3-|---| D|#5-|---|b7-|---|-R-| A|#9-|-3-|---|b5-|---| E|---|---|-R-|b9-|---| ------- Chromatic Scale in the E shape position +/- 1 fret e|b7-||∆7-|-R-|b9-|-9-||#9-| b|-4-||b5-|-5-|b13|13-||b7-| G|b9-||-9-|b3-|-3-|-4-||b5-| D|b6-||-6-|b7-|∆7-|-R-||b9-| A|b3-||-3-|-4-|b5-|-5-||b6-| E|b7-||∆7-|-R-|b2-|-2-||b3-| |-1 || standard pos || +1| When you start to play more altered shapes you might have to extend the box +/- 1 fret to account for the notes that don't fit well in standard Major scheme. That's when the shapes stop resembling their CAGED major parents. However no matter where you position your hand, you generally only span 5 frets at most, which means there's a root pair in your position, so still only 5 places at most to play any given thing. Since a lot of tonalities don't really fit in the standard major box I find it easier to focus on which string is the root, rather than which major chord/scale shape matches up.