Powerchord Riffs

POWER UP YOUR RHYTHM AND RIFFING WITH OUR LESSON ON THESE STAPLE CHORD SHAPES.

“Obvious question: what’s a powerchord?” Powerchords are slightly different to the major and minor chords you already know. Hopefully you remember that major chords have a bright, happy sound and minor chords sound dark and sad. Well, by leaving out the most colourful notes, powerchords have a more solid, neutral sound. Perfect for rock and metal, then!

“Can you give me some examples of songs with powerchords?”

Sure! Powerchords can be heard everywhere so there are virtually limitless tracks to check out. For a classic option, listen to the verse in

Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”, which features Tony Iommi’s palmmuted powerchords. The verses in Queens Of The Stone Age’s “Go With The Flow” also stay on powerchords. Following an intro of ambient arpeggios and melodic riffs Tool’s “7empest” settles into powerchord grooves at 1:46. Slipknot’s “Unsainted” is way down in drop B tuning but the preverse and verse riffs are still powerchordbased.

“How do you play powerchords?”

There are a handful of shapes to learn and these alone will cover thousands of powerchordbased songs. Take a look at the box on the right where we’ve outlined four shapes for you.

“The last two shapes are a bit harder.”

If you’re struggling with a stretch, try practising higher up the neck where the frets are closer together. Gradually move lower down to improve your stretch. It’s also worth knowing that you don’t have to play every note. Try playing just the lowest two notes of each shape. Or just the highest two. It won’t sound as heavy as the full threenote shapes, but the history of rock is littered with twonote powerchords.

“Got it! Shall we play some music?”

Yes! Take a look at our first tab example below where we’ve used twonote powerchords in the open position. It should be fairly easy to play.

“It’s pretty easy, but these aren’t the same shapes we just looked at.”

That’s because they’re down in open position. That just means the root notes are played on open strings. Take a look at the B5 shape – it’s a powerchord with its root note on the fifth string. A5 is the same, just two frets lower.

“I get it. What’s next?”

The second tab example includes full threenote powerchord shapes. Keep an eye out for the root notes – they’ll help guide you as you change position.