Power Chords and Heavy Riffs

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Guitar Chords, Power Chords and Heavy Riffs

I am going to quickly go over some basics, even if you know these through and through, just read it through to refresh your memory. To beginners, take close attention…

A chord, by definition is this: An aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously

What this mean for guitar players is that you will hold down different strings on different frets (notes) and play them all at once to make the sound of the chord.

For example, the E minor chord uses all 6 string, but you only have to push down 2 strings on the same fret. As you can see in the chord diagram below…

It should sound like this…

If you don’t know how to read the diagram below, the next picture will show you how…

So now you know ho to play E Minor right? Make sure it is fixed in your memory.

Now learn how to play the G chord…

Now play around with both these chords, get familiar changing from one chord to another, try make your own rhythms up. Then once you are ready, play the riff below. It is part of a song by Nirvana called ‘About A Girl’ and it only uses the two chords you have just learnt…

Now think of other songs you know that use strumming chords and go get the tabs for them, just search on google ‘SONG NAME guitar tab’ and you will find a countless amount of free music for you to play.

POWER CHORDS

Power Chords are chords with only 3 notes. Usually done on the E or A strings, Power Chords are used predominately in rock and metal due to the heavy sound they can produce, however power chords are used sparingly in most genres.

Theory in a nutshell…

You use the Root note (explained below), the 5^th (5^th note on the Root notes scale) and the octave (Root note, only one octave higher than the first note you played).

You will only need 4 diagrams to show you exactly how to play power chords, as all you have to do is move your finger position up the frets to get different chords.

Here are the diagrams…

Now the X in the black dots is called the ‘Root Note’, whatever this note is tells us what chord it is. Now you just need to know what those notes are and you will be able to play any power chord (Yes, it is that easy!).

To familiarize yourself with Power Chords, learn the riffs I have assembled for you below. There are sound examples available so you know how they should sound.

 Keep on jamming,

 Charlie Wallace.

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