EASY Rock Guitar Chords - What Is A Power Chord Guitar Lesson

So this video is going to be broken up into three sections. One, what is a power chord? Two, you know, what are the different shapes? And three, at the very end, I'll show you some cool things that we can do when we play and use power chords on the guitar.

So first let's talk about what a power chord is. And I want to start with using just a regular G chord. Now, a G chord is a very open chord, has a lot of sounds to it. Now power chords, I call them abbreviated chords because they sound very abrupt in comparison. So this is a G5 power chord, okay, you can hear that has a little bit more of an abrupt rocking feel to it. Power chords are very common in rock music. So here's the open G chord, very open, very bright sound. Hear that?

Compared to the power chord.

Now, a power chord is just made up of two notes. And you can either play this over two strings or three strings. I'm going to show you the shapes in a second here. But I just want you to understand just a little bit of the music theory behind this. So usually when you see a power chord, it has the number five after it. So if you see a G, that's an open chord. But if you see a G5, that indicates that it's a power chord. And what it is is it's two notes called the root and the fifth. Alright, the root gives the name to a chord. So this is a G5 power chord. So the root note is G, the note that gives the name to the chord. And the other note on the fifth fret of this fifth string, that's our fifth. It is the fifth note up from G in the scale. We're not going to go into all that music theory mumbo jumbo. But I just wanted to understand, just for basics here, that a power chord is made up of two notes. They're called the root and the fifth. And that's it. So now let's get into the different shapes that we can use for power chords. So the first shape I'm going to show you are some open power chords. Now an open power chord just uses one finger, the first finger. And the first example I'm going to show you, I'm going To show you three chords here is an E5 power chord. It's just the open E string and the first finger on the second fret.

Okay? And you don't want to hit all these other strings, so I'm kind of muting them with my first finger. But it's the open E string and the Fifth is this note right here. It's the second fret on that fifth string. So that is an E power chord. If you move your finger down one, we have an open A string. And our fifth note is going to be the first finger on the second string of the four or, sorry, fourth string second fret.

That is an A5 power chord. A. And if you move down one more open D. Okay? And first finger on the second fret of the third string, that is a D power chord. Now, this stuff is pretty common. You can use it in blues.

So sometimes you will hear some of that stuff in blues music. Most of the time, people are not going to be using open power chords, but I wanted you to be aware that they do exist. But the most common form that you're going to see in songs is the next shape I'm going to show you here. Hey, guys, hope you are enjoying this lesson so far. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel. Turn on the notifications. This way. You know, when I release new videos just like this one. Now, the next way I'm going to show you how to play power chord is probably the most common way. It's going to involve two strings. I'm going to show you two versions here. All right, so let's go back to that G5 power chord. Now, this is a shape that can be slid all over the guitar. Okay? Once you learn this shape once, you can use it in lots of spots. That's the great thing about power chords, and they don't matter. There's no third. So it doesn't third. It's a music theory term. Don't worry. Power chords are not major or minor. That's why they have that five after them. It's not major, it's not minor. It's just a power chord. All right, so let's start with this G5 power chord. So we have. Our first finger is going to play the root note here. This was the G. And how do I know? Because 1, 2, 3rd fret, top string. This is the G note. And that's very important because it's going to tell us that this is the name of the chord. G. Now I got to take my third finger and I'm going to go down one string and up two frets. So I have the third fret on the top string and the fifth fret on the fifth string. So 3, 5, 3 5. That is root, fifth, root, fifth. And we would play these two strings at the same time. Now with my third finger, just so you guys Know, I am laying that down over the other strings so that I don't let them ring out. Because if we're playing a power chord and we hit the other strings, it might not sound so good. So you may just want to practice. Light practice, lightly putting that third finger down. Okay, so that's your power chord. Okay. Very common song, a very popular song with power chords. Think of Iron Man, Black Sabb. Great song.

