3 harmonic layers of the Major scale through the lens of CAGED

These are printable charts to help you learn the CAGED system for guitar. Its 5 patterns are presented as 3 incremental harmonic layers: (1) root triad chord tones, (2) major pentatonic tones, and (3) full Major scale. Each next layer adds extra notes to the previous layer. The circles have intervals (scale degrees relative to the major scale). Root tones have a stronger visual emphasis to provide soloing landmarks and a better overview of the shape's primary "anchor points" to help you memorize and internalize patterns of all layers. All diagrams are isolated from one another to let you focus on just a single pattern (and layer) at a time.

You can think of these layers as notes which (1) make up the chord, (2) are next to the chord, and (3) are harmonically more distant from the chord (in other words, consonant notes to less consonant notes in relation to the root triad tones). This separation lets you target them individually and evoke the right effect at the right time.

One variation of this reference shows notes of the layers superimposed on the notes of the full major scale and highlights the non-layer tones as blank filler notes that you can use either as passing tones or simply visually observe and study how each layer shape "fits" within the full CAGED pattern.

The download package contains 2 PDF versions: a colored and a printer-friendly grayscale which is meant to save your ink/toner while also making sure you can see and read everything clearly.

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