As a beginner learning to play the open major chords is a very big accomplishment. It opens a door to learning to play some popular songs and even write some of your own. When you want to stretch your legs a little further you need to enter the realm of barre chords.

Learning the same major chords at different positions can be a little more difficult. After all there are a lot of frets and a lot of note combination’s to choose from.

In this post I want to introduce you to a unique system that is sure to help you find, play and memorize several versions of all seven major chords on the guitar.

The CAGED guitar system is a method of finding 5 different versions of all 7 major chords using familiar chord shapes from the open position. As the name might have given away those shapes are from the C-A-G-E-D major chords.

A quick example: If you barre the 5th fret and play an E chord shape you have an A Major chord.

The system works like this. Using those 5 chord shapes you can find five versions of each major chord at different locations on the neck. You do still need to find those variations and if you want memorize them, but this system makes it a lot easier to locate them.

I’ve created a brief video below that explains the CAGED guitar system and also provides a complete example of finding four different variations of the E chord using the D, C, A and G chord shapes as barre chords. Take a few minutes to watch this video and then grab your own guitar to give it a try.

Interested in learning more guitar tricks and techniques like the CAGED system? Not interested in taking private guitar lessons? Why not try a learn guitar dvd course? Learn at your own pace from the comfort of your own home.