Question about CAGED and the Major Pentatonic

hollywoodrox

viz said:

kelpbeds said:

Blatant plug! I've got a super comprehensive, two part course out on CAGED if anyone is interested.
If you add 'fretboard20' you'll get a 20% discount of all products.

https://www.timdaleyguitar.co.uk/collections/guitar-courses

What about if we add 'fretboard100'?

You will break the Higgs boson particle & the world as we know it will collapse into a singularity

kelpbeds

viz said:

kelpbeds said:

Blatant plug! I've got a super comprehensive, two part course out on CAGED if anyone is interested.
If you add 'fretboard20' you'll get a 20% discount of all products.

https://www.timdaleyguitar.co.uk/collections/guitar-courses

What about if we add 'fretboard100'?

Gone, someone has grabbed it!

GuyBoden

There are only 5 CAGED patterns for each key, just learn them for the songs you play. I'm still using the 5 CAGED patterns for a morning warmup exercise, and I'm an old man.

No excuse, they're simple, just get on with it, slowly everyday. 

5 Patterns for each key, use the whole fretboard. Link the patterns. 

guitarjack66

I find it very easy to memorise and play the major pentatonic but outside of position 1 I struggle with minor one.

Jay100

Pickup Music have a really good CAGED course with Molly Miller, as well as some other really good courses too.

They break it down into small parts and keep the application of it musical, and practical.

Can get a free trial for a while then equates to a little over £20 a month. I’ve had a lot of benefit out of it, thought you may too!

finest1

there is nothing wrong with the CAGED system. look at it as another way to learn the guitar fretboard not THE ONLY way.  we have all had different learning experiences. i learnt it late in my guitar journey, but still helpful in connecting common tones and learning to see the fretboard as a complete entity as well as sections. sounds like your ear is struggling to get to grips with the major pentatonic. i struggled to.  Depending on your musical taste, AC/DC songs mix major and minor pentatonic and blues. easy tracks to listen to is highway to hell and you shook me all night long solos.  Check out lessons by Justin Sandercoe loads of info on CAGED and blues

guitarjack66

finest1 said:

there is nothing wrong with the CAGED system. look at it as another way to learn the guitar fretboard not THE ONLY way.  we have all had different learning experiences. i learnt it late in my guitar journey, but still helpful in connecting common tones and learning to see the fretboard as a complete entity as well as sections. sounds like your ear is struggling to get to grips with the major pentatonic. i struggled to.  Depending on your musical taste, AC/DC songs mix major and minor pentatonic and blues. easy tracks to listen to is highway to hell and you shook me all night long solos.  Check out lessons by Justin Sandercoe loads of info on CAGED and blues

I'd rather be electrocuted than listen to AC/DC songs personally.

viz

By what form of current?

joeW

Since you know the patterns from the minor pentatonic- I’d just spend some time with some major or dominant backing tracks to get used to the sounds of the same notes acting as different functions.   A few sessions of 15 mins with a strong focus on how the notes sound relative to a major tonality will probably fix the block you have - it’s really no biggie.  

FWIW - major pentatonic is just a major 6 chord with one note borrowed from its relative diminished - or so says Barry Harris 

Gulliver

At heart, I'm a blues/rock guy - so that maybe informs how I developed my approach to CAGED or modes.

Pentatonic is my home/starting point for most things - it's the basic salt and pepper of seasoning.  From there, it's about adding other flavours from the other 7 available notes.  So - I started by adding chord tones that don't feature in the pentatonic, then I learned what other notes sound like - this lead to an understanding of modes, but rather than a theoretical understanding, it's a sonic understanding.   CAGED is good for learning the fretboard, I have no doubt - but I don't want to have to consciously think about scale shapes, I'd rather think about sounds.

Having tried recently to learn new things by learning shape rather than how I did before and it being REALLY difficult - I'm not convinced learning CAGED early on would have been right for me.

monquixote

I came to CAGED when I had already been playing the guitar for a while and despite having a few tries I didn't find it helped me at all.

hexaphone

Troy Nelson's book Fretboard Freedom might be helpful.  It is a year-long practice guide with exercises including major scale licks in various styles.  He combines the five chord voicings with arpeggios, and extended major and minor pentatonic scales to include chord tone soloing as well as having scalar parts.  He doesn't use the term CAGED, but his chord voicings are the same.  The only difference is they are presented with a focus on the roots and relationships to tones in the scales.

icu81b4

Anyone use getfretwise.com ? 

