Part 1 of this mini-series covered the E and A chord shapes and how they relate to the CAGED system. So, let’s now move on to the C, G, and D-shaped chords. Starting with the…
D-shaped Barre Chord
The root note of a D chord is the open 4th (D) string, and you’ve probably guessed the rest by now! Yes, it’s exactly the same concept as the E-shaped and A-shaped chords covered in Part 1. However, you probably haven’t played a D-shaped barre chord before, so here’s how to play it. This example is a D-shaped E major chord barred on the second fret:
It’s a bit more of a stretch than the E and A-shaped chords, but it gets much easier when you play it further up the neck.
Start by playing a root D chord, then swap the first, second, and third fingers with your second, third, and fourth fingers. Now move it up a fret and barre the first fret, leaving the second fret without any fingers on it. This is unlike the E and A-shaped chords because they had fingers on every fret; with the D-shaped barre, you need to remember to leave a free fret between the barre and the other three fingers. Now give it a strum and you will hear a D# chord, move it up one more and you have an E chord, as shown in the diagram above, and up three more frets to the 5th position and you have a D-shaped G chord, as shown below:
Again, you can make the chord minor, seventh, major seventh, or any other chord shape and play the barred version anywhere on the fretboard to create the new chord. For example, here is a Dm-shaped F minor chord barred on the 3rd fret and a D7-shaped B7 chord barred on the 9th fret:
Next, the…
C-shaped Barre Chord
Again, the same concept, start with a root C chord and replace your first, second, and third fingers with your second, third, and fourth fingers. Now move the chord up one fret and barre on the 1st fret, and you will be playing a C# chord. Up one more and it's a D chord, two frets again, and you’ll get an E chord, and three more… a G chord.
But what about the root?
Unlike the E, A, and D-shaped chords, the C chord does not have its root note on an open string, it’s positioned on the third fret of the A string (A>A#>B>C). Therefore, the C-shaped barre chord is governed by whatever note is underneath your little finger on the A string.
Minors, Sevenths, etc.
Again, things are a bit more complicated when it comes to forming other chords from the C-shaped chord. For example, there is no simple root C minor shape, therefore you can’t use the C-shaped barre to easily create minor chords.
As for sevenths, a C7 requires the use of all four fingers, so again it can’t be barred. Although you can play the four-finger version anywhere on the neck as long as you mute the high and low e-strings, as shown in the diagrams below.
The root of the C7 chords is underneath your third finger on the A string so that you can name the chords as you play them up the neck.
However, some C-shaped chords such as Cmaj7 (or CM7) can be barred in the usual fashion and played anywhere, as shown below:
Quick Tip
If you want to quickly improve your ability to play C-shaped barre chords, try learning the wonderful introduction to ‘Under The Bridge’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It starts with a C-shaped D chord barred on the second fret, which alternates with an E-shaped F# chord, again barred on the second fret.
Here is the YouTube video and the TAB…
And finally, the…
G-shaped Barre Chord
This is by far the hardest of the barred CAGED chords to play, and most guitarists use either the top or the bottom of the chord to get the sonic result they are looking for.
Start with a root G chord (the three-finger version, not the four-finger version) and replace your first, second, and third fingers with your second, third, and fourth fingers. Wow, that’s a stretch already, but wait for it…
Now move the chord up two frets and barre on the 2nd fret, that’s either painful or impossible depending on your dexterity - you are now playing an A chord.
Up two more and it's a B chord, one more fret, and you’ll get a C chord, and up two more frets will give you a D chord.
A More Practical Method
As mentioned, players very rarely use this full chord shape, but they do use parts of it. The G-shaped barre chord can therefore either be created using the low strings, i.e., playing the lowest two notes of the G chord and then barring the next three strings and muting the high e-string.
Or by playing the note on the high e-string (and the note on the B string if you prefer the four-finger version of the root G chord) and then barring the D, G, and B strings (if you’re not playing it) to create the G-shaped barre chord.
But what about the root?
As with the C-shaped barre chord, the root is not on an open string; it is found underneath the third finger of the barre chord on the low E-string. If you are playing the higher octave partial version of the barre chord, you can use the note on the high e-string for reference to suggest the actual root, which would be on the low E-string that you are not playing.
The Best Way to Learn Your CAGED Chords
Believe it or not, learning these new chords is much simpler than you think if you follow this method. Start by revisiting one of the first songs you ever learned, it could be any two, three, or four-chord song, for example, Knocking on Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan. The chords are:
G / D / C / C
G / D / Am / Am
Play it through a few times using root chords to re-familiarise yourself with the song.
We are now going to play the song with a barre on the 3rd fret, but there is a rule that you can only move the barre one fret either side of the starting fret position, except in certain circumstances, when a move of the barre by two frets is acceptable.
The first chord - G - is easy, it’s an E-shaped chord barred on the 3rd fret. Next is the D - this is a little harder; it’s a C-shaped chord that is barred on the 2nd fret to make a D chord. The next two C chords are also easy, they are A-shaped chords barred on the third fret.
The next G and D of the song are the same chords that we’ve already repeated, then we come to the Am chord. This is much more difficult to keep within the one-fret rule. If it had been an A major chord, then we could have played a G-shaped A chord barred on the second fret, but since there is no easy barre version of a G minor, we can’t do that, so we have to use the Em-shaped chord barred on the 5th fret to create the Am chord.
We’ll now try it with the barre based around the 5th fret…
Let’s start with a D-shaped chord on the 5th fret, which will give us the G, followed by an A-shaped chord on the 5th fret for the D, and a G-shaped chord on the 5th fret for the C chord.
Next, we'll repeat the G and D chords we’ve just used for the next two bars of the song, then finish off with an Em-shaped chord on the 5th fret to give us the Am.
You have just played all the correct chords of the song without needing to move from your barre on the 5th fret.
You can try this exercise anywhere on the neck, and it will usually be possible within one fret either side of the starting barre, or in some cases, as with our first example, you will need to move the barre by two frets.
Practice makes perfect…
After you get the hang of playing Knocking on Heaven’s Door using CAGED barre chords, try some other simple three and four-chord songs. When that gets relatively easy, move on to songs with more chords, for example, House of the Rising Sun by The Animals is a great song to really master all of your CAGED barre chord shapes.
Wrapping it Up
That’s it for Part 2 of my look at the CAGED system. In Part 3, we’ll be exploring how the system works for scales and, most exciting, how to join everything together, creating a visual roadmap of your fretboard that will make it a much less daunting place than it is at the moment.
