5 Common CAGED System Problems for Guitar – And How I Solved Them

CAGED system is a powerful tool for guitar players – if you know how to use it. You see, CAGED gives you a framework for creating any scale, chord, or arpeggio.

And it’s also a helpful navigation tool for playing all over the neck. Anything you need to play, in any key, anywhere on the guitar fretboard.

Plus once you learn it – the CAGED system can let you quickly use a guitar friendly shape that you already know… to learn something new faster.

Sounds pretty good, right?

But there are also problems with learning the CAGED system on guitar. People tend to run into trouble sometimes:

Getting confused about the names of the shapes
Not taking the time to learn the theory part of the system
Don’t understand how to use the shapes to move around the neck
Not actually practicing transitions between shapes
Not having the patience it takes to learn this system

But these don’t have to be problems for you. In this lesson, we’ll take a look at each of these problems, and how I solved them for myself and my students.

Taking the Names of the CAGED System Shapes Too Seriously

One problem I’ve seen is students taking the names of the shapes too seriously. This doesn’t seem like it should be a thing that happens to most people.

But I’ve seen it happen – so let’s talk about it.

Once, I had a student who thought if he used the “A shape” he was automatically playing in the key of A.

No matter where he was on the neck.

I had to convince him that the shapes are a reference point – and that he could indeed use that pattern to play in the key of D – he just had to start at the right fret.

And that’s the solution – you need to realize that these shapes are only a reference point:

“This chord looks kind of like an A – but it’s on the 5th fret so it’s a D”

In fact, the names of the CAGED system shapes are only helpful for guitar players if they make it easier to play. So if you’re thinking too hard about this, you’re doing it wrong.

A more helpful way to organize these shapes is to learn where the important and unique root notes are for each pattern:

C shape = 2nd string root
A shape = 5th string root
G shape = 3rd string root
E shape = 6th string root
D Shape = 4th string root

Highlighting the important root notes of shapes in the CAGED system.

This way each shape has a single reference point in your head, and isn’t so tied to the chord name you first learned it by. In the end, this is how I tend to think about the CAGED system on my guitar. By root note.

But I can still understand the connection to the basic open chord shapes. Focus on the root notes, and you’ll find your chords, scales, and arpeggios much faster.

Skipping the Theory Part of the CAGED System

A lot of students learn the CAGED system as just one skill for guitar:

Just barre chords
Just the basic scales

And then they move on, piecing the rest of their skills together along the way. I’m not judging here, because I did this for sure – I put all of my effort into learning the major scales using this system.

And ignored the chord part altogether.

But this is a mistake – I worked way too hard at learning chord shapes because I didn’t understand how the CAGED system works for guitar players.

The whole thing is really a template you can use to learn and play any musical concept on the guitar. And it works with the way your guitar is actually laid out.

Here’s how it works:

Each shape gives you an octave pattern
When you use this pattern as a frame, you can build any scale, chord, or arpeggio using the octaves as reference points
You’re almost guaranteed to come up with a guitar friendly (or friendly-ish) finger pattern

Octave patterns are important with CAGED shapes.

If you do it correctly, the CAGED system is where guitar playing and music theory meet.

Not Understanding How to Connect the CAGED System Shapes on Your Guitar

Sometimes when students first learn the CAGED system, there’s a lot of focus on learning each shape in isolation.

And to be fair, this is the best way to go for most people… at first.

But where the problem pops up is when people forget that these shapes connect up and down the neck, like puzzle pieces.

And honestly, I struggled with this at first too. I was more focused on changing keys without moving my hand (also hard to do), and ignored connecting shapes up and down the neck.

I ended up getting pretty good at playing changes. But I still struggled at times to move around the neck as I played.

This happens with chords too – you might feel stuck on one chord shape and have a hard time moving to a different area of the neck.

But I’ve found it’s more of a problem with scales, so that’s what we’ll look at here.

