The Problem With the CAGED System
- ryanboisselle
- Mar 16
- 3 min read
If you’ve been playing guitar for a while, there’s a good chance someone told you this at some point:
“Just learn the CAGED system and the whole fretboard will open up.”
And on paper, that sounds great.
Five shapes.
Connected across the neck.
Suddenly, everything is “mapped.”
But if you’re honest, you might also recognize this feeling:
You know the shapes…You can move them around…But when it comes time to actually play music, you still feel stuck.
So let’s get this out of the way early:
The problem with the CAGED system isn’t that it’s wrong.
The problem is how it’s usually taught, and what people expect it to do.
What the CAGED System Actually Is (and Isn’t)
At its core, CAGED is a way of organizing the fretboard using five familiar open chord shapes:
CAGED
Those shapes repeat as you move up the neck, and yes, this can be useful. It helps you see where chords live in different positions, and it can be a decent orientation tool.
What it was never meant to be is:
a complete understanding of harmony
a soloing system
a replacement for listening
The way I see it though is CAGED is just a neat coincidence, not the music of the fretboard itself.
And problems start when it’s taught as the solution instead of a reference.
How I Relate it to my Kanji-Learning Experience
Living and teaching in Tokyo as a Canadian guitarist, I had to study Kanji, and for most non-Japanese people studying Japanese, studying kanji is about as painful as studying the fretboard.
Pretty much everyone studying Kanji comes across something called the Heisig method, memorizing kanji through pictures, stories, and visual components.
That method works for recognition.
川 = a river
木 = a tree
You can look at a kanji and say, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that before.”
But then comes the shock:
“I know the kanji… but I can’t actually read real Japanese.”
That’s because recognition and usage are not the same thing.
CAGED works the same way.
It helps you recognize the fretboard. It does not automatically teach you how music actually flows through it.
Just like kanji stories don’t teach grammar or conversation, CAGED shapes don’t teach phrasing, rhythm, or harmonic function.
What I Teach Instead (and Why)
When students come to me feeling stuck with CAGED, this is what I actually focus on.
1. Root notes first — especially 6th and 5th strings
If you know where the roots are on the 6th and 5th strings, the neck immediately becomes less random.
You can:
find keys quickly
follow chord changes
orient yourself anywhere
This alone solves a huge amount of confusion.
2. Chord tones around those roots
Instead of giant boxes, I focus on small, repeatable chord tone shapes connected to those roots.
These shapes:
work for comping
work for soloing
explain why certain notes sound stable
When students understand chord tones, their note choices suddenly make sense.
3. Major scale patterns (as context, not cages)
Yes, I teach major scale patterns.
But not as places you’re “stuck inside.”
They’re:
raw material
a pool of available notes
context for color
The important distinction is this:
Chord tones are targets
Scale tones are options
Phrases are the goal
How I Organize the Fretboard for Students
This is the rough hierarchy I use in lessons:
Root notes everywhere (especially 6th & 5th strings)
Chord tones connected to those roots
Major scale patterns as supporting context
Horizontal movement across positions
Applying everything to real songs and solos
Once notes have jobs, the fretboard stops feeling abstract.
Final Thought
CAGED can help you see the neck. But music happens when you understand sound, function, and feel.
If you want help reorganizing how you see the fretboard—or getting unstuck from pattern-based playing, I teach one-on-one and group guitar lessons in Takadanobaba (Tokyo), in English or Japanese.
Different students need different approaches. My job is to help you find the one that actually works.
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