Chords: New Power Chords

As again, I've been really busy this week, so no video for this one, but I know you'll get by...
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We often play power chords on the E-A-D or the A-D-G - the thicker and lower strings. This gives a great bottom-end chunk to the song, and the notes used in power chords (the 1st and the 5th notes) give the chord an open feeling, adding further power to it. For the unfamiliar, we often play the C power chord as such:

---------
---------
-----5---
-10--5---
-10--3---
-8-------

From here you can play all other power chords by shifting your fingering accordingly, read my post on the pentatonic scale to learn how to transpose.

However, we sometimes need to build the song up by playing chords on the upper registers, but many of us do not know how to use the thinner strings, the E, B, G, and D strings to play power chords. Here's how, using the C power chord again:

-----8---
-13--8---
-12--5---
-10------
---------
---------

I often use this for the chorus if there are two electric guitars, so that the guitars don't duplicate one another. Even if you're playing alone, you can use this to bring up the dynamics of the song, and this works especially well if you do this with while sweeping (by slowly depressing up and down) your wah. Try it out with the ending of songs like Tell the World & One Way.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

how would you play other chords on the upper regesters would you just slide them down and what would the root note be?

Anonymous said...

can u post the power chords here because i'm teaching myself the electric guitar without learning acoustic

John said...

hey can you show me in a video form? Cause i couldn't get the timing like when to go into the higher octave..