Cheating With The “Power Chord”

As you progress as a musician, you find little tricks along the way that prove to be very helpful in your style of playing. It might be a technique that you use to make a certain riff or chord easier. It might be something that boosts your playing speed. Or it might even be something that’s considered a “bad habit” in playing technique but has helped you greatly. For me, it was the “power chord”.

The power chord or fifth chord, is played using the root note and the fifth note of a chord. Some people double up on the root note for a thicker sound. It’s typically used in songs that need a hard driving guitar sound. Listen carefully to the Ramones, Misfits, Metallica, Tiger Army, and of course the man that is considered to be the inventor of the power chord, Link Wray and you will clearly hear that power chord sound.

There are certain chords that always gave me trouble when trying to play the full chord in the first position, like a “C” chord, or a “B” chord. Most likely because I do not have large hands. Of course I have gotten better over the few years that I have been playing but I still find myself using a variation of the power chord for those chords when I am playing a song, especially a faster paced song.

The way I play the power chord allows me to get a full sounding chord without having to struggle and stretch my fingers to their max. Let’s take the C chord for example. I play the root note and not only the 5th note, but I barre my finger across the whole fret from the fifth note down as shown in the sample image. The sound it produces is very similar to the standard full C chord in the first position, as you will hear in the 2 sound samples shown. Like I stated, I prefer the “power chord” version in the context of a song because it is much easier for me, plain and simple. Technically just for the record, it’s more like a C6 chord, but it uses a similar shape as the traditional 2 or 3 note power chord. I think it would benefit a lot of rhythm guitarists who play with a little bit of drive and a tad bit of distortion in their songs because it is even harder to tell the difference between a full chord and this modified version…..unless of course there is that one guy in the bar, club, party or wherever you may be playing, that left his house with his heart set on listening for 6th chords and full chords all night. You get the hard edge of the power chord and the mellow sound of a full C or C6 chord, all with a slight lift of your barre finger.

Full C Chord
“Power C Chord” (or 6th chord)

So go ahead and give it a try next time your jamming, practicing, or wanna throw a twist in a song you already play. Experiment by substituting several different full chords with this power chord/6th chord variation and see what you like. This technique has been very good to me and I still rely on it heavily. I guess I just got used to playing that way and I am comfortable with it also, and that’s a key part of playing any instrument…….. being comfortable.