This lesson is geared towards beginners. My approach with these students is as follows; get them making music as soon as possible. From my experience, when you bog a beginner down with tons of technical exercises and miles of music theory they will lose interest in guitar faster than an Eddie Van Halen tapped triplet. That said, today I'm going to teach you how to get more mileage out of your power chords, but before we begin...
WARNING: The chord voicings contained in this article are designed to be played at high volume & gain settings. They each contain only two or three notes and as such will sound better when distorted as opposed to an open chord or a barre chord which contains more notes that can get "muddy" when distorted.
WARNING: The chord voicings contained in this article are designed to be played at high volume & gain settings. They each contain only two or three notes and as such will sound better when distorted as opposed to an open chord or a barre chord which contains more notes that can get "muddy" when distorted.
We'll start with an introduction to the infamous power chord. The power chord is a two tone "chord," but if you want to get technical, the power chord is an interval known as the "perfect fifth." If you wanted to play an E power chord, you would notate that as, "E5". Here are three different ways to play an E5.
E5
E5
Ex1 Ex2 Ex3
E|----------------
B|----------------
G|------------4---
D|-------9----2---
A|--14---7--------
E|--12------------
In the above example, the lowest note (aka. the bass note) of each power chord is the root. The root note of any chord determines what you refer to it as. For instance, if you have a major chord and the root of that chord is A, you are playing an A major chord. For example 1, the root is on the low E string. For example 2, the root is on the A string. For example 3, the root is on the D string. Keep in mind that the bass note does not always have to be the root note of the chord, but in all of the examples in this article, the bass note will be the root.
That said, fret the root note with your index finger. You can fret the second note with either your ring finger or your pinky - being able to to both will allow you to choose which fingering will most easily transition into your next chord. If you haven't learned power chords yet, start with your index and ring finger.
That said, fret the root note with your index finger. You can fret the second note with either your ring finger or your pinky - being able to to both will allow you to choose which fingering will most easily transition into your next chord. If you haven't learned power chords yet, start with your index and ring finger.
Moving forward from our two note examples, we are going to start adding a third note to this simple interval. We'll start with the octave, which is really just another instance of the root note. These next chords will sound similar to the last set because while these chords may have three notes, they still only contain two tones, "E" and "B". To further explain -- when I say "note," I am referring to a specific instance of a tone in a particular octave and when I say "tone," I am referring to every instance of a note regardless of octave.
E5
Ex1 Ex2 Ex3
E|------------------
B|-------------(5)--
G|-------(9)----4---
D|-(14)---9-----2---
A|--14----7---------
E|--12--------------
Yes, I know. The difference in sound between this three note power chord and the two note power chord is subtle. That is because both chords contain only two tones, even though the second set of chords contain an additional note. In terms of what you hear, if I could describe the difference in a word, I would call it, "fuller". It is also easier to transition from the three note voicing to the other chords I will describe. When you finger this voicing, you are going to want to play the root note with your index finger and the next note with your ring finger. Use your pinky to play the additional note in parentheses for the previous three examples. This will make it much easier to turn that power chord into something a little bit more colorful, like this major seventh, which we will denote as, "maj7".
Emaj7
Ex1 Ex2 Ex3
E|------------------
B|-------------(4)--
G|-------(8)----4---
D|-(13)---9-----2---
A|--14----7---------
E|--12--------------
I present to you the easiest way to play a major seventh chord, bar none (pun intended). You would finger this in a fashion similar to the previous example; use your index finger for the root note and use your ring finger for the next note, the perfect fifth. For the first two examples above, use your middle finger to play the additional note in parentheses. For the third example, you can use your pinky to finger the additional note. Hopefully you have noticed that to transition from the three note voicing of E5 into this three note voicing of Emaj7, your index finger and ring finger do not need to move; just your pinky and middle finger.
Now, this voicing is a little sparse compared to the full barre voicings of this major seventh chord. That's because we have omitted an important tone from the chord; the major third. This voicing will still function as a major seventh in a diatonic context and sounds particularly good as the I or IV chord.
Don't know what a I or IV chord is?
Key: C major
Tone: C - D - E - F - G - A - B
Order: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Degree: I ii iii IV V vi vii
We will use the key of C major as an example. I have listed all the tones that make up the key. As you can see, there are no accidentals in the key of C major, which is why I will use it as an example more often than not.
Anyhow, the next row simply lists the order of the notes. "C" is the first tone, "D" is the second tone, etc. I list this to show you that degree (i.e. I or IV) is basically the same thing as the order of tones, except when we talk about degrees we are typically referring to a chord within that scale that is built off of that particular root note. When the degree is capitalized, it implies that the chord is major. When the degree is not capitalized, it implies that the chord is minor. For instance, the IV chord in the key of C major is F major. The vi chord in the key of C major is A minor.
