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Power chords
The fifth: the two-note chord that drives rock.
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The fifth: the two-note chord that drives rock.
Welcome to the blues highway. This is the road travelled by the music born in the American South which, once plugged into an amplifier, became rock. We start with the simplest and most powerful tool of that journey: the , a two-note chord that sounds huge, uses a single hand shape and moves all over the neck without changing fingering.
Sound first. Listen to a full E chord, the one you already play, and then an E5: just the two or three lowest strings.
The second one sounds more "hollow" and compact, both less happy and less sad. It isn't major or minor: it's neutral. That neutrality is exactly what makes it so useful in rock.
Play it yourself: leave the 6th string open and press the 5th string at fret 2 with finger 1. Play only those two strings.
A power chord has two ingredients:
Often a third note is added, which is the root again, an octave higher. It doesn't change the chord; it just makes it fatter.
As a diagram, the shape with the root on the 6th string looks like this:
Some players flatten finger 3 across both upper notes. Both fingerings are valid: choose the one that lets every note ring cleanly.
Count letter names from the root, including it: G (1), A (2), B (3), C (4), D (5). The fifth of G is D. Counting frets on a single string, the fifth is always seven frets above the root; the power chord shape is a shortcut that reaches those seven frets on the next string over.
The fifth's frequency is also almost exactly 1.5 times the root's (a 3:2 ratio). It's one of the simplest relationships there is, which is why the two notes blend as if they were one. Full interval theory comes in Harmony City; for now it's enough to know that the fifth is the root's "natural partner".
So why is a power chord neither major nor minor? Because what decides whether a chord sounds happy or sad is a different note, the third, and the power chord doesn't have one. That's why an A5 fits a song in A just as well as one in Am.
On chord charts, a power chord is written as the root letter followed by a 5: G5, A5. The 5 reminds you the chord only has a root and a fifth. Don't mistake it for a fret or finger number: A5 doesn't mean "A at fret 5", even though the 6th-string shape happens to start right there. Some older charts write it as "A (no 3rd)"; it means exactly the same thing.
Here's the magic: since the shape has no open strings, you can slide it to any fret and get a new power chord. You only need to know which note lives at each fret of the 6th string:
| Fret | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Note (6th string) | E | F | F♯ | G | G♯ | A | A♯ | B | C | C♯ | D | E |
Listen to the shape travelling: G5, A5, C5 and back to A5.
The same shape works one string over: root on the 5th string, fifth on the 4th and octave on the 3rd. Now you have two places to play each chord and can pick the closer one.
The notes of the 5th string are: fret 0 A, 2 B, 3 C, 5 D, 7 E, 8 F, 10 G, 12 A.
With both shapes you hardly need to jump along the neck. Look: G5 (6th string, fret 3) and C5 (5th string, fret 3) sit at the same fret. To switch you just cross over one string.
A thought experiment: imagine a full E chord with heavy . It sounds harsh and muddy. The same E5 sounds huge and defined. Why?
Distortion doesn't just make things louder: it "squashes" the waveform and creates new notes that weren't there before, sums and differences of the frequencies you play. With the third of a major chord, those new notes clash and you get an unpleasant growl. With the fifth, the 3:2 ratio is so simple that the new notes land on notes of the chord itself: the difference between the fifth and the root is exactly the root's frequency an octave lower. Instead of dirtying the power chord, distortion adds a bass note to it.
Listen to both pairs: even without distortion, a third that low sounds murkier than the fifth.
The power chord's number-one enemy is noise: open strings ringing without permission. With distortion, any loose string turns into a howl. Two simple tricks (you'll refine them at the next stop):
This original exercise mixes the open E5 with the movable shape on the 6th and 5th strings. All downstrokes.
Goal: Play the exercise four times in a row at 80 BPM, with no extra strings and no gap between chords.
Play one chord per bar in eighth notes (eight downstrokes per bar) along with the backing. Use whichever shape is closest.
Goal: Play all eight bars without losing the pulse, changing exactly on beat 1 of each bar.
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