Chords In All Five Positions

Hey, it’s Justin and Lee here for another episode of Rut Busters! In this edition, we look at the CAGED system and how to create Major, minor, sus2, and sus4 chords in all five positions of the guitar. Wicked!

Quick Recap of the CAGED System

To recap, let’s play the C Major chord in all five positions. The first full C chord we can play on the neck is an open C chord: X32010. We’re playing a C chord using the C shape in the open position (CAGED). What’s the next C chord up the neck? It’s X35553. That’s C played as an A-shape barre chord (CAGED).

And the next one? It’s C played as a G-shape barre chord: 875558. This one is a horrible chord and quite impractical as a full shape. It works great with a capo on fret 5, though! (CAGED)

Then we go to the E-shape barre chord: 8 10 10 9 8 8. This is extremely useful (CAGED). And finally, we have the D-shape barre chord X X 10 12 13 12 (CAGED). Another tricky and uncommon one.

💡More CAGED – Looking for more on the CAGED system? Check out this CAGED System Intro.

If we did the same with A Major, we’d find it appears in the order AGEDC (this is CAGED beginning on A). The same pattern appears with all chords and all scales.

Exploring the CAGED Shapes: A-shape Chords

Let’s now explore each shape. The chord X35553 is a C Major chord because the root note, at fret 3 on string 5 (we play this with finger 1), is the note C. You can play this in two ways: using finger 3 to create a mini barre on fret 5, or using fingers 2, 3, and 4 to play the notes on fret 5 instead. If we keep finger 1 in place but use the other fingers to play a minor shape (X35543), this is a Cm chord. The root note hasn’t changed, but the chord type has.

Exploring the CAGED Shapes: G-shape Chords

Officially, C Major chord played using the G shape is 875558, using finger 1 as a barre on fret 5. This is like playing a G Major chord with a capo on fret 5. Try it for yourself – horrible, isn’t it? I can’t think of a single example of a real song that contains the full chord.

A great alternative is to play X7555X, using fingers 1 and 3. Other options are X75558 and XX5558. As for the minor version, there really is no G-shape minor chord. There are possible shapes, but they’re impossible to play and don’t sound good. Why bother?

Exploring the CAGED Shapes: E-shape Chords

The standard E-shape barre chord in C is 8 10 10 9 8 8. A common alternative is to play the bass note with the thumb and the thinnest three or four strings with fingers 1, 2, and 3. This leaves the pinkie to add extra notes. :)

You can change this to a minor chord by simply moving the note on string 3 down one fret to get 8 10 10 8 8 8. You can also play this with the thumb and fingers 1 and 3 (8 X 10 8 8 8).

💡Using The Thumb – Master how to use the thumb for playing bass notes with this Q&A lesson.

What about sus chords? You can play Csus4 by using a barre on fret 10 with finger 3 to get 8 10 10 10 8 8. Another option is to move the pinkie from fret 10 on string 4 to fret 10 on string 3. This gives you 8 10 8 10 8 8, which is technically a C7sus4, but it sounds cool. Another option is to play 8 X 10 10 8 8, using the thumb and fingers 1, 2, and 4.

Csus2 is a little tricky. You need to move the note on string 3 back two frets this time. Try it out. Not easy, is it? The trick here is to change the fingering and leave out a few notes. The chord is 8 X 10 7 8 X, using the thumb with fingers 1, 2, and 3 or 4. This leaves one finger spare to add embellishments.

A mini version of this C played as an E-shape barre chord is 8 X X 9 8 X. Use the thumb to play the bass note and mute string 5, and mute string 4 with finger 2. Can you find the sus 2 and sus 4 versions of this mini shape? Very Hendrix!

Exploring the CAGED Shapes: D-shape Chords

The “correct” Major shape under the CAGED system is X X 10 12 13 12, but this is rarely used. It’s horrible to play! Often we simply play the higher three notes (X X X 12 13 12), or the lowest three notes (X X 10 12 13 X, technically a power chord). Those grips are loads easier.

Another option is to play the note E at fret 12 on string 6, giving us 12 X 10 12 13. This note is part of the C Major chord. Play the bass note with finger 2, muting string 5 as you do, and fingers 1, 3, and 4 for the others. Note that this is the common D/F# open chord (2X023X) moved up!

Using The Many Chords And Their Variations

Now you can play C Major, Csus2, and Csus4 in many different ways on the fretboard! When the music says C Major, you have all these options! How do we choose?!

Each shape has its own set of tools you can use in your playing. You choose the shape according to which tools you need. Usually, the deciding factor is how easy a chord or lick is in a particular position. Even the best guitarists tend to do what they find easy rather than practicing horrible licks and chords.

CAGED Exercise: Circle of Fifths

A great exercise for getting all these grips into the muscle memory is to go through these positions for the major chords. But not in any random order – use the circle of fifths.

💡Circle of Fifths – Get to grips with the Circle of Fifths in this lesson in my Practical Music Theory course!

We start on G. Start with the open chord (CAGED), then move through each position in the CAGED system, playing the shapes you know in each position (root notes shown in bold).

The next position is the E shape (355433), followed by the D shape (XX5787). We then move into the C shape (X 10 9 7 8 7) and finally the A shape (X 10 12 12 12 10). Then we find our way back to the G shape played an octave higher than where we started (15 14 12 12 12 15). Again, notice we moved G E D C A, which is CAGED starting on G. The key to doing this is to know the notes on the fretboard and at least one root note in each shape.

The next chords in the circle of fifths are D, A, E, and so on. Keep going until you end up back at C, and you’ll have played all the Major chords in all five positions. Wicked!

How To Learn These Chords

The key to learning these chords is to use them! Find songs containing these chords or add them yourself. Practice those you'll use. If you don’t use them, there's no point in learning them. We often learn things because we think we should, wasting hours of precious practice time because we don't make music with those new ideas.

💡 Useless Learning Anecdote – I spent around 50 hours learning the Harmonic Minor Scale as a kid. And it was a complete waste of time!

Now it's time for your to explore all these positions yourself. What cool chords can you find? And again, make sure you put this into practice by including these chords in songs! Take care and see you soon for another Rut Busters. :)

Master each of the CAGED positions and discover your own chord shapes with my CAGED In Practice lessons.

The Gear

I'm just waiting on some gear details, but will include links here to the guitars and amps (and effects) that Lee and I use in each video, and include serial numbers where possible in case you want the exact guitar we used :)

Justin's Guitar: Pete's Fender Telecaster
Lee's Guitar: Gray Guitars (I want one!!!)
Justin's Amp: Victory
Lee's Amp: Victory

About This Series

This video lives on the JustinGuitar YouTube Channel – this series alternates between my channel and the Anderton's channel.

Anderton's Music

Anderton's is my local music store in Guildford (UK) and I got in touch with Lee to throw around some ideas for collaboration. It's a cool store and I buy most of my stuff there :) Big thanks also to Danish Pete for his editing expertise and fun hangs!