Chord Tone Soloing Series (part 6) – All 5 “CAGED” Shapes and their Respective Pentatonic Positions

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Video Cliffs:

0:00 – Intro

7:46 – The “C Position”

14:11 – The “A Position”

18:31 – The “G Position”

21:10 – The “E Position”

24:44 – The “D Position”

28:23 – Recommended Practicing

31:56 – Final Words

Extra Stuff for Full Access Members! In addition to everything else that is included with a Full Access Membership, many lessons include “Full Access Extras”.

Full Access Member “Video Backing Tracks” for this lesson: 10 video backing tracks for practice

There are 5 “pentatonic only” video backing tracks which will allow you to practice in each of the 5 pentatonic positions without focusing on chord tone targeting

There are then 5 “chord tone targeting” videos where the chord tones “light up” as the underlying chords change. This will allow you to practice chord tone targeting in each of the 5 positions.

Each video is over 9 minutes long

There are HUNDREDS more “chord tone target practice” videos found in the member’s vault

5 “CAGED” Shapes = 5 Pentatonic Shapes

You may or not be familiar with the 5 pentatonic positions by now. If not, take a look at that lesson.

As I pointed out in that lesson, the order of the 5 positions will always remain the same, regardless of the key.

The order of the 5 pentatonic positions always goes:

Position 1 -> position 2 -> position 3 -> position 4 -> position 5 -> position 1 -> position 2 -> position 3 -> etc.

The CAGED System works the exact same way:

C position -> A position -> G position -> E position -> D position -> C position -> A position -> G position -> etc.

Note that the order of the positions always spells the word “CAGED”.

For each of the 5 pentatonic positions, there is an equivalent CAGED position:

For the sake of example, let’s remain in the key of G major/E minor as we have throughout this series.

Pentatonic Position #1:

or

“G Position”:

or,

The reason this position is called the “G position” is because it is referring to the shape that the I chord is in. In this example, we are in the key of G major/E minor, so our I chord is G major. Playing the G major chord in the “G shape” yields the “G position”.

Let’s try pentatonic position #2:

In this position, you will find the G major chord in the “E shape”, hence this position is referred to as the

“E Position”:

Pentatonic position #3:

“D Position”:

Pentatonic position #4:

“C Position”:

Pentatonic position #5:

“A Position”:

So each pentatonic position has an equivalent CAGED position:

Pentatonic position #1 = “G position”

Pentatonic position #2 = “E position”

Pentatonic position #3 = “D position”

Pentatonic position #4 = “C position”

Pentatonic position #5 = “A position”

Pentatonic position #1 = “G position”

Pentatonic position #2 = “E position”

Pentatonic position #3 = “D position”

The pentatonic positions will always go in numerical order, and the equivalent CAGED positions will always go in C->A->G->E->D order.

Locating all 6 Diatonic Chords in Each Position

In the video, I go over each of the 5 positions and point out all of the available CAGED shapes in each position. You won’t always find all 6 chords having a perfectly fitting chord shape within each of these 5 positions. However, even if there isn’t a perfectly fitting shape inside of each position, you know for sure that a neighboring position will contain the missing chord shape.

For instance, pentatonic position #5 doesn’t have any nice C major chord shape in it:

(Notice how that’s not a pretty chord shape at all)

But the neighboring pentatonic positions – #4 and #1, respectively, do contain nice C major shapes:

Pay attention to the layover from each of the neighboring shapes.

This is explained in detail in the video.

Every “System” for Arranging the Guitar Fretboard is Complicated

The reason that I saved this lesson for part 6 of this series is because attempting to organize the entire fretboard into just 5 “simple positions” is not an easy task. Really internalizing this stuff can take many years.

Therefore, I find it more practical to simply just focus on one single position at a time, and REALLY internalize just that one position before moving onto another position.

In the next part of this series, I will be giving you some practical practice tips to help you really internalize each of these 5 positions and how to relate the concept of “chord tone soloing” to each of the 5 scale positions.

As always, have fun!