Before You Learn CAGED, You Must Have This!

To know the name of the notes on the strings, the first step is usually to learn them on the E and A strings. That’s because these are the notes you’ll use when playing barre chords, or playing your first scales.

The E string

Let’s start with the notes on the E string, and let’s focus on the natural notes. We have F on fret 1 (right after the open E), and G, A and B on the first three dots. Make sure this makes sense, and that you’re confident with these notes before adding the next few.

The rest of the frets is usually fuzzier as we rarely play barre chords up there, but we still need to know them! We have C on fret 8, D on fret 10 and E is on fret 12. Of course, since we have 12 notes in western music, fret 12 will always be the same as your open string!

If you know all of these, you know all the natural notes on the E string. From there, you can map the flats and sharps. A sharp is one fret higher than a natural note, and a flat is one fret lower. Except between E/F and B/C, which are glued together!

The A string

We now need to map the A string, the same way we just did on the E string. The principle is the same, the lower frets are usually clearer because we use these notes for barre chords, but the higher frets can be fuzzier. We have the notes C, D and E on the first three dots (frets 3, 5 and 7). And as always, B is right before our C, so B is on fret 2.

We then move on to fret 8 with the note F (right after E), G on fret 10, and A on fret 12. Again, A is on fret 12 because we’re on the A string! There’s no rush to learn everything at once, it can take a bit of time and effort, but it’s all worth it!

To practice that, just put your finger on a note on either string, and ask yourself what the name of that note is. Just do this for 5min here and there when you can, and you’ll see that you’ll soon be able to name any note!

This might be one of the more beneficial things you do on the guitar if your aim is to play around with the CAGED system and really understand it.

Other strings and octaves

Good news! You already know the name of the notes on the high E string, as they are the same as the low E string.

We could now look at the strings left, and tackle them one by one like we did on the E and A strings, but there’s a faster way. Instead, let’s figure out how to play octaves starting on the E and A strings.

Let’s focus on the low E string. If we play a note on the E string and move two strings higher and two frets across, we land on the same note (now on the D string) but an octave higher! That’s our first octave shape. That means you can figure out the name of any note you’d play on the D string by tracking its octave on the E string.

And good news again, this also works on the A string, exactly the same way! So, when you play a note on the A string, you have the octave of that note on the G string, two strings higher and two frets across!

Now, what about the D and G strings? What if we want to use the same trick? The octave shape on these two strings is slightly different, as we now move two strings higher but three frets across. This is our second octave shape.

Once you have these two octave shapes down, you can figure out any note across the fretboard. Let’s take an example and let’s say I want to figure out what note we are playing when fretting the 6th fret on the B string.

The first step is to go down an octave using the second octave shape we’ve seen. We land on fret 3 on the D string. And if you’re unsure about that note’s name, use the first octave shape to land on the E string. We land on fret 1 on the E string, so the name of the note we were looking for was F!

In Summary

To master the CAGED system, the first real step is to learn the notes on the neck. And the first step to that is to know the notes on the E and A strings! From there, you can use octaves to map and understand the rest of the fretboard.

This will help you focus on the shapes of the CAGED when you'll have to learn them, and not only where the root notes are, or where to play these shapes!