How to Play Power Chord on Guitar | Lesson-2

Guitar Chords | How to Play Power Chord on Guitar 

( A, A#, Bb, B, C, C#, Db, D, Eb, E, F, F#, Gb, G, G#, Ab Power Chord )

You want to know about Guitar Chords and How to play Power Chord with Root note at fifth string on Guitar?

Well. You are at the right place!!!

In this lesson we are going to learn about all Guitar Chords related to Power chords, different positions and how to play different Power chords on guitar with Root Note on 5^th String. We will learn all chords mentioned below,

A Power Chord, A# (A Sharp) Power Chord, Bb (B Flat) Power Chord, B Power Chord, C Power Chord, C# (C Sharp) Power Chord, Db (D Flat) Power Chord, D Power Chord, Eb (E Flat) Power Chord, E Power Chord, F Power Chord, F# (F Sharp) Power Chord, Gb (G Flat) Power Chord, G Power Chord, G# (G Sharp) Power Chord, Ab (A Flat) Power Guitar Chords.

Are you thinking about those people who are saying that playing power chords on Guitar is just a matter of two notes simultaneously which include only sixth and fifth string to play power chord. No worries may be they wanted to teach you different lesson and you have learnt that differently. Thing which matters anyway is sometime you need to strum only two strings and sometimes there are three strings (string six, five and four) or string (Five, four and three).

Power Chords are majorly played in 2 positions on guitar,

1.       Root Note at Sixth String which is obviously obtained by your Index finger.

2.       Root Note at Fifth String which is started from your Index finger.

The first position for all Power Chords is already well explained in previous lesson “PowerChords on Guitar Lesson-1”, check this out if you are a beginner or if you don’t know much about Power Chords on Guitar. Let’s begin the next and little advance lesson quickly.

You must be thinking if Power Chord is playing with three strings or only two strings and if you start from fifth string then what to do with the sixth string. So guys it’s very simple just mute the sixth one. To do this when you are placing and pressing fifth string just press the string from the lower part of your Index finger so that it just touches sixth string on guitar to mute it.

First let’s look at what is a Power Chord and the formation of Power Chord,

Guitar Chords | What is a Power Chord on Guitar?

Power Chord is generally known as Two Note Chord, first Note is the Root Note which decides the name of the Power Chord and Second Note is the Fifth Note in the Scale. Due to this 5^th Note Power Chord is symbolized as ‘5’. E.g. B Power chord is B5 & C power Chord is C5. In B5, B tells us the name of the Power Chord and 5 tells us that this is a Power Chord.

Guitar Chords | Power Chord Naming Convention

We can also called Power Chord as Three Note Chord which includes Root Note as the first Note and this Root Note will decides the Name of the Power Chord, Second Note is the Fifth Note in the Scale however the Third Note is the same Note but 1 Octave Higher.

Let’s take an example of A Power Chord,

Since we are discussing A Power Chord so Root Note should be A Note only, you can grab it quickly by Index finger on 12^th Fret or you can also play it open in open case you don’t need to touch any string, the Next Note is 5^th Note which is E Note in case of A Root Note Now you can place your ring finger on E Note on one string higher (Suppose you place index finger on 5^th string then you will place Ring finger on 4^th string).

Guitar Chords | A Note Scale

Now what about 3^rd Note, A Note is the Root Note so the third Note will always be the same A Note but will be played 1 Octave Higher which will always have a higher pitch then the First Note.

Playing the 3^rd Note in Power Chord is our choice, taste and need of Chord as both the 2 Note and 3 Note sounds little different.

Good thing about this lesson is we will discuss the position first and then move this position to other frets to get new chord pattern. You don’t need to change the shape of your finger in Power Chord while switching from One Chord to another Chord on Guitar and this will make it easier to play power chord on Guitar.

Now, let’s check out other Power chords available with the same pattern,

1.    How to Play A Power Chord or A5 Chord on Guitar:

The first Power chord on the fretboard is A Power Chord. A power chord is also known as A5 Chord on Guitar. There is no need to put index finger anywhere as Guitar Nut is already available to place the bar (barre). Since the 5^th string is also known as A string so to find the A Note in this string is just to play it open.

Let’s quickly review A Power Chord position,

Guitar Chords | How to Play A 5 Power Chord on Guitar

Place your Ring finger on the forth string 2^nd fret and smaller finger on the 3^rd string 2^nd fret. You just need to remember to mute 2^nd and 1^st string.

