About Caug — triad voicings
Caug is C, E and G# — C with the fifth raised a semitone.
It sounds stretched, and suspended between keys. Its commonest job is passing between a major triad and its sixth or seventh, with the raised fifth as a single voice walking up.
Caug notes and formula
| C | E | G# |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 |
Passing chord — it belongs to no key in particular.
Also written C+, C(#5) or C augmented. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Caug
Three notes on one string set. No seventh, so nothing is claimed about the chord beyond its quality.
Thin on their own, excellent over a bass line or against someone else’s harmony.
Caug has 46 of them, on the low-middle three, the high-middle three, the top three strings, the middle four strings, the bottom four strings, the top four strings, the bottom three strings, strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: C in the bass, E in the bass and G# in the bass. The one to learn first is the C shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
6 of them sit on the middle four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with xxx554 — only 3 fretted notes and low, at the 4th fret. None of the shapes for Caug uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. None of them needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x3211x | 1st fret | C, root position | C | all fretted |
| x3x554 | 3rd fret | C, root position | G# | all fretted |
| x3655x | 3rd fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
| xxx554 | 4th fret | C, root position | G# | all fretted |
| 87655x | 5th fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
| 8-x-10-9-9-8 | 8th fret | C, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-x-10-9-9-8 | 8th fret | C, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-x-14-13-13-12 | 12th fret | E, 1st inversion | E | all fretted |
What to play over Caug
Every note of Caug is in C whole tone and C altered.
Chords near Caug
Change one note of Caug and you have C (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), Cmaj7#5 (add the major seventh), Caug7 (add the flat seventh), C/E (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth) or C/G (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth).
Caug is a augmented chord — root, major third, sharp fifth. Augmented chords on every root.
On Caug’s sound and use this page follows Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne & Byron Almén, Tonal Harmony (McGraw-Hill, 8th ed., 2018). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.