Description

In this video we learn the basics and advanced shapes of power chords. Visit http://www.PlayGTR.co.uk if you want to download the lesson page related to this video. You will find other completely free guitar lessons and a lot more!

Transcript

Okay, let’s talk about power chords. I'm sure you know about power chords, probably the most basic chord. It’s very popular in the rock or acid rock. And I’ll show you today a few different options of the power chords from the very basic 1-5 which you know to more advance almost punk rock type power chords. Let’s talk about C power chord which you will know for sure is to contain the C note which is the 3rd fret, 5th string. And the 5th. Power chords are basically built around the 1st and the 5th note of the scale. So C and G, I'm playing the G, the 4th string 5th fret. So this is my most basic power chord. As an example I can use, you know this riff. It’s in E, and the power chord is E on the 5th string 7th fret. And B on the 4th string, 9th fret. That’s the power chord E. so if I want to flatten out the sound a little bit, make it a bit more contemporary sound, more modern. The first thing I'm going to do again is to add to C, this C on the 1st string 5th fret. And then again this is again still rarely used to make it sound fatter again, do a bar with my index finger and that 5th at the bottom. So I have G, the note G at the bottom on the 3rd fret 6th string. So now I have a fatter sound. And I can slide around. I can actually do it just using the third finger or the fourth finger as a bar, a lot of people use that. So it’s a fatter sound. To give it another twist, you can move the top C down to a D. so that point started sounding more like a prog rock type power chord. You can hear it in quite a lot of Dream Theater stuff and also on pop. It’s quite a contemporary chord. It’s basically a root, 5th, 9th, with a 5th again on the bottom to fatten up the sound. And if I take this, this structure, and move it up an octave, I can find this shape which is what used by a lot. I'm going to show you this example by Hendrix. I'm sure that you recognize the song. And this is quite used by Erik Johnson, the old blues and new blues. Probably more contemporary blues or whatever you call it. Cross over rock, whatever. So some of the type we've seen on, we've gone from just the basic 1-5. To add in the octave on the top. Add in a 5th at the bottom to make it fatter sound. And then move in the top C to a D and so adding the 9th. To add that, a really big sound. And then you can take it up an octave and now that. The structure there basically is just a chord made out of a 5th. There are on the shapes that had been used for quite a long time, they contain open strings, so I wouldn’t call them necessarily power chords. But they have the same impact, the same sound. So I’ll just show them to you, just like 4-5. The first one is in E and it’s made up by E, B, E, B, and B. so it’s just 1-5-1 again. The second shape is in A and it’s again A-E-A-E-A. So again, a 1-5-1. And then D-G-D-A-D-A, again 1-5-1. And G, we’ll have G-D-G-D-G, so again power chord got more open string. As usual, we’ll find all these chords in a pdf file in my website PlayGTR.co.uk. And just go there, download it, print it out and learn this power chords.