Teaches an intervals approach 

What he says about CAGED

“ Patterns are essential to some extent on guitar, after all it is a visual instrument. But the real sauce in what I’m teaching is interval recognition and placement, so that players can play with intent instead of just traversing through scales and common chord shapes “

JonnyBgoode

icu81b4 said:

Anyone use getfretwise.com ? 

Teaches an intervals approach 

What he says about CAGED

“ Patterns are essential to some extent on guitar, after all it is a visual instrument. But the real sauce in what I’m teaching is interval recognition and placement, so that players can play with intent instead of just traversing through scales and common chord shapes “

Getfretwise.com, Darryl Sims site, offers a bunch of different courses, I assume you are asking about his 'Interval Mapping Protocol'  i.e. his fretboard navigation system? 

Whilst your quote above suggests that he offers an alternative approach, If you look at the course breakdown, you'll see it's actually based entirely around CAGED:
https://getfretwise.com/courses/caged-fretboard-visualisation-masterclass/

So whilst he might be talking about intervals within that, its still CAGED. Contrast this with Tom Quayle, for example, who uses an intervals approach but doesn't apply CAGED at all (very clear contrast in the discussion he has with Martin Miller on Youtube).

Litterick

I cannot imagine what playing CAGED would be like. I have never tried it. I learned the fretboard by other means. Do CAGED players understand how the uncaged play? Or do we share mutual incomprehension?

JonnyBgoode

Litterick said:

I cannot imagine what playing CAGED would be like. I have never tried it. I learned the fretboard by other means. Do CAGED players understand how the uncaged play? Or do we share mutual incomprehension?

Well you don't  'play CAGED' anymore than you would 'drive GPS' . Using a GPS says nothing about your general driving skills or what choices in terms of speed, steering etc you might make whilst on a journey, compared to someone who has planned the trip using a paper map or even someone who just watches out for road signs and follows them. Ultimately its your driving skills that will determine whether you crash :-)

CAGED is simply about pattern recognition that enables you to see the fretboard in terms of interconnecting chord shapes, and a framework to overlay scales (and from those two things, access intervals and chord tones etc in your soloing).  Its a tool, nothing more. Some will find it useful, others less so.

Also (for me) it depends on the circumstances i.e the music. If I am playing/teaching stuff by Hendrix , John Mayer, Philip Sayce, John Frusciante - all bluesy rock Strat players, CAGED is just perfect. Axis Bold as Love, Little Wing, Under the Bridge, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room etc are just great CAGED chord embellishment  'studies'. In fact it would be difficult to play or teach this stuff and be oblivious to CAGED.

On the other hand if I'm messing around with something more shreddy, like maybe Satch's Flying in a Blue Dream, I am seeing the fretboard in terms of 3nps scales because that maps out perfectly what he's doing. 

As I said above, for an interetesting discussion between two stellar players and how they see the fretboard (CAGED vs 'unCAGED')  watch Martin Miller and Tom Quayle.   

Litterick

JonnyBgoode said:

Litterick said:

I cannot imagine what playing CAGED would be like. I have never tried it. I learned the fretboard by other means. Do CAGED players understand how the uncaged play? Or do we share mutual incomprehension?

Well you don't  'play CAGED' anymore than you would 'drive GPS' . Using a GPS says nothing about your general driving skills or what choices in terms of speed, steering etc you might make whilst on a journey, compared to someone who has planned the trip using a paper map or even someone who just watches out for road signs and follows them. Ultimately its your driving skills that will determine whether you crash :-)

CAGED is simply about pattern recognition that enables you to see the fretboard in terms of interconnecting chord shapes, and a framework to overlay scales (and from those two things, access intervals and chord tones etc in your soloing).  Its a tool, nothing more. Some will find it useful, others less so.