2.    How to Play A# (A sharp) or Bb (B Flat) Power Chord on Guitar:

Let’s quickly review A# (A Sharp) or Bb (B Flat) Power Chord position,

Guitar Chords | How to Play A # or Bb Power Chord on Guitar

To play A# power chord on guitar, place your Index finger on the 5^th string 1^st fret, your Ring finger on the 4^th string 3^rd fret and your pinky (smaller) finger on the 3^rd string 3^rd fret.

How to practice and Play A# (A Sharp) or Bb (B Flat) Power Chord on Guitar:

Keep this position and pluck each string one by one to make sure that all 3 power chord strings i.e. fifth string, forth string and third strings should sound nice and clear. Also, sixth string, second string and first string are muted by your index finger.

Trick to mute the 6^th string along with 2^nd and 3^rd string is that you need to press the 5^th string only from the little lower part of your index finger so that it just reaches and touch the 6^th string to mute and to mute higher string you touch those softly with the help of index finger only.

In other words, Just try to acquire bar type share with you index finger and softly touches all the strings to mute except 5^th string (Only string to play in 1^st fret).

3.    How to play B Power Chord or B5 Chord on Guitar:

B Power Chord or B5 Chord is our third power chord on fretboard in this sequence.

 To find the correct position of B Power chord or B5 chord first of all you need to find the B Note on 5^th string which is at 2^nd fret.

Let’s review B Power Chord or B5 Chord position,

Guitar Chords | How to Play B5 Chord or B Power Chord on Guitar

To play B Power chord you will place 5^th string on 2^nd fret by your Index finger as this is the position of B Note on Guitar fingerboard, grab 4^th string on 4^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 4^th fret.

How to practice and Play B Power Chord or B5 Chord on Guitar:

·         Before start playing the B Power chord or B5 Chord just make sure to check all 3 chord notes and strings should sound nice and clean. Play all strings one by one to check.

·         Remember to check all other strings are muted by your index finger.

·         Initially strum 4-5 times slowly and remove your fingers from the fretboard and then again try to place your finger quickly back to the same position, then again strum 4-5 times and repeat the same process again and again.

The main focus here is to get the shape correctly, should be able to strum complete and clear chord with all required Notes and finally to make the Power chord shape easy for you and to quick pick the position on Guitar.

4.    How to play C Power Chord or C5 Chord on Guitar:

Your next chord is C Power Chord or C5 Chord.

Let’s move on to pick and play C Power Chord or C5 Chord pattern.

Guitar Chords | How to Play C5 Chord or C Power Chord on Guitar

To play C Power chord you will grab 5^th string on 3^rd fret by your Index finger as this is the position of C Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 5^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 5^th fret.

How to Practice and Play C Power Chord on Guitar:

·         Before start playing the C Power Chord or C5 Chord just make sure to check all 3 chord notes and strings should sound nice and clean. Play all strings one by one to check.

·         Remember to check all other strings are muted by your index finger.

·         Initially strum 4-5 times slowely and remove your fingers from the fretboard and then again try to place your finger quickly back to the same position, then again strum 4-5 times and repeat the same process again and again.

When you started playing these Power Chords in the same sequence in which we are discussing then you will realize that all these chords are just one fret away from each other and we are moving towards right side of the fretboard keeping same pattern intact.

5.    How to play C# (C sharp) or Db (D flat) Power Chord on Guitar:

Your next chord is C# (C Sharp) Power Chord or Db (D Flat) Power Chord.

Let’s pick C# (C Sharp) Power Chord or Db (D Flat) Power Chord.

Guitar Chords | How to Play C# or Db Power Chord on Guitar

Place your Index finger on 5^th string 4^th fret which is the Root Note (Named C# Note) position of C# power chord or Db power chord on Guitar, place your Ring finger on 4^th string 6^th fret and your smaller finger on 3^rd string 6^th fret to play C# Power Chord (C Sharp) or Db (D Flat) Power Chord on Guitar correctly.

How to Practice and Play C# (C Sharp) Power Chord or Db (D Flat) Power Chord:

·         Check all playing Notes of C Power chord or C5 Chord sound nice and clean. Play all strings one by one to check.

·         Remember to check all other strings are muted by your index finger.

