There has been a lot written about the CAGED system for understanding the guitar, but I recently learned that you can apply the same thinking to the mandolin. I have to thank Ryan Rogers of the Dirtygrass Players for pointing this out to me. The basic gist of the CAGED system is that you can understand the entire fretboard of the mandolin in terms of five basic chord shapes and their associated scale.
Start with the basic first position Chop chord of C major:
If you play the 2 octave Arpeggio in a closed position you can already see how the C shape connects to A shape for the next inversion:
If you continue to the next inversion you’ll find that it resembles the G shape:
The next inversion looks like the first position E chord:
The next inversion looks like the D shape:
The best way to start using this idea is to learn the 5 chord shapes and their associated scales and arpeggios. Check out this PDF I put together and drop me a line if you have any questions.
Justin Heath 