Caged Guitar System
The Chords That Any Beginner Should Learn First?
Although the teachwombat.com guitar teacher's materials go way beyond the absolute beginner stage with a full set of handouts covering modes and more complicated chord voicings the toolkits offered are not trying to reinvent the wheel.
Before moving on to the finer points of rock, jazz, blues, country,funk or metal guitar it is first neccesary to build from the basics. Our materials are designed to complement the way that guitar and bass is already being taught to beginner guitarists most effectively.
An example of this approach is the way that our stuff can be integrated into the activities of a guitar teacher who uses (or who wishes to use) the well established CAGED system of teaching guitar to novice students (You can find some information on teaching a first guitar lesson if you follow this link).
The CAGED system is used by pro teachers the world over for the simple reason that it really works! In a nutshell ,the caged system presents novice players with shapes based around the chords of C A G E and D (C, A, Am, G, E, Em, D and Dm to start off with).
If you would like a free student handout featuring the chords of The Caged Guitar System to use that will help you with the early stages of teaching then just follow this link which will take you to our free resources page.
The reality is that using The CAGED System is a very effective way to produce good guitar players (rather than just fill the time during guitar lessons).
Experienced guitar teachers will often spend the first couple of months of a novice players career becoming aware of the eight chords of the basic caged system and then becoming familiar with the process of changing between them.
Follow this link to see how a teacher might set about planning a first guitar lessons for an absolute beginner (perhaps the most common type of student that we encounter as educators?)
The caged guitar system can be developed to the extent that it allows a guitarist to understand the entire neck of the instrument but in it's basic form the system provides us with a list of the chords that are most suitable for a novice guitarist to learn.
Familiarity with these chords allows a student to get off to a flying start. and there are literally tens of thousands of songs that use only those chords and mastery of them gives the student not only a genuine ability but (perhaps more importantly) the belief that they really can become a functioning musician.
For a teacher this means that not only do they progress but that as a result they are likely to remain keen to come back for more lessons.
The CAGED GUITAR SYSTEM In Action
The CAGED System is not just about which chords to teach a beginner. It is just as important to know which chords not to teach yet. Closer analysis of the content of the caged system could lead to the conclusion that it could just as easily be called the “Whatever you do don’t try to get them to play an F chord too soon or they’ll give up right now and sell the thing system” (not as catchy I’ll admit)
What’s wrong with the F chord ? ..... Well…. Remember how hard it was at first to hold down those two skinny strings with a single finger?
Analysis of a lot of traditional guitar teaching materials shows that because the key of C is the easiest key to talk (or write) about due to the fact that the C scale is made up of all of the white notes on the piano (good for diagrams!) then novice musicians were forced into trying to learn chord shapes that were really better approached after a couple of months of study.
There can be little more depressing for someone trying to learn a skill than to have the material that they are studying pitched at too high a level
Just out of interest if you want to remember what it feels like to be a novice player again (perhaps vital for a teacher?) just flip your guitar over (if you are right handed) so that right hand is now used to fret the notes and the left to sound them. You will instantly be reduced to a level of incompetence that you would normally only get to after drinking your own body weight in beer!
The CAGED System of guitar teaching is used by experienced guitar teachers the world over because it introduces material to students in a way that allows them best to cope with it.
Caged Guitar System: Free Student Handout
Using The Caged System In Your Guitar Teaching
Backing Tracks and Handouts Package for Guitar Teachers
Many guitar teachers choose to (or would like to) supply their students with easy chord guitar backing tracks as an aid to practice.
teachwombat have produced a set of eight downloadable guitar backing tracks with handouts featuring the guitar chord diagrams to go along with them. The materials are especially designed to be used not only for novice players learning open position chords but are also suitable for intermediate standard musicians who wish to work on bar chords and soloing etc. Using the Guitar Backing Tracks and Handouts Packagemeans that you can drop the tracks onto CD or mp3 player or even email them as attachments to your students to allow them to practice guitar more efficiently.
The backing tracks encourage a student not only to learn the shapes and change from one to the other but more importantly to make those changes in time with the music.
Its the distinction between awareness of the chords and familiarity with them. In educational terms this makes a huge difference to a student's progression
Teaching Guitar: How Good Do You Need To Be?
Used along with the Guitar and Bass Teacher's Toolkits the Backing Tracks and Handouts package provide all of the materials that a reasonably competent guitarist would need to make the move into teaching. If you are currently wondering if teaching guitar might be for you it might be worth taking a look at our page which looks at the question "How good do you need to be to teach guitar ?"
The page features an extended version of an article that Rob (one of the teachwombat team) produced for "ultimateguitar.com" and looks at the qualities that someone setting out to teach guitar might have as well as providing loads of ideas for easy songs for guitar students to learn in the early stages of playing.
Backing Tracks with Handouts for Guitar Teachers
Download now for only $16.00 or bundle with the guitar and bass teacher's toolkits for just $25.00
Download The "Backing Tracks and Handouts Package" now for
only $16.00
or bundle with both the "Guitar and Bass Teacher's Toolkits" for
just $25.00
Click the text to print a caged guitar system handout featuring the first chords that a novice musician should learn
