How you doing? It's Justin, and we're ready to rock now.
We're going to check out some powerchords.
So, powerchords are very often used in rock guitar.
But they also sound wicked on acoustic guitar.
If you want some good examples of acoustic guitar powerchords,
then Nirvana Unplugged in New York
is a fantastic record with loads of power chords all over,
played on an acoustic guitar. I really like the sound of them.
But they totally work on electric guitar with a bit of distortion
or just electric guitar clean.
And they're really, really cool sounding chords.
It's the first time that you're going to be able to deal with your like
F# chords and C# chords and that kind of thing.
So, sit tight. It's gonna be a bit of a rush this one,
we've got lots of stuff to do,
but I'm sure you'll enjoy playing these little puppies.
So, the thing with powerchords that is really interesting
is that there is only one chord shape,
and we move it around.
Because it's all based through on this idea called a root note.
So, the chord that I gonna show you
- we'll move and go to a close-up in a minute,
but the chord, I'll gonna start off with this,
this is chord G powerchord : G5.
. . .
And it's really important that you realize
this powerchord only has 3 notes which is the thickest 3 strings ...
and the other 3 strings
. . .
are dead. They're muted.
And the reason, well they kind of. i's like a bar,
a kind of thing that we used for an F chord
and we're not pressing down on those strings.
We're just kind of leaving a bit loosely there.
So we only have those 3 notes.
Now, the cool thing with powerchords is
that the one shape moves around.
So, we don't have to learn loads of different powerchord shapes.
In fact, G (plays) Move it up one (plays) G#.
Move it up again (plays) A. Move it up again (plays) Bb.
It's really that simple!
And there are so many songs that use these powerchord shapes.
You wouldn't believe that, the amount of tunes that you've got straight.
As soon as you learn this,
you've got some really really hipsounding tunes you can play, right away.
So, let's go and have a look, a close-up look now at this G chord,
and I gonna explain a bit to you about how it moves around the guitar neck.
Ok, here we are looking at our G5, a G powerchord.
Now, what we've got here,we've got :
our first finger, here, this is the 3rd fret, and this is the note G.
This is where we get the name of our powerchord.
This is a G powerchord,
because that note, underneath that first finger, is the note G.
And that's referred to as our root note. Which is R.O.O.T. by the way,
and that is where we get the name of our chord.
Very important to realize that.
And now, just that the rest of the finger is just laying down.
That's not trying to press down any of the other strings, what so ever.
It's just muting them all, it's just touching them
but without operating hard enough to actually make a note.
Next thing we do: 3rd finger 's reaching up to the 5th fret on the 5th string.
You would find, or you probably will find, that a little bit of a stretch,
hopefully that's part of your exercises, that you've been doing,
you should have been doing this as part of your exercise, shouldn't you?
for the little finger stretch.
So, if you've been doing that, you shouldn't have too much trouble
going from your 1st finger to your 3rd finger there.
And your little finger sneaks underneath your 3rd finger
just setting down quite comfortably.
Try and get the two of them locked together,
so they're kind of right on top of each other.
That will help you move that chord around later on.
So, what you're really looking for there
is making sure that you've got the 3 notes of the powerchord ...
and that the other 3 strings ...
at the top there, they're muted by your 1st finger,
the edge of your 1st finger.
So, get that one together, and then let's go back
and look at moving it around the guitar neck.
OK, now we've checked out our G powerchord.
It's really important that you've realized
that you could move it right up and down the neck
to get any other chord that you want.
So the easiest way to do this,
if you go to the website and look for this lesson, which is BC-172
if you look that up on the website
come to that page, you'll find there's a big picture of the neck diagram
with all of the notes on the 6th string.
Because the root note for our G5 powerchord is on the 6th string.
So we had it as G, which was at the 3rd fret,
with our first finger sitting on the note G.
That's the root note, which is where we get the name for our chord.
Now, if we wanted to play a G#, we know the # is just up one fret,
so if we move that whole shape up to the 4th fret,
so 1st finger sitting in the 4th fret,
we would have G# powerchord (plays).
If we move it up again, we'd have A powerchord (plays).
If we move it up 2 frets (plays),
we'd have B powerchord.
And if we move it all way down to the 1st fret (plays).
we'd have an F powerchord.
So, it's really, really simple actually to find any chord that you want.
So, I gonna just to explain to a couple of really kind of cool progressions
that you might want to experiment with.
One of them - and I'm just gonna play them once -
but I want you to go and use that diagram on the website
to figure out where the notes are on the 6th string
and then find these chords for yourself,
that's why I'm not going to show you a close up of this.
But I will explain as I go, really important knowing
the notes on the 6th string, the thickest string, and the 5th string.
That's like an essential,
to finish the beginner's course, you need to have that.
so you may wanna start on that now, as you're learning this stuff,
trying to get those notes in your memory.
So, just remember the right notes, right?
Just remember F, G, A, B and C
cause you don't need to know the sharps and flats,
cause they are the notes in between.
So, a really good sequence that you might wanna try
would be something, say F (plays)
and then you might be going to Bb.
Now Bb, you would find first of all B,
which is on the 7th fret.
and then move it down one semi-tone
because, you know, flat makes it go lower (plays)
See, you're being on a Bb there
then you might go to another chord, say Ab (plays)
Now Ab, you would be going from A, which is at the 5th fret,
and then you flatten it and you end up being at Ab (plays)
And now you might go to a chord like Db
Now, Db, you'll have to go all the way :
there is A at the 5th fret, there is B at the 7th fret
thre is C at the 8th fret
you'll have to go all the way to the 10th fret to find D
and then Db with, of course, playing the 9th fret.
So, nice little progression to work on,
you'll get a lot of practice in finding your flat's there.
we 're certainly like going
F (plays) Bb (plays) and then maybe to Ab (plays) and then Db (plays)
Really, really nice chord sequence
one that you may have heard before, somewhere
very, very cool if you
if you experiment it with the rhythm of that,
you might find some other songs you recognized as well.
So, that might be a cool little sequence to get going.
Another really good one that's quite popular would be A, C, G, D
so it's going like A (plays) to C (plays) G (plays) to D (plays)
you get there and really have to move it around now
A ... C ... G ... to D ...
you can make it sure that you've got those top,
those 3 thinest strings muted there.
Otherwise it's gonna sound really horrible.
That's the big deal, now.
Starting to try to get that powerchord moving up and down,
keeping those thinest strings muted so they don't ring out.
And then just experiment in with some different chord sequences.
You could even try it playing some songs
or chord sequences that you've used.
They used open chords.
So, just, if the original song with say
G (plays) D (plays) to C (plays) the song goes back to D again (plays)
but you could go to a powerchord
G ... D ... C ... and back to D ...
You can really experiment a lot with these powerchords
Say, it's quite an interesting sound, you know,
A cool thing would be maybe
a friend's playing some open chords strumming
and you play some powerchords, that kind of thing.
Lots of way of experimenting with it !
We gonna talk a little bit more of that using it later on,
but for now,let's just get you going with that first powerchord shape,
working on the stretch between your 1st finger and you 3rd finger,
you know, making sure they get right up next to the fret where they should.
Get used to the idea of moving them around, up and down.
Just experiment, you know, you see if you can walk from here to here.
And try to remember the notes on the thickest string.
That's the key-task that you try to do.
It's quite a lot, but now, like I said before,
we're trying to progress now
and to do some pretty cool stuff on the guitar, so,
it might take a little bit more practice than the other things,
but it's worth it,
cause it means that you're a lot better guitar player.
Have fun with that ! I'll see you for another lesson very soon.
Bye-bye.