How to Use Power Chords

Power chords are an essential type of chord that will be present throughout your entire guitar journey. They are most commonly associated with rock based styles of playing such as punk, metal and rock, but they appear in pretty much everything you can imagine.

A power chord is a simple chord that can be played with 2 or 3 notes. Power chords are neither major or minor due to the absence of a note known as the major/minor third. This is the note that allows a chord to identify as major or minor.

A power chord is made up of a root note (The note that gives the chord its pitch identity), a 5^th (a note that is 5 notes from the major scale above the root) and an option additional root note an octave higher.

You can think of this as a shape that can be moved around the guitar because once you’ve got the shape nailed, you can use it anywhere rooted from the E or A string. If you’re playing a power chord rooted from the D chord you will need to move the octave higher note up a single fret due to the tuning difference between the G and B strings.

Power chords can also occur based around open strings being the root.

Example 1

This punk style riff uses power chords on the beat and single palm muted notes for the remainder of the bar, played as eighth notes.

Example 2

This rock style riff is a great way to practise moving power chords between adjacent strings and across larger lengths of the string. It deals with some big position shifts from the 7^th to the 3^rd fret.

Example 3

This example is a hard rock style riff that takes a straight 8^th note pulse and adds power chords in between different palm muted open A strings. This riff helps with getting your hands coordinated. You have to keep the pulse locked in while playing multiple strings for each of the chords. It also helps with your ability to move power chords on and off quickly.

Example 4

This riff is a classic metal style riff that features power chords followed by a series of 6 fast picked 16^th note open strings. This is typical of 80s style metal riffs and the aim is to alternate between strong sounding chords with fast picked lines between the chord changes.

About the Author

This lesson that looks at how to use power chords on guitar was written by Leigh Fuge. Leigh is a professional guitarist and content creator and works alongside musicteacher.com to create guitar focused, educational and entertainment content.

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