A power chord is guitarist’s slang for a chord, normally found in electric guitar music, that contains the root note and its fifth. Many popular songs use power chords, including Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done,” and Blink 182’s “All the Small Things.”

This post will detail everything you need to know about power chords. This includes the most common power chord shapes, tips on how to practice them, as well as a bit of the history and theory behind them.
 

Interestingly, some of the first power chords written for guitar come from the “Preludes” of Heitor Villa-Lobos (shown above), a renowned 20th-century classical guitarist and composer. Such chords had long existed in classical music, but they were usually considered “parallel fifths” or “fifth chords.”

The first instance of power chords in electric guitar music is somewhat open to debate, but it probably occurred in the 1950s. Willie Johnson and Pat Hare, both electric blues guitarists, were among the first to use power chords in commercial recordings.

These days you can find power chords all over the place, but most commonly in various styles of rock music. This includes punk, metal, alternative, grunge, and some indie rock as well.
 

Before you can really get a grip on power chords, you need to understand musical fifths themselves. A fifth, like a third or a second, is an interval between two notes of a scale.

If you’re not familiar with scales, think of them as the chart of key relations between notes. Check out the G major scale below:

G A B C D E F# G

You’ll notice 7 distinct notes that all relate to G in some way, which is the tonic or tonal center. For instance, B is a third away from G (G, A, B spans 3 letter names), and D is a fifth away (G, A, B, C, D spans 5 letters).

When you play a power chord, you’re isolating the tonic and the fifth of a scale and playing them together. If we’re playing a G5 chord, we’re sounding G and D.

But why the fifth? Clearly we could play any of the notes together in any key and call them chords. The simplest reason is that the first and fifth degrees of major scales sound great when played together.

But why do they sound great? It’s honestly a bit beyond the scope of this post, but it has to do with the ratio between the two note-frequencies.

Fifths are created from a 3:2 ratio between frequencies, meaning the upper note vibrates three times to every two vibrations of the lower one. Here’s a more technical and detailed explanation if you’re curious.

Worth noting is the fact that power chords tend to sound much more powerful and alluring through an electric guitar’s distortion. That’s one of the reasons you’ll find more power chords in rock and metal than in most other musical styles.
 

As you can see, there are basically two common fingerings for power chords: ones with the root on the sixth string and ones with the root on the fifth string. Fortunately, they’re basically identical to each other in every other way, just moved down a string.

In both cases, you want to use your first finger on the root note and your third and fourth fingers on the notes two frets over. Technically you can change the fingering and use your second and third fingers on the higher strings, but that’s going to involve an avoidable stretch.

You might notice that some of the power chords above, such as E5 and A5, play the root note as an open string. In this case, you may choose to finger the two fretted notes with your first and second finger, or even your second and third finger. Either way works fine!

Be sure to avoid sounding the strings marked with an X above them. For X’s above the root, just practice starting your strum on the 5th string.
For X’s below the fretted notes, you’ve got options.

You can either cut off your strum when you get to those notes, or you can mute those strings with your first finger. If you do the latter, you’ll find that your first finger will almost resemble a barre chord position, but without applying pressure to the higher strings.
 

You’ll find some helpful tips on how to practice power chords below:
 

• Go slowly at first. You might see a lot of guitarists playing lightning-fast power chords, but the truth is that everyone has to start in slow motion and build up speed over time.

• Memorize a few chord shapes at a time. You don’t want to be referencing chord charts forever, but you also don’t need to learn everything at once. Consider mastering one or two chords a day.

• Isolate each hand rather than always using them together. You can work on selective strums with your picking hand and shaping chords with your fretting hand.

• Check out my post on How to Change Chords Quickly in order to better switch between power chords.

• Make sure you focus on accuracy. Every wrong movement you make is sort of like “practicing” a mistake.

• Be sure your practice routine is thoughtful and balanced. Be sure to take a look at these great Practice Routine Tips to get a sense of how to use your time well.

Power chords are both relatively easy and highly rewarding to play—a nice combination, in my opinion. Once you get the hang of them, you’ll be able to play a ton of classic songs.

If you’re having trouble mastering power chords, try not to worry. Everyone struggles with them at first. The secret is to keep plugging away until they’re easy, and I promise that day will come if you’re persistent.

Happy practicing!

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