Guitar Courses
Free Music and Guitar Course PlaneTalk Online How to Play Slide Guitar How to use CAGED Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar More...
Guitar Lessons
All Fingerstyle Lessons Single Fingerstyle Lessons Bluesy Lessons Americana Lessons 15 Easy Guitar Licks Slide Guitar Lessons Christmas Lessons More...
The Guitar
Types of guitar Buying your guitar Anatomy of the guitar Tuning your guitar Changing strings
What is Music?
What is Music? Notes Fretboard map Major scale The C major scale Other scales Time Tempo
Chords
Chords defined Open major chords Open minor chords Open major 7th chords Open 7th chords The Open B7th chord Open minor 7th chords Barre chords defined E form barre chords A form barre chords Sus 4 chords Sus 2 chords Extended chords defined Extended chords Power chords Slash chords Diminished, Augmented, 6thChords summary Simple progressions Tricky progressions The CAGED System Kirk's Chord Finder
 Playing
Playing the guitar Reading TAB Strumming Hammer-ons Pull-offs Fingerpicking/Fingerstyle Harmonics Vibrato Bending Muting Sliding Slide Guitar Using a Capo Transposing using a capo
Tuner
Online Guitar Tuner

Power Chords

 

Power chords are no more 'powerful' than ordinary chords. I'm not sure where the term came from, but 'power-chords' aren't really even chords. As we have learned, a minimum of three different tones (Root-Third-Fifth) is required to qualify as a chord. Power chords have only two:

Root and Fifth ... or 1-5

What's missing is the Third, the 3. Since the 3 determines the major/minor quality, power-chords are neutral in that respect. When I first started playing, no one ever used the term power chords. It was when distortion and overdrive became common in rock music that players began leaving the 3 out of chords. The sound of a normal major or minor chord gets very blurred out using distortion. So power chords are not really chords, they're intervals, although the way most people play them and the way they're shown below, they do in fact use three tones: two roots and a fifth. You can also just play them as two-note shapes.

This is the "E form' power chord because it's a cut down open E chord shape. Move this little shape up or down the fretboard. Many players leave out the top root note and just play the two bass strings.

This is the "A form' power chord because it's a cut down open A chord shape. This little shape is also movable. Once again, you can just play a root and a fifth (strings 5-4) but it will sound fuller if you double up the root as shown in the image.

You can see by those red crosses that a lot of muting is necessary, or careful picking/strumming, in order to avoid playing those strings. The E form is the easiest since you don't have to worry about muting the thick string, but if you run out of fingerboard, you will have to use the A form for some chords. As always, the root names the chord, so the best way to deal with these is to think of the full barre shapes/positions and then leave out the appropriate strings.

← Previous

Let's have a quick look at 'slash' chords →