Power Chords Lesson
Monday July 21, 2008
Gamer writes:
I was wondering about the power chords shown on this site. When I search different sites, they show me power chords with two fingers, while this site shows power chords with three fingers. Could you explain the difference to me?
Sure I can. Power chords contain only two different notes, the root and the fifth. Sometimes when guitarists play power chords, they choose to only play these two notes. Other times, however, guitarists will want a bigger, fatter sound to their power chords. So, they'll simply double one of the notes already contained in the chord, only they'll play it an octave higher. This results in a three note power chord. There are still only two different notes being played, one note is simply being doubled. These two and three note power chords are called the same thing, are written down the same way, and can be interchanged with one another without any problem.
Learn more about power chords
I was wondering about the power chords shown on this site. When I search different sites, they show me power chords with two fingers, while this site shows power chords with three fingers. Could you explain the difference to me?
Sure I can. Power chords contain only two different notes, the root and the fifth. Sometimes when guitarists play power chords, they choose to only play these two notes. Other times, however, guitarists will want a bigger, fatter sound to their power chords. So, they'll simply double one of the notes already contained in the chord, only they'll play it an octave higher. This results in a three note power chord. There are still only two different notes being played, one note is simply being doubled. These two and three note power chords are called the same thing, are written down the same way, and can be interchanged with one another without any problem.
Learn more about power chords
Comments
No offense, and I hope this doesn’t come across wrong. Because there are no dumb questions, but it seems to me that if your asking this question you need to train on theory a little more as well. Don’t concentrate on just playing guitar, you will need to know a little bit about what your playing or doing as well.
I think both the answer to the question and this first comment here miss the mark a touch.
It could be that the power-chords in question are a barre fingered power chords that still contains three notes (root-fifth-octave) but are being played by the first finger on the root and the 3rd finger barring the fifth and octave, very common for punk rockers to fret their PCs like this.
Also, the notion that someone trying to get functional with power chords needs to take some time away from the instrument to learn theory is ridiculous. Get some skills (i.e. physical mastery) and then use the theory to answer some of your questions about musical constructions.
lane arndt M.Mus (theory)
http://www.forwardmomentum.ca
wow, that sounds harsh, sorry about that. and the poor grammar as well. my fingers were flying and i didn’t proof!