Chords for 12 Different Kinds of Power Chords | GEAR GODS

[G] _ _ _ _ [Bbm] _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ What's up gear mortals?
Trey Xavier here.
If you play the guitar and you play any
kind of heavy music, rock, punk, metal, then you are very familiar with the power
chord. _ _ _ _ _
But a lot of people don't know that there's several different kinds of
power chords that you can use and I'm going to show you a couple of those
different kinds today.
So I'm going to start with the classic root fifth power
chord.
If you've learned only one kind of power chord this is probably it.
_ _ _ _ _ The
shape is always the same.
You start with the first finger on the root and then
you go up one string and up two frets.
Put your third finger or pinky, I like to
play with the pinky sometimes, and there you have it. _
_ _ _ You can move this shape up
and down the neck and onto different strings.
_ _ _ [Bb] _ [A] _
[G] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ [Eb] _ [D] _
[G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ [Eb] _ [D] _
[C] _ [D] _ _ _ _ If you're feeling a little
adventurous I've got several more power chord shapes that you could try.
So I
like to call this one the fifth on the bottom power chord.
And all you do is you
take your classic shape that we just learned and you take your first finger
and move it down a string [F] and then you play all three strings [C] like this. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ So all
we did was take that fifth and move it down an octave and add that note to the
power chord giving us three notes. _ _ _ _ _ _
As with all these shapes you can move it up
and down the neck no problem.
[G] _ _ [Bb] _ [A] _ _ [G] _ _
I like this one because it sounds really thick and
mean to my ears.
There's also a four note version where you add an octave up from
the root using your pinky.
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[G] Another kind of power chord I use a lot I like to
call the smoke on the water power chord for obvious reasons.
But it's also called
an inverted power chord and the reason for that is that we if we take a typical
power chord shape which is a fifth and we take the root and move it up an
octave _ _ and lose the low root then we're left with a fourth which is an inversion
of a fifth.
So it's still the same two notes [F] but [G] _ _ _ _ _ now they're in a different
order.
_ [Bb] _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ The next one I like to call an add nine power chord and really if you
look at it it's just two power chords stacked on top of each other.
So you take
your power chord like this and I'm gonna play with my second finger this time so
that I can get a bigger stretch and then I kind of start from the fifth and add
another power chord shape on top of it.
It's a little bit of a stretch. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ So all
we've done here is added a chord tone of a ninth on top of the chord to give it _ _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ a
_ _ _ _ perfect fifth from the root and what that means is you can only play six
power chords out of the seven in any given key.
_ So when we get to that seventh
chord in the key or the two chord in a minor key we have to do something else.
Now we can still play a two note power chord but we have to change the shape to
fit the notes of the key.
So what I like to do is just take a typical power chord
shape and then just move that top note the fifth up one fret to make it a minor
[Gb] sixth. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ For [C] this kind of shape I usually switch to my pinky instead of my third
finger.
If you play in a drop tuning there's a couple different shapes that
you can access that you can't normally play on a standard tuned guitar.
_ A
typical power chord shape looks different in a drop tuning [B] for instance. _ _
_ _ Our typical shape is suddenly a great deal easier to play.
You can play it with
one finger and it's just the two notes on the strings that are adjacent on one
fret. _
_ [D] _ _ _ [E] _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ So in case you're not aware of what drop tuning is all that means is that
you take your lowest string and tune it down a whole step from where it was in
standard.
This allows us incredibly easy access to power chords with more than
two notes like this three note power chord which you can still play with one
finger _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ [E] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _ _
and you can probably see where I'm gonna go next with this.
We can play
a four note power chord with just two fingers _ [D] and _ _ [E] _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ if we use just three fingers
we can get a massive five note power chord in a drop tuning.
_ _ _ [D] _ _ [E] _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ _ _ Now if we drop
tune the sixth string we can still get that same five note shape we just have
to take the pinky and move it up one [E] fret.
[G] _ _ _
[A] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Another advantage of using a drop
tuning is that we can access that add nine power chord with just two fingers
when we use this [G] shape.
_ _ _ [Cm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [N] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _