One of the topics that many guitarists want to discover is how to play new chord voicings
a bit further up the neck.
Now many people have got kind of chord voicings that they've got from various places and they've
learned to copy and it's just a sort of the odd thing here or there, some shapes they
know but they don't necessarily know how it fits together and how they can play other
chord voicings in any different key.
So the system I use is something called caged chords and by learning the caged chords system
you should be able to learn how to play any chord in any key regardless of the position.
So the reason why caged chords are called caged chords is because you use the simple
shapes you know of C, of A, of G, of E and of D. In conjunction with bars, so for instance
you already know how to play E shape and A shape bar chords I would guess, so E shapes
are like that because it looks like an E chord and A shapes will often play as well so it
looks like an A.
So we know E and A but you use those other shapes as well in conjunction with bar chords
to find any chord you want.
So what do I mean by this?
Well let's say we want to play a D chord and we want to find it in different positions
to make different voicings up the neck.
Well we could play it as a C shape here, we could play it as an A shape there, we could
play it as a G shape up here which is a bit more tricky or we could play it as a D shape
actually it's an E shape there and it's a D shape up there which gives you five different
positions of every chord.
Now how do I actually find those things?
Well the way you find it is if you look at a G chord and you notice which string the
bass note is on.
Now on a G chord the bass note is always on string 6 so any chord you want to find based
on a G shape you just find the appropriate bass note so say I want to play a C chord,
G bass note there, G, A, B, C and then I reform my fingers to form a G chord there.
Now that doesn't sound very good up on fret number 8 so you just put the bar across to
make it like the end of the guitar and you suddenly got a C chord playing a G shape.
Now the thing about that that's a little bit awkward but what you can do is use parts of
those shapes to make some really interesting voicings so for instance I would probably
play that rather than the full chord.
Now the reason why that's useful is because say I said you let's play chords of G, E minor,
C and D but I want you to play, I'm going to be the worship leader just playing regular
chords and I want you to play a little bit further up the neck so let's play say between
frets 4 and 8 something like that.
So what you do you find the bass notes of G, E, C and D in amongst those frets and then
you find which chord is appropriate for it.
Now we'll soon find this out because we know G has a bass note on string 6, A chords have
a bass note on string 5, so the C chords, E chords have a bass note on string 6 again
and D chords on string 4.
So what we want to do in amongst those frets, so now the G bass note is there but that falls
outside of our frets 4 to 8 so we've got also a G there and that's on string number 4 so
we could play a D chord, D shape so that gives us a G chord, D shape like that.
Then we want to go to an E and E minor and we've actually got an E here in amongst those
frets at fret number 7, string number 5.
Now what we can have there, the two shapes that we've got that's got the 5th note bass
string of the C or the A but they're major chords and we want E minor so we could have
E major by looking at this one so we could have a C shape there like that but we want
to make it a minor.
Now with any of those chords we just take their relative open minor shape so you wouldn't
often play this but what you'd have actually this note comes down there to make it a minor
so it'd look like that.
That's an E minor using a C minor shape.
Then we want to go to a C chord and we need a C chord amongst those bass notes and a
C bass note amongst those frets so we could have it up on fret number 8 there which would
work so we could have a C like that but that falls out of our frets so we've probably got
a G shape right there and then finally we want a D chord and again we've got to find
a D note which is there so string number 5 so the C or the A shape would work so if
we had there we could play a D chord like that but it falls out of our frets so we could
play it there.
So what we've got we've got four chords in those frets.
Now if I said to you I want a different voicing I want you to play a little bit higher we
can do the same thing so if we went between say now frets I don't know 8 and 12 something
like that we could have a G chord here using a C shape so it's G then we want E minor and
E notes there E minor so what we've got there we've got an A shaped chord but we've made
it into an A minor and then we want a C so the C base note is there fret number 8 so
we've got a C using an E shape and then lastly we want a D chord now we could slide the whole
thing up two frets but it falls out amongst our frets so we could do a D using a G shape
something like that so we've got basically you've got a G, an E minor and then you've
got a C and then you've got a D like that.
So I'd use those kind of things all the time to form new chord voicings.
Now I've gone through that very very quickly and it's a sort of thing that actually is
very simple in principle but to learn in practice takes a while to work into your playing because
you need to look at the major and the minor chord shapes and how they fit together and
you also need to learn the base notes on the bottom three strings so if that's been useful
to you go away and construct some chords with it if you're an acoustic player use as many
open strings as you can because it will give you a framework to construct new chords.
If you're an electric player you'll probably find it a lot easier to play all of the sort
of bars a bit further up the neck and things like you to create all the chords the edge
creates all these chords using those sorts of shapes you know it's a very good system
to use but if you want it a little bit more detail we go into it in a big long lesson
on our intermediate guitar course which goes through all sorts of caged chords in all sorts
of keys and you can work them into an actual set of songs as well.
