So here we go into rock guitar. "Power Chords" are used in most styles of music but are particularly useful for rock guitar, but even sound cool on acoustic (check Nirvana's Unplugged album for an awesome example). The basic idea is that you will learn one shape and that one shape can move along the fingerboard and make other chords. It uses no open strings, and muting the open strings is a very important part of the technique.

 

Lets start by playing them and do the theory later

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Use only your 1st, 3rd an 4th fingers as shown, and start by putting your 1st finger in the 3rd fret of the 6th string (the note G). Then put down your 3rd and 4th fingers, if this is a bit of stretch don't worry, you will soon limber up! Try to keep them together, the 3rd finger kinda on top of the 4th as shown below.

 

Muting the unused strings

Try to get your 1st finger to lay softly on strings 3, 2 and 1. You don't want those notes to sound, you just want to mute the strings. This is very important, they will sound really bad if you let them ring out. You can't just be careful and play the 3 strings that have the fingers on them but that is very hard and means that you will never be able to rock out and hit the strings with any energy, or run around on stage like a rock god :-). Note that strings 1,2 and 3 are not being pressed down, just lightly touched to stop them from ringing out

 

Take a listen

It should sound like this when you play all the strings, from fattest to thinnest (6th to 1st).

 

Root Notes

Each chord has a "Root Note" - shown with a R, which gives the chord it's name. Once you have that down we need to move it around. Have a look at these notes on the 6th (thickest) string (just ignore the 5th string notes for now). The example we just played was a G Power Chord (Also called G5) because the root note under the first finger was the note G. If we move the shape up the neck we can play other chords, for instance, if you move it up two frets you get the chord A because that is the note under the first finger R! This root note concept applies to many things on guitar - well actually pretty much everything that does not use open strings! All scales and chords that don't use open strings can just be moved up nd down the neck and as long as you know which note is the root note you will be able to find the chord! It is a big concept that will help you advance on the guitar so take time to rememeber where all the notes are!   The Notes Inbetween If you don't know what note is between F and G (the answer is F# or Gb) then please go now and check out my lesson TB-006 • The Note Circle which will explain it. It is from my book Practical Music Theory which can be bought from this site! You know I don't try and see you stuff all the time, but it a really good way to get your basic music theory down, which makes many things a whle lot easier!

 

 

Songs To Play.... along the watchtower

You can play many songs with these chords that are very easy. A very basic version of All Along The Watchtower can be played using two strums on A5 (5th fret) then two on G5 (3rd fret) and then three strums on F5 (1st fret) and finally one on G5. Easy enough? Don't worry if the F seems a bit of a stretch, make sure you try to keep your fingers just near the frets and the notes will come easy in time. Should sound something like this:

 

Into Nirvana and other tunes

Once you have got that down you might like to try an all time great Power Chords song, Smells Like Teen Spirit. You will need to listen to it to get the rhythm but the chords are F, Bb, Ab, Db. So move your shape from fret 1, to 6, to 4 and then to 9. Check out the rhthm and you are away.

There are many, many songs that use them and I would recommend checking out the following songs as great examples. Either try to learn them yourself (check the Transcribing area or the Songs and TAB area of this site) or look on the web for some tab to help you.

Blur - Song 2
Blink 182 - All The Small Things
The Bloodhound Gang - Chasey Laine
Greenday - Basket Case
Guns 'n' Roses - Knockin On Heavens Door

 

And the future is...

So try to get them down first, but as soon as you have them mastered we can move the root onto the 5th string. But there are some issues to deal with first. So get these 6th string roor powerchords well under your fingers and then go onto the next lesson.

You might also like to check out my CD-ROM (below) which has loads of cool musical examples for you to play. Sorry for the blatant plug ;-) but I honestly think it is a great way to learn rock guitar.

Only when you are really ready and got these down go on to: BC-017 • Power Chords - Part 2

 

Video Lesson

 

 

Justins own CD-ROM for learning Power Chords

To compliment these lessons I think you will like a product I made for the Charanga company which has a number of songs that I wrote and produced you can play along with. It teaches you all the rock rhythm techniques and rhythms learnt in these lessons and the songs progress from very easy to totally rockin'. It is downloadable and you can even record your own guitar and listen back to yourself playing along with the tracks! It is a great way to learn, great fun and by the end you will really be cooking! It really is cool, there are loads of pictures and as you look at the music a neck shows you where to put your fingers on the animated fingerboard. If you buy it - enter JustinSandercoe as a promotional code and you will get 33% discount too. Check it all out here: Music Coach Rock Powerchords

 

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