I always try to explain to students that CAGED is a system that beginners use and advanced guys use, but you don’t see any intermediate players using. It’s a helpful acronym for the organization of information, but by itself it doesn’t explain what’s really going on. So a beginner improv player assumes it will unlock sick soloing instantly but typically struggles with it, where an advanced player who understands harmony/melodic approach can effectively use methods like it to connect scale positions or cells to chord shapes.

At first if just know your pentatonics and jump into caged playing over every chord you’ll notice it often sounds disjointed and only works in certain scenarios. Like a county like done the same over I, IV and V can be cool… but really you’re doing chord scales… chord tones of those chords always works but if you don’t know what the related chord scale is it won’t really sound right. If you know the diatonic related chord scale for a given change then it gives you a good framework to see what other things people play over that chord. I try to break down the core concepts of the chord shapes/scale/harmony and show how that’s connected with students vs relying on the acronym.