As I stated before, the major 7th chord will sound good as either the I chord or the IV chord. You can experiment with using it elsewhere and try to get some outside sounds, but within the context of diatonic harmony, you would want to use it as either a I or IV chord. Moving on, we'll touch upon the minor seventh next, which we can denote as "m7".
Now, this voicing is a little sparse compared to the full barre voicings of this major seventh chord. That's because we have omitted an important tone from the chord; the major third. This voicing will still function as a major seventh in a diatonic context and sounds particularly good as the I or IV chord.
Don't know what a I or IV chord is?
Key: C major
Tone: C - D - E - F - G - A - B
Order: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Degree: I ii iii IV V vi vii
We will use the key of C major as an example. I have listed all the tones that make up the key. As you can see, there are no accidentals in the key of C major, which is why I will use it as an example more often than not.
Anyhow, the next row simply lists the order of the notes. "C" is the first tone, "D" is the second tone, etc. I list this to show you that degree (i.e. I or IV) is basically the same thing as the order of tones, except when we talk about degrees we are typically referring to a chord within that scale that is built off of that particular root note. When the degree is capitalized, it implies that the chord is major. When the degree is not capitalized, it implies that the chord is minor. For instance, the IV chord in the key of C major is F major. The vi chord in the key of C major is A minor.
As I stated before, the major 7th chord will sound good as either the I chord or the IV chord. You can experiment with using it elsewhere and try to get some outside sounds, but within the context of diatonic harmony, you would want to use it as either a I or IV chord. Moving on, we'll touch upon the minor seventh next, which we can denote as "m7".
Em7
Ex1 Ex2 Ex3
E|-------------------
B|---------------(3)-
G|--------(7)-----4--
D|-(12)----9------2--
A|--14-----7---------
E|--12---------------
Fingering these chords is a little bit more difficult. For those of you that took my advice earlier and learned how to finger their power chords with both the ring and pinky finger are going to have an easier time of this; in the first two examples, you will fret the first note with your index finger, second note with your pinky, and the additional note in parentheses with your middle finger. The third example looks very similar to the first two examples, but as you may or may not have noticed, the note in parentheses is one fret higher than it would be relative to the other examples. That is because the fifth fret of the G string does not tune to the open B -- the fourth fret of the G string tunes to the open B. This is different from the other strings on the guitar which are tuned in perfect fourths (i.e. 5th fret = next open string) and that is why you get the difference. Tangent aside, you would finger example three by using your index finger, ring finger, and middle finger to finger the root, second, and third note of the chord respectively.
The minor seventh chord is pretty functional in the sense that you can use it as a ii chord, a iii chord, or a vi chord. This particular voicing does not contain the minor third like the full barre voicing of a minor seventh. This does affect the sound of the chord, but it will also allow you to use this particular voicing of a minor seventh chord as the V chord of a key and still have it fit within the context of diatonic harmony. Normally, you would play the dominant seventh as the V chord because it has the minor seventh and the major third, but in the previous voicing for the minor seventh, we have omitted the major third which is the only two difference between the two chords.
I have one more example for you all today, this one is perhaps the most functional.
E5add9
Ex1 Ex2 Ex3
E|---------------------
B|---------------(7)---
G|--------(11)----4----
D|-(16)----9------2----
A|--14-----7-----------
E|--12-----------------
This is a very stripped down version of a ninth chord containing only the perfect fifth and the ninth. Since there are no thirds or sevenths, this chord is ambiguous in the sense that it does not imply a tonality. That serves our purposes as we can use it in more situations. This 5add9 can serve as any chord within a key except as the iii chord or the vii chord.
As far as how to finger this scary looking chord, it's not all that hard. For a beginner, I would recommend trying to finger it by using your index and ring finger to form the power chord (i.e. first two notes) and then use your pinky to fret the additional note in parentheses. This gets a little dicier in the third example due to that peculiarity in the tuning of a guitar I explained earlier.
Some of you may already be familiar with three note per string scales, or maybe you just find it's easier for you to stretch between your index and middle finger than it is for you to stretch between your ring and pinky. If you fall into either of these categories, you may want to try using your middle finger instead of your ring finger. I personally use my middle finger instead of my ring finger to fret these now, but when I was younger it was easier for me to use my ring finger.
Anyways, hopefully this will help you all out. Happy jamming!
This article is the intellectual property of onelightminute@gmail.com, but this information may be freely shared and published so long as the source is acknowledged.
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