The common answer to this problem is a chart like this:

A common, but unhelpful way of showing the scales all over the guitar fretboard.

And that’s just overwhelming and unhelpful for most students. Look at all those dots! You can only understand this if you already know how it works.

The real helpful chart you could be looking at is more like this:

A more helpful way of showing how the CAGED system connects on the guitar fretboard.

This chart can help you see which notes are shared between each shape in the sequence – while still keeping your individual patterns clear and easy to remember.

With practice, you’ll be able to “see” your chord, scale, and arpeggio shapes all over the neck.

Not Practicing the Transitions

This next common problem doesn’t just apply to the CAGED system – but everything you do with guitar.

A lot of people will learn a fact or read a description of a technique or exercise…

… and then not practice it.

They “know” it (in an academic way) – and assume that will be enough to improve their playing.

But that’s just not how it works. Sorry.

But the good news is practicing the transitions up and down the neck is pretty easy. And once you know how it works, it’s going to stick with you. So you can actually use it in your playing.

For any scale, arpeggio, or chord, do this:

Pick 2 shapes that are right Next to each other
Practice going back and forth between the shapes until the transition is easy
With scales or arpeggios, there’s one extra step: try making the shift mid-pattern somewhere as you get more comfortable

Be sure to practice the ideas you learn about so you can actually use them in your playing.

Lack of Patience

Learning stuff takes time. It sounds kind of obvious, but we all kind of want things instantly these days. So it’s worth saying.

This goes for anything in life, and learning the CAGED system on guitar is no different. Most people halfway learn the CAGED system, get bored when they think they’re not seeing results, and move on to the next thing.

I get it – I did this too, especially when I was in college/grad school. I was always looking for something that would give me an edge in my guitar playing.

But certain things just work on guitar, so they’re worth putting in the time. And the CAGED system is one of them.

A lot of my time in school trying to figure out how different guitar players thought about scales. I was self taught (guitar wise) through a lot of my music degrees. My music classes and professors took care of the music part, but the guitar part was up to me.

One approach kept popping up over and over again – the CAGED system was really popular with guitar players. Sometimes it would come from different teachers, or have different names.

But it was all CAGED at the end of the day.

So eventually I figured “I may as well just figure this out” and got to work. It makes playing guitar so much simpler when you have a system that works.

Be patient with the CAGED system in your guitar practice. It’s going to take you some time, but it’s going to work!

And when I say it takes time – think weeks and months, not minutes and hours.

In her course on the CAGED system, Dr. Molly Miller lays out a 3 month program to get CAGED into your playing. I think that’s a reasonable timeline for anyone learning CAGED for the first time.

But if you’re already an experienced player, you might be able to learn it faster.

Be patient now, and you’ll have the CAGED system at your disposal forever.

Conclusion

Mastering the CAGED system is a process that will really help your guitar playing. It’s a logical system that helps you understand the guitar as an instrument – and makes it easier to play music.

Unless you’re an advanced player already who just needs a new way to look at this, it’s going to take you some time to learn. And that’s ok. Learn it piece by pieces, and you’ll be just fine.

You can make things easier on yourself by:

Not taking the names of the shapes too seriously. Learn where the root notes are, and recognize what the shape looks like and you’ll be just fine.
Learning the theory behind the CAGED System for guitar players. This isn’t a one technique system. You can build any scale, chord, or arpeggio you need, using the root notes of this system as an outline.
Learning how to connect CAGED shapes up the guitar neck. CAGED system is like a GPS system for your guitar. WHen you know how the shapes link up, you’ll never get lost.
Practicing those connections to get them into your playing. Knowing how this stuff works is only half the battle. You need to put in some practice to get used to actually doing it.
Being patient with the process. Learning the CAGED system takes time – but it will transform your guitar playing for the better.

If you put in the time and effort, you can use the CAGED system in your guitar playing pretty easily. And when you avoid these common problems, it’ll be smooth sailing.