jamey Faulkner

An interesting thing happens when chords move up the fretboard. The Root moves to the 3rd of the chord, the 3rd moves to the 5th, & the 5th moves to the Root. They go in a cycle.

We can play melodic arpeggios up a single string. When we do this, we can see the fret spacing of the type of chord we are playing. In this lesson, we are playing Major chords, which are built as a 4-3, where the 4 is a Major 3rd [4 half steps = 4 frets] & the 3 is a minor 3rd [3 half steps = 3 frets]. The 3rd is 4 frets away from the root, the 5th is 3 frets away from the 3rd, & the root is 5 half steps away from the root [it's a Perfect 4th back to the root].

We can also stack the Root, 3rd, & 5th on 3 adjacent strings. When we do this, the chord is either in Root Position [the root is on the lowest string], 1st inversion [the 3rd is on the lowest string], or 2nd inversion [the 5th is on the lowest string].

What follows is the C Major Triad on 3-string sets. As we look for the next way to play the same set of 3 tones, the root moves to the 3rd, the 3rd to the 5th, the 5th to the root. Brilliant!

A change in color [black/white] is a new chord.

Play through each string set, & realize the chord components along the way. We’ve broken C down into chunks. All of these chunks are C Major triads. They are all fragments of the CAGED cycle as well [forms are skipped].

This is the most advanced thing I’ve discovered for standard tuning. Some of the most advanced players I’ve spoken to, are not aware that the fixed position cycles even exist.

This is kind of heavy, so you may want to circle back to this after going through basic CAGED lessons.

I call these cycles holographic because they provide a whole picture & creates a ’3-dimensional’ view to how standard tuning chord forms work.

Linear & Fixed Position CAGED Chord Cycles

Most of us have some familiarity with CAGED chord forms [at least heard of it]. The system goes like this:

• We can build chords from a given tone.
• Chords can be fingered on the guitar in standard tuning based on a C, A, G, E, & D form [shapes at the nut].
• When forms move up, the index acts as the nut [takes the place of it, keeping the fret spacing the same].
• There are 12 tones [positions] & 5 chord forms [CAGED].
• We can play every chord like a C, like an A, like a G, like an E, & like a D.
• We have options for how we finger the forms when they move up the fretboard [we call these preferences].

Linear Cycles

The rows above reflect linear cycles of chord forms.

CAGED forms always go in order [letter order] up the fretboard for a given tone. For any of the 12 tones, one of the shapes starts the cycle at the nut. Whatever letter that is, the next way to play the same type of chord will be whatever the next letter in the word CAGED is. Example – as in line 1 above: C is played like a C at the nut. The next way to play C will be like an A [in 3rd position - P3], then like a G in P5, then like an E in P8, then like a D in P10.

Fixed Position Cycles

The columns above reflect fixed position cycles of chord forms.

When playing alphabetical chord scales in a fixed position, the chords also follow the CAGED cycle of chords. When we play an ascending chord scale [C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C], the cycle goes in reverse [DEGAC], & when descending, the cycle is in word order [CAGED]. Since there are 7 letters in the musical alphabet, we have to repeat forms. We have options here, yet, the repeating chord forms line up with the half-steps in a Major scale [between 3-4 & 7-8]. We could also repeat forms between 6-7.

Example: the diatonic chord scale for the key of C Major is C-Dm-Em-F-G-Am-Bdim-C [I-ii-iii-IV-V-vi-viidim-I]. When we play this in P1, the cycle of forms is like the first column of forms above. The chord forms for this chord scale in P1 are C-D-E-E-G-A-C-C or even better – C-D-E-E-G-A-A-C.