·         Initially strum 4-5 times slowly and remove your fingers from the fretboard and then again try to place your finger quickly back to the same position.

We’ll just review and discuss other guitar chord pattern quickly and I will share the guitar chord chart for all the different position to confirm their associated position on Guitar neck.

6.    How to play D Power Chord or D5 Chord on Guitar:

Let’s quickly discuss and play D Power Chord or D5 Chord pattern on Guitar,

Guitar Chords | How to Play D5 Chord D Power Chord on Guitar

To play D Power chord or D5 Chord on Guitar you will grab 5^th string on 5^th fret by your Index finger as this is the position of D Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 7^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 7^th fret.

Don’t forget to check the clarity of each string before start strumming and follow the above shared procedure.

7.    How to play D# Power Chord or Eb Power Chord on Guitar:

Let’s quickly review and play D# (D sharp) or Eb (E flat) Power Chord pattern on guitar,

Guitar Chords | How to Play D# or Eb Power Chord on Guitar

To play D# (D sharp) or Eb (E flat) Power Chord on Guitar you will grab 5^th string on 6^th fret by your Index finger as this is the position of D# Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 8^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 8^th fret.

How to Practice and Play D# (D sharp) or Eb (E flat) Power Chord:

Follow the same procedure as mentioned in above Chords.

8.    How to play E Power Chord or E5 Chord on Guitar:

To play E or E5 Power Chord on guitar you need to keep your finger position intact and move one fret towards right side.

Guitar Chords | How to Play E5 Chord or E Power Chord on Guitar

To play E Power Chord or E5 Chord on Guitar you will grab 5^th string on 7^th fret by your Index finger as this is the position of E Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 9^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 9^th fret. Remember to mute all other string by softly placing your Index finger.

How to Practice and Play E Power Chord or E5 Chord:

Follow the same procedure as mentioned in previously explained Chords.

9.    How to play F Power Chord or F5 Chord on Guitar:

We are reviewing and checking each one of Power chord one by one. If you wil notice that after discussing A power chord we have discussed A# Power Chord and then after B Power Chord position. But right after B power chord we skipped B# or Cb Chords.

There is a straight answer that this is because there is no such Chord available. In other words there is no sharp (#) or Flat (b) available in between B & C and E & F Chords.

The 8^th Power Chord we reviewed was E Power Chord and here we directly jumped to review F Power Chord.

Let’s quickly review F Power Chord or F5 Chord pattern on Guitar,

How to Play F5 chord or F Power Chord on Guitar

To play F Power Chord or F5 Chord on Guitar you will grab 5^th string on 8^th fret by your Index finger as this is the position of F Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 10^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 10^th fret.

How to Practice and Play F Power Chord or F5 Chord:

Follow the same procedure as mentioned in previously explained Chords.

10.                      How to play F# (F Sharp) Power Chord or Gb (G Flat) Power Chord on Guitar:

Let’s review F# (F Sharp) Power Chord or Gb (G Flat) Power Chord on Guitar,

Guitar Chords | How to Play F# or Gb Power Chord on Guitar

Place your index finger on 5^th string 9^th fret which is the root note of F# (F Sharp) Power Chord or Gb (G Flat) Power Chord on Guitar fretboard which is F# Note, place your Ring finger on 4^th string 11^th fret and your Pinky finger on 3^rd string 11^th fret to play F# Power Chord or Gb Power Chord on Guitar correctly.

How to Practice and Play F# (F Sharp) Power Chord or Gb (G Flat) Power Chord:

Follow the same procedure as mentioned in previously explained Chords.

11.                      How to play G Power Chord or G5 Chord on Guitar:

Your next Power Chord we are going to discuss and play is G Power chord or G5 Chord on Guitar.

Guitar Chords | How to Play G5 chord or G Power Chord on Guitar

To play G Power Chord or G5 Chord on Guitar you will grab 5^th string on 10^th fret by your Index finger as this is the position of G Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 12^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 12^th fret.

After acquiring G Power Chord or G5 Chord position on guitar when you move one Fret towards right side same shape becomes G# (G Sharp) or Ab (A Flat) Power Chord position and that is the beauty of Power Chords.

How to Practice and Play G Power Chord or G5 Chord:

Follow the same procedure as mentioned in previously explained Chords.