All right, so you can hear that. That's kind of that intro. It's all power chords. And some of this stuff sometimes is easier to do on an electric. Like, there's a little slide part that comes after that. That's definitely easier to do on electric than an acoustic. But you may have noticed when I played that example, all I did was slide this shape. Okay, so. So I played an open E5. Okay? That was the open power chord. Then I played a G power chord. I played the G again, and then I slid that up two frets to an A power chord. How do I know it's an A power chord? Because my first finger's touching this A note. So it was open E5 to G.

G, A, A. All right, so what's this telling us we can slide this shape? If I slid it up two more frets, my first finger would be on the seventh fret of the top string. That's a B5 power. All right, and this same shape works on the fifth string. Okay? So if I'm on the third fret of the fifth string, this is a C note. Okay. This is where learning your fretboard becomes important to know where these notes are. And then I'm going to move up two frets down one string. That's a C power chord. If I move it up 2 to the 5th and 7th D power chord. Move it up 2 more E power chord. So you have an open E power chord here, and then you have an E power chord up here at 7 and 9. So you can see these chords can move anywhere.

So that's the amazing thing about power chords, is it really opens up the entire neck of the guitar for you guys here. Now, one more addition I want to show you. There is a way to get a fuller sound out of your power cord. And that would be if we go back to that G power chord would be doing root fifth. And you could add a pinky below that, and that would be another root note. Some people like to bar this as the third finger. Playing both notes, whichever is more comfortable for you, but it gives you a little bit more of A fuller sound instead of just the two strings. So here's two strings, G5. All right, here's three strings.

Get that extra root note in there. Just fills it out a little bit more.

Okay, there's Iron man again. So you can hear it just provides a little bit of a fuller sound. So whatever you want, whatever you're more comfortable with, whether you want to do the two string power chords or the three string power chords, that shape is able to be slid all over the guitar. Hey, guys, if you're enjoying this so far, make sure to check out my stuff. Stage 2 mini courses. I do have a power and bar chord mini course. If you guys are interested in learning about that. You can go check it out in the description below. All right, so I want to show you some cool things that you can do with power chords that are fun rhythm wise. So a lot of times for rhythm with power chords, we're always going to be doing eighth notes. One and two and three and four and one and three and four and one and two and three and four and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And so that is a very common thing you'll hear with power chords, particularly in rock music. Now something else that's pretty common with rock music and I have a whole nother lesson on palm muting that I'll put up here, you guys can go check that out. Is that we can do some really cool accented rhythms. So for example, I'll give you one example here, which would be just accenting the first rhythm of the power chord.

Okay, that sounds pretty cool, right? Another thing would be to accent the second and fourth beats. So it would be something like this.

The other thing that's really cool with power chords is we can do something that I like to call the Chicka Chicka. You think of a song like Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. That is a good song. So here's the chicka chicka sound on Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Do you hear that? I caught like a chicka chicka. It's where we actually mute the strings. So because we're doing these power chords, we're able to mute our strings with our fretting hand. So in this song, we're going from an F power chord, okay, first fret, to in a B flat or an A sharp power chord. Okay. So that would be the first fret. First fret, okay, first fret on the sixth string. Fret on the fifth string. Then we're jumping up to an A flat here on the fourth fret. And then coming down to a D flat power chord on the fourth fret of the fifth string. All right? And you can hear I'm strumming.

I'm going to call it chicka chicka. So what am I doing? I'm actually releasing the chord.

And there's no sound coming through on my strings. I call it the chicka chicka. And it's basically a quick down, up, down, up chicka chicka. So down, up, down, Chicka chicka down, down. That's that song. Down, up, down Chicka chicka Down, down, down, up down Chicka chicka down, down, down, up down Chicka chicka down, down, down, up down Chicka down, down. So kind of a really, really super cool, cool thing that you can do with power chords that is very, very common in rock music. I call it the chicka chicka strumming. Hey, guys, make sure to like this video. If you enjoyed it this way, YouTube shows it to more users. Just like you guys. I'm gonna throw up that palm muting video up here. If you guys want to go check that out and learn about palm muting, go check that out. YouTube will throw another video up over there. I hope to see you guys in another lesson real soon.