As a guitar player, it is imperative that you know how to construct chords quickly and accurately. This skill becomes necessary when you enter a jam session with other musicians. They are counting on you to keep up with the harmonic changes! One of the systems of learning and applying chords is the CAGED system.

In Rob Garland’s first edition of Chord Navigator, he covered how to build triads quickly with the CAGED system. Now, in his CAGED Sevenths edition of Chord navigator, Rob helps you add sevenths to your triads so you can expand your harmonic palette when constructing chords.

Here are 11 free video guitar chord lessons from the course. For the full course, check out Rob Garland’s Chord Navigator 2: CAGED Sevenths on TrueFire!

Guitar Lesson – G Major 7th Chord C-A-G-E-D: Overview


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As with triads, by moving the open chord shapes for C-A-G-E-D up the neck the same chord can be played in different positions. Let’s examine a Gmaj7 chord which would have R-3-5-7, the notes G-B-D-F# from the G major scale.

Guitar Lesson – G Major 7th Chord C-A-G-E-D: Demonstration


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I’ll demonstrate this concept by playing a Gmaj7 chord in the 5 C-A-G-E-D positions.

Guitar Lesson – G Major 7th Chord C-A-G-E-D: Playalong Session


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Play along with me by strumming five Gmaj7 chords based on the open C-A-G-E-D chord shapes.

Guitar Lesson – G Major 7th Chord C-A-G-E-D Inversions: Creative Applications


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Here are some examples of musical applications based off of the Gmaj7 C-A-G-E-D inversions, such as movement between chords, funk/soul chord stabs and musical motifs created from arpeggios.

Guitar Lesson – Minor 7th Chords (m7) C-A-G-E-D: Overview

Minor seventh (m7) chords are built from the root, b3rd, 5th and b7th of the major scale. If you take the note C as your root note, the b3rd note of the scale is an Eb, the 5th is a G and the b7th is a Bb. We’re just adding a b7th to the existing minor triad. Play these notes together and you have a Cm7 chord.

Note: The 5th can be omitted and the chord would still be a m7 chord. As with minor triads each C-A-G-E-D shape contains inversions.

Guitar Lesson – C Minor 7th Chord C-A-G-E-D: Demonstration


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As with Maj7, the open chord shapes for C-A-G-E-D minor 7ths can be moved up the neck, enabling voicing of the same chord to be played in different positions. I’ll demonstrate by playing a Cm7 chord in the 5 C-A-G-E-D positions. A great exercise is to flatten the 3rd of the chord in each of the Maj7 C-A-G-E-D shapes making the major chord minor and then flattening the 7th. As I said earlier, the guitar is very visual, so take advantage of this by seeing the b3rd and b7th in each position and how that equates to a m7 chord.

Guitar Lesson – C Minor 7th Chord C-A-G-E-D: Playalong Session


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Play along with me by strumming five Cm7 chords based on the open C-A-G-E-D chord shapes.

Guitar Lesson – Combining Dom 7’s: “Blues Ignited” – Demonstration


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Let’s select an area of the neck to find the chords to “Blues Ignited”. The progression is a standard I-IV-V blues in the key of C, so the chords are C7, F7 and G7. Here we’re combining dominant 7 chord C-A-G-E-D voicings.

Guitar Lesson – Combining Dom 7’s: “Blues Ignited” – Playalong Session


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Play along with me combining dominant 7 chords for “Blues Ignited”.

Guitar Lesson – Voice Leading: Voice the CAGE – Overview and Demonstration


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Voice leading is where there’s a smooth and continuous movement of notes between chords often with a melodic line ascending or descending. Let’s hear the chords to “Voice the CAGE” played in the open position. Listen to how the bass moves and parts of the chords stay the same:

|Am|E7/G#|Cmaj7/G|F#m7b5|Fmaj7|E7|Asus2|E7|

Using CAGED voicings to play “Voice the CAGE”: |Am|E7/G#| CMaj7/G| F#m7b5|Fmaj7|E7|*Amadd9|E7

Guitar Lesson – Voice Leading: Voice the CAGE – Playalong Session


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Play along with me combining Maj7, m7 and dominant 7th chords for “Voice the CAGE” at several places on the neck: |Am|E7/G#|Cmaj7/G| F#m7b5 |Fmaj7 |E7|*Amadd9|E7|

Digging these free guitar chord lessons? Check out Rob Garland’s Chord Navigator 2: CAGED Sevenths.