Position Playing in Major Keys

Every chord in a key can be played within the same span of four or five strings, without moving the fretting hand up or down the neck. This is called playing in position. It makes chord changes and melodies easier to play, note relationships easier to understand, and creates smooth voice leading (minimal changes in pitch from the notes of one chord to the next). It also helps us understand harmony on the fretboard as a single connected map, rather than as a collection of chord grips.

We can organize all the CAGED-shape chords in a key into five positions along the neck. The positions can be identified by the CAGED shape of the tonic (I) chord. Depending on the key, the positions slide up and down the neck, but they are always the same shapes in the same order.

This lesson series explores the chord shapes in each position one at a time, and then explores all positions at once for each chord degree. The lessons assume some understanding of the underlying concepts of chord harmony. See Beginning Chord Harmony to learn more about that.

Most students learn faster by focusing practice on a single position at a time, becoming familiar with that before adding another. The E-shape Tonic and C-shape Tonic positions tend to be the easiest to get started with, because they don't include a D-shape major chord (which I consider one of the most awkward).