There was a primal and mystical sound that began somewhere down in the swamps and bayous of the south on simple, often home made instruments that only required a couple of notes and something to pound on to keep the beat while wailing a blues poems describing hard life in the delta. Represented by the music and persona of Robert Johnson this strange sound came to the crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi, shook hands with the devil and wandered the dusty trails of Texas making a side deal with Blind Willie Johnson before kicking through the midwest to emerge in Chicago and St. Louis and other cities in the scary, droning trance of John Lee Hooker, the hard swing and swagger of Muddy Waters, the intense cry and moan of Howlin' Wolf and dozens more.
The foundation of all these guys? - that simple two note chord that could cover everything needed to accompany the vocal phrasing by throwing in a few blue notes and a run here and there. The power chord. One of the unique things that really gave these power chords there kick was distortion. It seems that the two notes in these chords (the root and 5th) are frequencies that love distortion.
Before long simple eight and twelve bar blues progressions with power chord riffs were popping up everywhere starting with Willie Johnson (not Blind Willie) playing on Howlin' Wolfs 1951 Sun recording "How Many More Years?"
Another classic early power chord hit was the 1958 Link Wray instrumental "Rumble." Learning this is an early requirement for all my students. Wray punched holes in the speaker of his amplifier to get the desired distortion effect.
Another band who did this was The Kinks on their 1964 hit "You Really Got Me." This riff rocker paved the way for more power chord rockers like The Who, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, ZZ Top and Black Sabbath.
And when the punk rockers got pissed because the rock and roll bands were getting to complex and pompous they still learned - WHAT? - THE POWER CHORD! God bless The Ramones, The Clash, The Sex Pistols and all the rest...
The power chord is still alive and well today with bands like The Black Keys, Sleigh Bells and the music of ex White Stripe Jack White leading the guitarmy.
What is generally referred to as a "power chord" is a two or three note chord played with one or two fingers and when executed cleanly sounds big and powerful especially when distorted. However, a clean power chord on a nice acoustic sounds awesome too. The power chord is simple but essential. It is usually one of the first things I work on in lessons with a new student. And if you tell me you've got them down already then they better sound awesome. Power chords are the building blocks of rock and roll so you want to make sure there aren't any cracks or chips in your bricks.
Some of you might not need this lesson but I don't think it ever hurts to go back and make sure you've got things down the way you think you do. Sometimes you stumble onto something even by reviewing the most basic of skills and knowledge.
A power chord works great in rock because technically they're neither major or minor and they'll work with either. It consists of the root note (the note that the chord is named after) and the 5th. The 5th is the fifth note away from the root note in a major scale. If your root note is C the 5th would be G (counting up alphabetically from C). Don't worry if you're a little confused. We'll come back to the theory of it later. The point is that you can play them right away and sound cool doing it.
Let's play an E5 power chord - put your first finger on the 5th string (A string) at the 2nd fret. Hold the string down firmly with the tip of your finger just behind the 2nd fret. Be sure your left hand thumb is placed flat on the back of the neck of your guitar and curl your index finger. Now set your pick on the open 6th string (E string) and let the pick drop over the 6th and 5th strings and landing on the 4th string but not plucking it. Let the 4th string act as a stopper. That way you know that you are really digging in with the pick and playing a power chord with the force you should.
Now... move your left hand index finger over one string and hold down the 4th string at the 2nd fret and put your pick on the open 5th string and pluck the 5th and 4th strings (with your pick landing on the 3rd string as a stopper) and now you're playing an A5 power chord!
Follow the process one more time and you're playing a D5 power chord (when you pluck the 4th and 3rd strings with your finger on the 2nd fret/3rd string)!
Now you've got three chords. You can play a blues progression, which is the roots of rock and roll!
Practice a simple blues in A by following this pattern: (the slash marks stand for strums)
A5////|////|////|////D5////|////|A5////|////|E5////|D5////|A5////|E5////:|| repeat