Hey Friend,

Let’s get back to Brad’s question about barre chords and the CAGED system, which was what do I think about learning barred C, G and D shaped barre chords?

I’ve created a lot of exercises showing you root 5 and root 6 barre chords. These are the A and E chord shapes from CAGED, respectively. Admittedly, these are tough to play when you’re new to guitar, but with practice and time, anyone can play these.

The nice thing about these chords is the fingers fall into line pretty easily. There’s not a bunch of extra stretching you have to do to form the chords.

Not so when you start thinking about a barred G or C shape. And a D shape presents its own challenges as you try to maintain your index finger barre while your other three fingers form the D.

Take a look at these chord shapes. 

C, G and D Barre Shapes PDF

C, G and D Barre Shapes MP3

Here are my thoughts on Brad’s question…

Personally, I don’t use them, at least not in a barred form. The whole idea behind CAGED is that the shape itself is movable, and the focus is on the triad, or the three notes that create the chord.

Guitars are tuned in a way that let’s us normally play these chords in open positions, but the beauty of CAGED chords is you can slide each shape up or down the neck to play any major chord.

Notice in the exercise that by moving the C chord up two frets you get a D chord. A G moved up two frets is an A, and D up two frets is an E. But do you need the barre?

Not really. You could argue that if you’re looking for a particular inversion of a chord, you might want to use a barre, but again, that’s a lot of work, and there are other positions on the neck you can use to accomplish the same thing without the barre.

With that said, playing CAGED chords as barres is not without merit. The stretching to form the chords is great exercise for your fingers and hand, so I don’t want to dissuade you from trying these out. 

But I don’t think adding them to your standard batch of usable chords is necessary to make you a better guitarist. You’re better off memorizing shapes and positions for the chords you regularly use. We’re primarily Rock guitarists here, with more utilitarian needs. 

Peace~

Dave