CAGED Guitar System: How To Make The Most Of It

The diagrams below show the seventh chords based on the CAGED system. These are the most common of the dominant seventh chords and like the Caged minor chord you should make sure you know these very well. Dominant seventh chords contain four notes and are the same as ordinary major chords but with a flat 7th added. We are only concerned with the fundamentals of the Caged method at the moment so we’ll avoid the technical details at this stage. What’s important is that you know where the flat seventh note is located within the chord shapes. Take some time to learn all of these chord patterns inside out. The green note in the diagrams indicates where the flat sevenths are.

Play around with these chord tones using the same idea outlined in the caged technique lesson. Don’t forget this stuff takes a while to sink in and until it does you will probably think it’s all very cheesy sounding and your ideas are limited. Making the most of this system is all about getting these kind of ideas embedded into your brain so well that you can play around with these notes on autopilot. It’s not until you get to that stage that things start to unfold and your solos come to life. Playing with backing tracks is important because it makes it interesting and you will learn a lot quicker. There’s nothing like hands on experience. Playing with backing tracks is like playing with a band which of course is the ultimate goal for guitar soloing.