Ballad of Big Nothing
The bass note is always the root note. If you don’t know them, learn them, there’s no way around. Now let’s take a look at the notes C-E-G which form the C major chord:
You’ll discover two things: the patterns repeat after the 12th fret, which is no surprise, and you’ll find all of the five chord shapes shown above, only the positions are different:
- C major shape is at it’s usual position using open strings
- A major shape has moved three frets higher
- G major shape has moved five frets higher
- E major shape has moved eight frets higher
- D major shape has moved ten frets higher
That means you can play any major chord using any of these five shapes moved to the right position. Not only that, this applies to all chords. If you know the shape and the position of the root note for one key, you know them all. This is no secret and is called CAGED system, because of the chords names shown above. You may also notice another goodie: since the first four string notes are all a fourth apart, the same shape appears also if you move up a string higher. If you play the first three notes of G major one string above, you’ll see that it’s – C major, a fourth above!
One problem is left: the open strings have to be moved, too. One way is to use your index finger – you know this as barre chord, the most common example is the F major chord: it has the same shape as the E major chord, just moved one fret higher, covering the open strings with your index finger. Same is possible for the A shape.
The other way is more individual and depends on your finger size, strength and dexterity. That’s the reason why I don’t add strict fingersets. The trick is that there’s no need to cover all strings, usually it even sounds better using each chord note only once. The only thing to remember is to try to keep the bass note at the lowest position. Now let’s view the shapes in detail: C shapeFor most people it’s impossible to play this as a barre chord, so we can’t move it using the same fingerset. The easiest way is to omit both E strings and finger each note separately. Example: G major using the C CAGED shape looks like
G
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