Power Chords

Power chords are the holy grail for the all out rocker. Crank up the amp and turn on the distortion and these chords will sound like heaven. In all reality these chords contain little, consisting of two or three notes. If played on a clean setting they sound boring and bland, it’s not until you play them loud and hard that you can hear the true potential in them.

Two Note Power Chords

There are two ways of fingering two note power chords. As show in the following diagrams, the index finger will always be fretting the root of the chord. However for the other note in the chord (the fifth), it will be fretted with either your 3rd finger or your 4th.

Play around with both fingerings and see which one you like. Remember that just like barre chords, power chords are movable chord shapes, you can play them anywhere’s on the neck.

Three Note Power Chords

The three note power chord is identical to the above two note power chords with an addition of a third note. The third note being another root, just up one octave. Three note power chords have only one fingering as opposed to two.

A three note power chord usually sounds a little more beefy then a two note power chord. The beefier sound is truly the only noticeable difference between the two types. It’s important for you to remember that these are movable chord shapes.

You can play them anywhere’s on the neck to make a chord. This is what makes power chords, along with barre chords, so valuable. You only need to know a few shapes, apply them in different places on the neck and your can literally play thousand of songs, with just those few shapes.

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