Power Chords (part 1)

Power chords are commonly used the rock genres. However, they do occur in many acoustic guitar songs too and they can really improve your barre chord playing because they of the similar shape.

This lesson shows how to play them with the root note on string six, aka root 6 barre chords. The play along track for this lesson is a rock track played on electric guitar, but it can be played on an acoustic guitar just the same.

Here I have chosen a G power chords as an example. We can call this a G5 for short (as it just uses the root and 5th interval). We can move this shape up and down the fretboard to play any power chord!

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Remember, with power chords, you can play two or three strings without changing the sound much. This is because the extra note added is the octave of the lowest note, so you're just doubling up the same note but at a higher pitch. Either 2 or 3 string power chords are generally interchangeable and are the players choice.