Now that you understand the major CAGED system, it's time adjust the learning model for minor chords. Many people get so focused on the major CAGED shapes that they revert to them when tackling the minor CAGED system but you don't want to do that.

We didn't discuss this in the previous lesson, but - as I'm sure you know - three of the five open chords also have sister minor open chords. You'll notice the omission of the C minor and G minor chords as these chords, in their open positions, aren't easy to play, but we'll cover them later.

The minor CAGED system will look the same as the major CAGED, except every time we encounter a third, we'll lower it by a half step. This will create shapes that range from easy to play to quite challenging.

The Em Shape

If we take an E-shape, there's only one third in this shape, located on the G string. So, if you move the third down on the G string, so your finger is barring it, you've got a minor—an E minor shape. Once again, the knowledge from the first lesson comes into play as the intervallic values are the same as major:

The Am Shape

This might be the first time you actually realized that just flattening the 3rd gives you a minor. I know a lot of people I teach this to have this realisation for the first time. They never realised that's there's so little difference between major and minor. The third is on the B string, so if I want to make a minor chord, here it is.

The Dm Shape

And just like the Am shape, the Dm shape makes sense. We just lower the 3rd which this time is on the 1st string.

We're already beginning to see some connections between those shapes, connections that weren't necessarily obvious when you played these shapes in their open form.

Gm Shape

As mentioned before, when it comes to the G and the C shape, things are a little trickier. They're trickier because these shapes have two thirds, not just one, so you have to move two notes or two fingers, and we'll see that that generates shapes that are pretty much impossible to play.

So, we're going to have to make some sacrifices and modifications. The best way to play the movable Gm is to omit the 2nd string:

The Cm Shape

So now that you understand that, you'll probably guess that the C shape is exactly the same thing.

All right, that's it. So, we've just mapped out the fretboard using the CAGED system with major and minor chords.