Also (for me) it depends on the circumstances i.e the music. If I am playing/teaching stuff by Hendrix , John Mayer, Philip Sayce, John Frusciante - all bluesy rock Strat players, CAGED is just perfect. Axis Bold as Love, Little Wing, Under the Bridge, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room etc are just great CAGED chord embellishment  'studies'. In fact it would be difficult to play or teach this stuff and be oblivious to CAGED.

On the other hand if I'm messing around with something more shreddy, like maybe Satch's Flying in a Blue Dream, I am seeing the fretboard in terms of 3nps scales because that maps out perfectly what he's doing. 

As I said above, for an interetesting discussion between two stellar players and how they see the fretboard (CAGED vs 'unCAGED')  watch Martin Miller and Tom Quayle.   

You do play CAGED.  You give examples of playing CAGED and not playing CAGED. It is not simply pattern recognition. It is an approach invented by Keith Allen and first published in a 1975 Guitar Player Magazine article called Blue Bear Waltzes:“Keith begins teaching his system for the fingerboard by stressing the fact that, because of the innate structure of the guitar’s tuning, there are five major chords that can be played in the first position without a barre — E, D, C, A, G. Each of these five chords can be barred and moved up the neck to play any other major chord on the chromatic scale.”

I am interested in hearing from people who only play CAGED, to learn how they understand different approaches, if at all.

JonnyBgoode

Litterick said:

You do play CAGED.  You give examples of playing CAGED and not playing CAGED. It is not simply pattern recognition. It is an approach invented by Keith Allen and first published in a 1975 Guitar Player Magazine

Well I disagree. I gave examples where I feel CAGED as an idea lends itself well to learning certain music and other music where I don't feel its as useful, *but* actually I could  'see' the fretboard in terms of CAGED shapes whilst playing that other music if I chose to, whilst playing the same notes. Does that mean in your terms that I would be 'playing CAGED' or not?

You say yourself you have never tried it and can't imagine what its like,  so TBH  I don't see how you can really understand what it represents, by reading one person's take on it and what it means to them.

BTW you're wrong about Keith Allen inventing it. Bill Thrasher (no really!) was teaching these concepts in the 60s and is supposed to have worked with Joe Pass on them. The origins of the idea likely go back much further than that given the age of the modern guitar/tuning. 

Litterick

JonnyBgoode said:

Litterick said:

You do play CAGED.  You give examples of playing CAGED and not playing CAGED. It is not simply pattern recognition. It is an approach invented by Keith Allen and first published in a 1975 Guitar Player Magazine

Well I disagree. I gave examples where I feel CAGED as an idea lends itself well to learning certain music and other music where I don't feel its as useful, *but* actually I could  'see' the fretboard in terms of CAGED shapes whilst playing that other music if I chose to, whilst playing the same notes. Does that mean in your terms that I would be 'playing CAGED' or not?

You say yourself you have never tried it and can't imagine what its like,  so TBH  I don't see how you can really understand what it represents, by reading one person's take on it and what it means to them.

BTW you're wrong about Keith Allen inventing it. Bill Thrasher (no really!) was teaching these concepts in the 60s and is supposed to have worked with Joe Pass on them. The origins of the idea likely go back much further than that given the age of the modern guitar/tuning. 

I am interested in viewpoints. I know what CAGED entails, and am not drawn to it, but I would like to know what those who play CAGED exclusively understand. I am not interested in a fight.

Everybody says Keith Allen invented it. Who am I to disagree?

Blueingreen

I didn't become aware of CAGED until I'd been playing for quite a long time.  When I looked at it I realised that a lot of it was stuff I already knew albeit in slightly different forms.  Modal patterns I'd derived from taking pentatonic fingerings and adding two more notes for example.  There's no doubt that CAGED was a more complete and comprehensive system than the one I'd cobbled together for myself, but on the other hand my version did seem to focus on the more valuable parts.  

I did do a bit of work on CAGED but my impression was that the plus was filling in gaps, but the minus was spending time on things that would give me a tick for completeness but would often be rarely used.  It might be good to be equally comfortable playing all scales in all positions, but in practice you will tend to gravitate to the most naturally comfortable ones. Generally I've ended up thinking there are more valuable things I could be practising.

But then I don't have much interest in being a great technical player (or maybe more accurately I started playing guitar and taking it seriously too late in life for becoming a great technical all rounder to be a realistic goal).