Fretboard Freedom:
Beyond the Open Chords
The first thing most guitar players learn is how to play open position chords, chords that utilize one or more of the open strings. Even if you’re a complete beginner, the following chord shapes should be familiar to you:
Certainly these can be useful chord shapes to know, but they do limit you to staying in the open position of the guitar. Unless you plan to use a capo all the time, the next step for most players is to learn some movable chord shapes. The most common are the so-called barre chords:
Using the barre chords can open up a whole new world to players only familiar with the open position. Unfortunately, many people will stick with the above two movable shapes, maybe with a little variety in chord quality (major, minor). While it may be obvious that the F and B barre chords are derived from the common open E and A chords respectively, it may not be as apparent that the other three common open chord shapes can also be easily converted into movable chord shapes:
We’ve essentially moved each of our open position C, G, and D chords up two frets to create new movable chord shapes. Just like the barre chords, these new shapes can be moved all over the fretboard.
Once you’ve learned and become familiar with these five movable chord shapes, you’ll soon see how the shapes can be linked together to cover the entire fretboard. Let’s take a case in point and examine all of these shapes in A:
We started with the common open position A chord. For the second position chord, we’ve moved the open G shape up two frets as before. At the fifth position, we have one of the common barre chord shapes with a root on the sixth string. At the seventh position, we’re using the open D shape moved up to the seventh fret with the root of the chord on the fourth string. Finally, we have the open C shape moved to the ninth fret to create our A chord there. Now that we have all five of our shapes, let’s see how they all fit together:
Can you find all of our chord shapes here? Look again:
As you can see, all the chord shapes overlap with some common notes between adjacent chords. When you use these shapes for any particular chord and line them up in this manner, you’ll also find that the shapes repeat in the same pattern down the fretboard. Named after our open position chords, we started with the A shape, followed by the G shape, the E shape, the D shape, and the C shape. If we started with the C shape, the order would spell out CAGED. This is the basis of the CAGED system of fretboard navigation. Whichever open position shape you start with, the rest of the shapes will follow in that order.
For example, if you start with the open E shape and keep E as the root of all the chord shapes, it will be followed by the D shape, the C shape, the A shape, and the G shape. This time we spelled EDCAG, but the order is the same:
To become familiar with this system, you can start with each open position chord and play all of its variations up the fretboard. Once you’ve played through these five keys, you can move on to the other seven. Always start with the chord form closest to the open position and move through the same order of the shapes: CAGED
After some time, you’ll start to see the entire fretboard as one big chord, depending on what key you’re in. If you run into any trouble spots, just focus on that area until it becomes more comfortable for you. Eventually, you’ll be able to move up and down the fretboard and never get lost. Just keep in mind your movable chord shapes, because they’ll always be there to guide you.
Good luck on your quest for Fretboard Freedom!
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