Hacking the CAGED System

Most guitarists learn the fretboard in pieces and never assemble it.

A pentatonic here, some barre chords there, a mode learned off YouTube, an arpeggio from a lesson years ago. All of it is real, none of it is connected, so none of it comes out when you’re actually playing.

This book takes the opposite approach. One master pattern, laid across the whole neck, holds every note in the key, and everything else is drawn out of it.

What’s in it:
The material is organised by how many notes you’re using, which is a more useful question than it sounds. Two notes gives you intervals, dyads and double stops. Three gives you every triad in the key and its inversions. Four gives you seventh chords, their arpeggios and the barre chords hiding inside them. Five gives you the pentatonics, and shows why every pentatonic in the key is the same pattern moved. Six and seven give you the hexatonics and the full modes. Beyond that there are sixth chords and their synonyms (C6 and Am7 are the same four notes), and sus2, sus4, add9 and 6/9 for every diatonic root. The master pattern is written out in all twelve keys. A worked example takes one progression through triads, sevenths, pentatonics, modes and synonyms without leaving the pattern.

Only one thing in this book needs memorising, and that’s the master pattern. Everything else is meant to be found inside it, because what you work out yourself is what stays.

Revised 2026 edition: three new chapters (a worked application, a practice plan and troubleshooting) and a full update throughout.

Who it’s for: it stands on its own and doesn’t need Books One or Two. It does assume you know your intervals and can find your way around the fretboard. Complete beginners will find it heavy going.

Part of the Hacking the CAGED System series.