Here’s a cool little lesson that shows you how you can take the simplest
of all chords – the 2 note power chord, and create new sounds by moving
around one of the notes. Enjoy!
CLICK HERE FOR ULTIMATE BEGINNER GUITAR COURSE
All right, so let’s start off with a G power chord. I’ve got my
1st finger on the 5th fret of the D string, ring fingers on the
7th fret of the G string. There’s my G power chord. Instead of
moving this shape around, which is cool. That’s a good technique,
but today we’re going to look at a different technique which
is keeping the lower note the same and moving the higher note.
For example. We’re moving back and forth, the higher note, from
the 7th to the 9th fret. Basically what I’ve done is I’ve taken
this chord and move up the higher note by two frets. But I’m going
to pay with my pinkie so that I can keep this note here. Now,
depending on what rhythm you play it’s going to give it a different
feel. You can play something like I just played, kind of a rock
and roll thing. You can play something like this, kind of a little
bit of an AC/DC feel. You can play this, like a blues shuffle.
So there are a lot of different ideas just in those two shapes.
So play around with the rhythm and see what you come up with.
Now on the blues shuffle thing I was just doing, you could move
it up one more note and you’ll get that classic feel, like this.
Going back to our original G power chord. You can just go up one fret.
This gives you like kind of a James Bond, spy movie kind of thing.
Here’s a lick. I kind of got that from a Joe Satriani song.
Do a little hammer-on, pull-off there.
What about if we go one fret down? It kind of has a grunge, kind
of Stone Temple Pilots thing. You could do like a Zeppelin.
Also, what if you go two frets back? You’ll get a perfect fourth
interval. You should get used to these interval names as you’re
progressing in your musical journey. The original power chord we
call the perfect 5th. This is a 6th; sharp 5th; flat 5th and then 4th.
So this 4th interval… The 5th, I think of classic rock
like Dire Straights. Jimi Hendrix used that kind of stuff
a lot when he was jamming. Play around with it.
Go back one more fret, that’s a major 3rd interval. You can get a
great sound going from the 3rd to the 4th. You can play the notes
separately. Going back one more fret, you have a minor 3rd interval.
Going back one more fret, very dissonant sound, right? So that’s the
2nd interval. But you can use that to maybe slide into the minor 3rd.
