
Nick Kellie teaches the CAGED system and theory of modes based around this system of learning.
Lesson 1
Nick Kellie teaches the CAGED system and the 3 point root guidelines to finding your chords.
Length: 22:29 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 2
Building on the CAGED system he taught in lesson 1, Nick teaches the major triad arpeggios built off those chords.
Length: 7:13 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 3
Nick Kellie demonstrates the dominant 7th arpeggios as they relate to the CAGED system.
Length: 9:29 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 4
Nick Kellie demonstrates the major pentatonic scales as they relate to the CAGES system shapes.
Length: 7:40 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 5
Nick Kellie demonstrates the major scales in relation to the five shapes of the CAGED system.
Length: 5:35 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 6
Now that he has already covered the major CAGED shapes, Nick Kellie demonstrates the minor shapes for the CAGED system.
Length: 10:58 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 7
Nick Kellie teaches the minor triad arpeggios for the CAGED system.
Length: 5:19 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 8
Nick Kellie teaches the minor 7th arpeggios as they relate to the CAGED system.
Length: 6:39 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 9
Nick Kellie demonstrates the minor pentatonic scales as it relates to the CAGED system.
Length: 3:10 Difficulty: 0.5 Members OnlyLesson 10
Nick Kellie demonstrates the natural minor scale using the CAGED system.
Length: 4:29 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 11
Nick Kellie discusses intervals and interval spacing on the guitar.
Length: 24:28 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 12
Nick Kellie discusses the three parent scales that all other diatonic scales are derived from.
Length: 10:14 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 13
Nick Kellie discusses how to harmonize the diatonic major scale.
Length: 13:19 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 14
Nick Kellie discusses the seven modes derived from the diatonic major scale.
Length: 22:07 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 15
Nick Kellie covers the Phrygian mode of the major scale.
Length: 6:43 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 16
Nick Kellie covers the Lydian mode of the major scale.
Length: 7:37 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 17
Nick Kellie covers the Mixolydian mode in five positions.
Length: 8:10 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 18
Nick Kellie demonstrates the Aeolian mode in five positions.
Length: 5:09 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 19
Nick Kellie covers the Locrian mode in five positions.
Length: 6:20 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 20
Nick Kellie explains how to change modes while improvising.
Length: 15:26 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 21
Nick Kellie discusses and demonstrates how to create modal chord progressions within the seven different modes.
Length: 28:35 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 22
Nick Kellie discusses chord development. Taking key strategies from pianists, Nick demonstrates how playing with a single bass note can benefit your chord construction.
Length: 15:17 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 23
Nick Kellie discusses and demonstrates how to use the licks you learn.
Length: 11:14 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 24
Nick Kellie demonstrates how to find the key of a song.
Length: 13:49 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 25
Nick discusses and demonstrates some uses for non-diatonic chords within a progression.
Length: 7:08 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 26
Nick explains how to harmonize the major scale with diatonic 7th chords.
Length: 11:27 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 27
Nick explains how to use scales and modes effectively when soloing over a chord progression.
Length: 9:53 Difficulty: 1.5 FREELesson 28
Nick discusses how to transpose a lick or riff into a different mode.
Length: 8:36 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 29
Nick Kellie demonstrates pentatonic scales derived from the modes of the major scale.
Length: 9:32 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 30
Nick Kellie discusses 9th chords, how they are used, and demonstrates a few voicings to get you started.
Length: 8:35 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 31
Nick Kellie discusses 11th chords and their applications.
Length: 4:39 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 32
Nick Kellie discusses and demonstrates voicings for 13th chords.
Length: 6:08 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 33
Nick Kellie discusses how to use the Dorian and Super Locrian modes effectively within a single chord progression.
Length: 10:03 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 34
Nick Kellie discusses concepts and ideas for soloing over jazz compositions.
Length: 20:50 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 35
Nick Kellie demonstrates jazz solo techniques for his song "30 Hour Journey."
Length: 10:50 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 36
Nick Kellie demonstrates and discusses building chords and chordal tones from within a scale.
Length: 5:58 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 37
Nick Kellie discusses how to read scale charts pertaining to the CAGED system of playing.
Length: 8:36 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 38
Nick Kellie returns to his theory and improvisation series with a lesson on understanding modal playing and separating the modes from their parent scales.
Length: 35:16 Difficulty: 3.5 Members OnlyLesson 39
In lesson 38, Nick discussed more basics on understanding modes and modal playing. In this lesson, he discusses separating your modes from their parent scales to give a more balanced and modal sound to...
