Power Chords The Power Chord is the most common sound in Rock music. Because it is so prevalent and you will use it all your guitar playing days, let's take care to form it correctly and get it sounding sweet before we go on to Power Chord examples. Because there are no open strings in a Power Chord it is
a "movable" shape. You could slide it up and down the neck and place it wherever and you would always
have a chord.
Typically, you'd like your fingers curved in this fashion when forming a chord to allow the other strings to pass under and be allowed to ring if part of the chord. Not with power chords, those open string clanging about would sound terrible in most cases. We mute the unwanted strings by laying our first finger "lightly" on top of them.
When we play a power chord with the Root on the 6th string it is called a Root 6 Power chord. Brilliant! When we play a power chord with the Root on the 5th string we call it a......you guessed it! A Root 5 Power chord! Wow!
The Power Chord has only two notes. The root note is under the first finger. If your were to play a Root 6 power chord and your first finger were on the 5th fret, you would be playing an "A" power chord commonly refered to as "A5". If you slid that same chord up to say, fret 8, you'd be playing a C5 power chord. Now try a couple of Root 5 chords. Form it with first finger on fret 5 and you have D5. Slide it down to fret 3 and you have C5.
Power Chord
Examples
Ex. 48
Slowly at first then faster once you master Ex. 49
Slowly at first then faster once you master Ex. 50
Slowly at first then faster once you master Ex. 51
Slowly at first then faster once you master |
