22. Diatonic 7th Chords - CAGED System

Over the past five chapters, you've learned how to play chords rooted on individual strings: E, A, D, G, and B. We started with the heaviest strings and moved to the lightest to help you remember the chord shapes.

Now, it's time to connect these chords and unlock the entire fretboard.

While learning by string weight was helpful for memorization, the shapes themselves follow a different, systematic order on the guitar.

As you move from the tuning pegs towards the guitar's body, you'll discover that the same chord can be played using five distinct shapes. Each of these shapes is rooted on a specific string in a consistent sequence: B, A, G, E, then D. This "BAGED" order is key to navigating the fretboard efficiently.

You may have heard of a popular system for navigating chords across the fretboard called 'CAGED.' This system is widely used and refers to the five fundamental open chord shapes: C, A, G, E, and D.

The simplest way to learn the CAGED system is to root shapes directly on their respective strings to simplify fretboard navigation.

• C shape on B string
• A shape on A string
• G shape on G string
• E shape on E string
• D shape on D string

I personally think that the C shape should be renamed the B shape because it can be rooted on the B string.

This approach provides a clear, consistent way to identify and apply chord shapes based on their most prominent root location on each string. The graph below illustrates this arrangement, showing where you root the C major 7th chord on the B, A, G, E, and D strings using these shapes.

• This is what the C major 7th chord looks like rooted on all these 5 strings.

B String Chords

• This is the B string with the C major scale notes labeled.

• These are the four chord shapes for major 7, dominant 7, minor 7, and half-diminished 7 chords rooted on the B string.