Length: 16:34 Difficulty: 3.0 Members OnlyLesson 40
Returning to his theory and improvisation series, Nick discusses how you might already being applying modal playing without even knowing it. He discusses how you can pull modal scale ideas and progressions...
Length: 9:34 Difficulty: 3.0 Members OnlyLesson 41
Nick Kellie returns to his Theory and Improvisation series with a discussion on scale sequencing. In this lesson he discusses how sequencing in both numeric and intervalic forms can open up the scale...
Length: 12:17 Difficulty: 3.0 Members OnlyLesson 42
Now that Nick has covered the basic concepts of sequencing scales, he covers how you might sequence within the pentatonic scale. He also discusses linear and non-linear playing.
Length: 14:17 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 43
Nick Kellie returns with another look at sequencing. Nick has been talking primarily about playing sequences using diads or intervals. In this lesson, he demonstrates sequences based on diatonic triads...
Length: 7:04 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 44
Now that you've learned how to sequence triads, Nick applies the same concepts horizontally with diatonic seventh chords and their arpeggios.
Length: 5:54 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 45
Nick Kellie discusses how a key is harmonized and how this knowledge can help unlock playing over chords and within different keys.
Length: 15:42 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 46
In his 46th lesson, Nick Kellie takes an applied approach to soloing over a backing track. In this lesson, he discusses ways to solo and connect scales and modes over his track "Melody of Hope".
Length: 18:47 Difficulty: 3.0 Members OnlyLesson 47
Nick Kellie takes a look at another backing track and discusses how to implement scale ideas over it.
Length: 15:17 Difficulty: 3.0 Members OnlyLesson 48
In this lesson, Nick discusses how applying the third interval across a scale idea can open up melodic ideas in your playing. To get you started, he teaches the third interval pattern for all adjacent...
Length: 10:20 Difficulty: 2.5 Members Only
About Nick Kellie
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Nick was awarded the BBC Big Band Jazz awards "John Dankworth trophy for outstanding young soloist" and recorded a special show for BBC radio 2. He was invited to become a member of the Wigan Jazz Orchestra, and has played as part of the Wigan International Jazz Festival. He has played extensive gigs which include accompaniment, reading, soloing as well as styles ranging from Soul, R&B, Blues, Rock and Jazz in locations such as London, Norway, Germany and Greece.
Nick, with his professional approach towards music, brings enthusiasm and musicality to every project he is involved with. As well as being a guitarist Nick is also a fine vocalist and can sing lead vocals as well as backing vocals.
In London Nick has been involved with many projects such as Fresh Claim, which features Nick on guitar, and Jon Plotel on Bass (Billy Ocean, The Real Thing) and Vanessa Haynes band featuring members of Jeff Beck group, Eric Clapton’s Band and Allan Holdsworth’s Band. For a time Nick resided in Nashville TN where he played with many local musicians. In addition he also played in a Jazz Fusion band named "Shammah", with whom he has recorded an album.
Most recently Nick was signed to Digital Nations www.digital-nations.com - part of Steve Vai's record label and has recorded an album entitled "For A Brother" with his band "Nick Kellie Band". Upon hearing the album, Steve contacted Nick with regard to a release on his own label. It has been released in the USA, Europe and Asia. As well as this, Nick is also an endorsee of Elixir guitar strings, which are world-renowned.
Nick Also contributed to around 21 issues of Europe's biggest selling guitar magazine - "Total Guitar" in his series of articles, "Techniques of the rich and famous" and "Steal their style".
Having taught at Europe's top two guitar schools, Nick was also appointed as head of the guitar department at Guitar Getaways.
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Member Comments about this Lesson
Discussions with our instructors are just one of the many benefits of becoming a member of JamPlay.Sorry, meant four fret stretchs are very difficult.
Great lesson! The frustration to understand is melting away. Finally, I understand where to start from with these shapes. I do have problems with the stretch over five frets. Some are just not possible with the size of my hands. Do you have some stretching exercises you prefer or perhaps a certain type of guitar?
Excellent! Ive nailed it, thank you for this lesson.
Think I need to re watch a few of these again. Lots to sink in.
Great lessons Nick! If my goal is to just be able to play some melodic leads and basic acoustic solos around the campfire, which arpeggios and scales should I focus on? I'm a little overwhelmed at the number of options presented. Thanks!
