Hacking the CAGED System: Book 1

By Graham Tippett

The CAGED system gives you five patterns. Two of them are almost unplayable.

That's where this book starts - by throwing two of them out.

Most CAGED system guitar books hand you five scale patterns, five chord shapes and a diagram showing how they link up, then leave you to work out why your solos still sound like scales. This one hacks the CAGED system down to four patterns: the two worth keeping, and two borrowed from the three-notes-per-string system that cover the same ground without wrecking your picking hand.

Four shapes. One sequence. The whole fretboard.

Taught in F major, on purpose

Not C, not A, not E. Guitarists find those keys comfortable for reasons that have nothing to do with music, and a system learned in a comfortable key has a habit of only ever working in comfortable keys.

What you'll learnThe four hacked CAGED patterns, and the sequence that connects them across the neckHow to find any root note anywhere on the guitar fretboard - one shape, one exceptionConnecting the patterns so your solos stop living in one positionEvery diatonic chord in the key, in every patternSeventh chords and the guitar arpeggios that come straight out of themThe switch from note names to intervals, which is where the fretboard finally opens upHow to land on the right note as each chord goes pastThe guitar modes, drawn out of patterns you already know rather than learned as seven new scalesKey signatures as the framework that ties all of it togetherA 30-day practice plan, and a troubleshooting chapter for when it still sounds like scalesNew in the 2026 revised edition

Six new chapters: finding the root note anywhere on the neck, connecting the CAGED patterns, what happens between the landing notes, common chord progressions by number, a 30-day practice plan, and troubleshooting. Fully updated throughout.

Who this book is for

Guitarists who can already get around the instrument and are tired of knowing shapes without knowing what to do with them. If you're after licks, tabs or songs to copy, this isn't the book.

Book One of the Hacking the CAGED System series. Book Two covers extended chords and the melodic minor scale. Diatonic Harmony maps an entire key from a single master pattern.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1519021569
• ISBN13: 9781519021564
• Release Date: October 2016
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 52 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 8.0" x 10.0"