But what are power chords?
They are very important parts of most styles of rock and heavy metal music. Usually electric guitarists use them. They are usually made by amplifying the sound and this way also distorting it.
They are quite easy to learn for beginners because they are not really chords from a theoretical point of view. They are simpler. Chords consist of at least 3 notes but power chords use only the root and the 5th steps of the major scale (a perfect 5th). That's why in guitar power chords charts, they are abbreviated as the root and the number 5, like E5, A5, etc.
In other words, these chords don't contain the 3rd (i.e. the note from which we could find out if it's a major chord or a minor chord). So we don't know if a power chord is major or minor. So you can consider them to be either.
Guitar players usually use only one octave when performing power chords. It just sounds better and stronger that way. However, some of them like giving it more "depth" and do octave doubling.Rock and heavy metal guitarists normally play power chords in the middle register because they sound noisier and heavier there. And because if power chords are played in a rather low or high register, they sound a little uncertain and shallow. Power chords are easy to play basically anywhere on the neck of your guitar but they don't contribute much to the harmonic texture of songs.
Power chords are usually played using two strings. Normally, you use the index finger and the ring finger to play a power chord. Your index finger presses on the root note and the ring finger on the 5th.
A lot of people consider power chords to be amateurish, too easy and artistic. But in my opinion, whatever sounds good is good and often the most amazing songs are the simplest and easiest to play!
Related pages:
Learn thousands of chords in minutes!
More Music Theory
No comments:
Post a Comment