I understand - If you are going to play pop/rock then you can simply focus on the E and A forms of Major and Minor triad arpeggios
Thanks Nick!
Nick, excellent lesson. I never had the CAGED system expained so clearly. I was also reading in the comments prior to mine about problems forming some of these chords and like your explanation on using a sort of "Mini Barre" chord.
for the life of me, I can't finger some of these off chord shapes. I feel like my hands just aren't big or agile enough. Did you have this problem when you started, Nick?
I sure did. I would suggest abbreviating some of the chords down... for example the G shape chord can just be the top 4 strings missing out the E and A strings entirely - though it is important to be visually aware of the whole shape for reference purposes
brilliant lesson - incredibly clear and exceptionally well thought through. thank you for taking the effort to make this so accessible. great guitarist / musician and a great teacher - thank you Nick.
you're welcome and thank you for your kind comment!
Nick, this was a great lesson. I really enjoyed the pace and the clear explanations. You really are, a huge asset to the site. Take care...
thanks for such a nice comment! :)
Could you say that these are five different chord shapes with different notes in the base like slash chords?
Finally, someone made sense of the CAGED system, and explained it perfectly.
thanks!
Amazing lesson Nick! But for my life I cannot play the C in that G shape.
This entire lesson set is amazing. I,ve been playing for years but never extracted the framework you so clearly explain. Light bulbs popping all over the place! The lesson on finding the key and how it relates to scale harmonization was a revelation to me. Brilliant pedagogy. Your lessons alone make jamplay a steal.
thanks so much - that comment really lifted my spirit! Glad the lessons are helping you
That was a great lesson. I finally understand the caged system. Well done..great teacher.
GREAT LESSON. I can mentally play major chords up the neck like a crazy woman, but not phisically! I know: PRACTICE. BUT WHAT ABOUT MINOR KEYS? And will this help with learning the scale positions. Mostly interested in minor pentatonic for my blues.
hey - if you go through the series, I do a lesson on the minor CAGED chord shapes as well as scales, arpeggios and pentatonics.
Hi Nick, What caused me to start looking at this lesson is that I'am trying to learn "CAPO" positions and what effect the Chord changes as you go up and down the neck. IE: If you play an E Chrord in first position,and place the Capo on the 4th fret it is then necessary to change the Chord shape to get an E Chord. I guess this is called "Voiceing"/ Not sure why it's called voiceing.Is there asimple way to determine what chords apply. You may cover this later,but I thought I would ask now. Dennis
See Mary Flowers Aritist Series "CAGED" system and capo use. Very good!
hey dennis... well if you were to play an E shape with the capo at the 4th fret, you would in fact be getting a G# (Ab) chord... this is because the root note would be G# (Ab) because of the Capo. If you want an E chord you would need to play a C shape if the capo is on the 4th fret.
Brilliant explanation! I've been wondering how to use CAGED for years. YEARS! It never makes sense in books. Now it seems so simple and I actually feel kinda stupid for not getting it a long time ago. Thanks!
thanks so much man! glad it helped.
Interesting. Once you have the basic Concept down it makes perfect sense. The next question is how can I actually use this, I don't believe I'll have time to stop on the fly and start visualizing..Ok I have a C open, which is a G shape, so if I want to play this over on the eighth fret..ect..too much computing. However, VERY IMPORTANT, I realized all you have to do is know the next shape of the Root chord in your progression. For Example, your lesson was C,F,G..which is a 1,4,5 progression. So if I move down to the 8th fret/6th string and create a C chord I need to know/on the fly it's an A shape. Now the cool part, I know a 1,4,5 progression in A is A,D,E...and what do ya know if I play a D shape here and an E shape I can do it without very much thought or memorization, or backtracking to the open chords to rebuild the caged sequence. This was an Ahaaa moment for me, one that others should benefit from..specially 1,4,5 rythm players.
Hey - once you learn the shapes well, there will be no visualizing on the fly... you will just play them - takes time but trust me, if you practice hard enough it will happen.
Thanks a lot for this great lesson Nick! I enjoyed how you broke it down, made it very easy to understand.
this really opened up my neck for me. ive been playing fora good 6 years and i have been trying to open myself to more varieties of chords to give my music more color. this really opened a great deal up for me.
happy to hear it!
Hi Nick, great lesson. I was just wondering why you have such weird frets on the 1st position of your 2nd and 3rd strings?
it corrects the intonation on these frets. check truetemperament.com
cool lesson never knew the guitar was set up like this and i have been playing for like 3 years!
hope it helps you
finally i get the CAGED system! I've spent years tryna grasp it fully in my head-this video clears it all up. thx Nick
glad I could be of help
This is awesome! Its all new to me, but it makes a lotta sense. Thanks Nick.
glad to hear it!
This is a great lesson!! Thank you!!
Thanks for the crystal clear explanation of the CAGED system!
really great lesson nick! so useful! im happy i´m back in jamplay and seeing you finally recorded lessons.
I've had huge problems to wrap my head around this - but thanx to Nick - Hey presto! Thanx man! Now it's fun to play again.... :o)
yes, finally i can get this down,. so dar so good. got the shapes yeah!!!!!!!
I wanted this to be my most recent comment about this terrific lesson. Ahah!! - it all came together here in this lesson. Previously reading Three other Fretboard books did not clear the fog. CAGED was elusive. Here the pieces came together - and I got it ! the Video Illustrates the connection of one shape to the next. Away I go CAGED enabled. thanks Nick
This is the CAGED ssytem. It walked southward up the neck C A G E D in a very connected pattern. Why is the reference material (major CAGED pdf) in another order? D A E C G? The sequence and the fretboard conenction is garbled in this way. the Dots dont line up.
that is if I understand correctly 0-:
well it depends on the chord you are talking about...in scene 2 we look at the C chord, which goes Cshape A shape Gshape E shape and then D shape... then scene 3 is the F chord which starts on the E shape then, D C A G ..... then the G in scene 4 chord goes G shape, E D C A ... it depends which shape you start it on... I started each chord from their lowest possible position on the neck... but they always goes in the order of the word CAGED.... sometimes starting from a different Shape... so you can get AGEDC, GEDCA, EDCAG, DCAGE
Fair enough. The sequence is the same, where you start in the sequence will depend upon the Chord being played. I get this. My Q? is about the reference material (Major CAGED pdf), assuming that it is a 2 column newspaper-like presentation it starts under the legend on the left at D then A, and on the right column goes E, C, G. I don't get this order! Am I misreading the reference page? I think it would reinforce the sequence message and be more illustrative re-sequenced down the left C A, then down the right G E D.
well thats not how I read it... I go from the top... E then D C A G... simply the word Caged starting from E... this is just meant to supplement the main transcription so you can visually see the shapes. hope that makes sense. thanks
Ah - it all came together here in this lesson. Three other Fretboard books did not clear the fog. CAGED was elusive. here the pieces came together - and I got it ! thanks Nick
I'm having some serious issues with the full G shape barre fingering. I believe I've seen people lift their 2nd finger off the 5th string and roll their 3rd finger down to mute that 5th string. So you're playing all the notes of the chord minus the muted 5th string note. This does seem to work better for me. Any thoughts on whether this would be an acceptable alternative or tips on how to finger the full chord?
hey wayne - the way I show it in this video, the 5th string is not muted... it is in fact fretted. The supplemental content is now up so you can see the exact fingering I use. Thanks! Nick
Really great lesson, has really opened up the neck of the guitar for me. Thanks alot Nick :)
Finally a lesson on the CAGED system on Jamplay! I'm eternally grateful Nick!
thanks for the uplifting comments folks... glad to help
I'm so grateful for this lesson set. I read about the CAGED system from the sticky thread in the forum. I was completely confused. The video lessons help immensely. Thank you! :)
cool, thx again
Very well done, Nick! This is a very different way of mapping the fretboard than I learned, and now I can more clearly see the logic of the CAGED system. No doubt several of my students will also be able to make use of it to better understand their instruments. Always good to have several tools in the belt--thanks for giving a very clear description and application of this one! Steve
Loved this lesson! great job and great teacher Thanx Jam play
got the fretboard theory understood easily enough... actually fingering these barre chords not as easy
Very cool lesson, i never understood squat of the system but you managed to explain it to me! Looking forward to more of your lessons!!!!!!
Good, solid explanation of an important concept. Thanks Nick, great lesson and I hope to see more of your stuff here.
great lesson nick, wondering if you could do a lesson on the caged system for scales? thanks
its all done... just a matter of time before the videos are edited and posted...
i always wondered about this, having come across the catch phrase "CAGED" a million times in magazines. Now I get it, thanks.
Great lesson Nick! :-)
bout time :D thanks nick
thanks guys, hope you find it useful - I will be doing the tabs for this ASAP.
Great lesson on a great subject. Thanks Nick!
Great Lesson Nick