12.                      How to play G# (G Sharp) Power Chord or Ab (A Flat) Power Chord on Guitar:

Let’s review G# (G Sharp) Power Chord or Ab  (A Flat) Power Chord on guitar,

Guitar Chords | How to Play G # or Ab Power Chord on Guitar

Place your index finger on 5^th string 11^th fret which is the Root note of G# (G Sharp) power chord or Ab (A Flat) Power Chord on guitar fretboard, place your Ring finger on 4^th string 13^th fret and your smaller finger on 3^rd string 13^th fret to play G# (G Sharp) Power Chord or Ab (A Flat) Power chord on Guitar correctly.

You have noticed that all sharp and flat chords are either subsequent or preceding alphabet name. However, for G# power chord it Ab (A Flat) power chord. The reason behind this is these chords are cyclic as per naming convention and Guitar note theory. Hence after G we again are going to pick A as our next Note or Chord on Guitar.

Important point to remember is Flat chord follows the preceding Chord and Sharp chord follows the subsequent Chord while being called or at the time of nomenclature. In other words the Sharp chord (# chord) takes us one fret higher on the fretboard and Flat Chord (b Chord) takes us one fret lower on the fretboard on Guitar.

How to Practice and Play G# (G Sharp) Power Chord or Ab (A Flat) Power Chord:

Follow the same procedure as mentioned in previously explained Chords.

13.                      How to play A Power Chord or A5 Chord Second Position on Guitar:

Well, we have completed all 12 Chords and Notes. So now all those chords are going to repeat them and give us their second position on Guitar. You will see that all second position chords will have same shape as the first one but here for A Power Chord the shape is little different since if you will check the first shape (1^st chord we discussed in the Post) then you realize that we are finding root notes on A string so for A chord A string need to be played as open and hence we have not placed index finger on any note on Guitar.

And here the second A note on A string we have found on 12^th Fret and hence we are going to place index finger on Root Note this time.

Point to consider here is as we are moving towards the right side of the guitar neck you will realize that the Pitch of the chords and notes are becoming high with every fret move.

Let’s review A Power chord or A5 Chord second position on Guitar,

Guitar Chords | How to Play A5 chord or A Power Chord on Guitar

To play A Power chord or A5 Chord on Guitar you will grab 5^th string on 12^th fret by your Index finger as this is the position of A Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 14^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 14^th fret.

How to Practice and Play A Power chord or A5 Chord Second Position:

Follow the same procedure as mentioned in previously explained Chords. Only suggestion is to take upmost care on the ring finger and smaller finger position as you need to press the string little harder to play chords on higher Frets.

14.                      How to play A# (A Sharp) or Bb (B Flat) Power Chord Second Position on Guitar:

Let’s review A# or Bb Power chord second position on Guitar,

Guitar Chords | How to Play A sharp or B flat Power Chord on Guitar

To play A# (A Sharp) Power Chord or Bb  (B Flat) Power chord second position on Guitar you need to grab 5^th string on 13^th fret by your Index finger as this is the position of A# Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 15^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 15^th fret.

Since these Second Position Chords are played on higher frets hence they have higher pitch and are rarely used.

Point to remember, A# Power Chord we played by picking A# note on 1^st fret and now acquiring same shape on higher fret will sound same but their Pitch will always differ.

Pitch goes higher with every move towards right side. In other terms if we are playing any chord on 1^st fret and playing same chord on 13^th fret then the Pitch of chord played on 13^th fret is always higher than the chord played on 1^st fret and important part is their sound will always be same.

How to Practice and Play A# (A Sharp) Power Chord or Bb (B Flat) Power chord Second Position:

Follow the same procedure as mentioned in previously explained Chords.

15.                      How to play B Power Chord or B5 Chord Second Position on Guitar:

To play B Power chord or B5 Chord second position on Guitar you need to grab 5^th string on 14^th fret by your Index finger as this is the position of B Note on Guitar fretboard, grab 4^th string on 16^th fret from your Ring finger and place your smaller finger on the 3^rd string 16^th fret.

Guitar Chords | How to Play B5 chord or B Power Chord on Guitar

To play next chord i.e. C Power Chord or C5 Chord second position the root note is at 5^th String and 15^th Fret. Hold the same shape on same strings as B Power chord and move one fret towards right side to play C power chord on Guitar. Since there is no sharp and flat chord available in between B chord and C Chord on Guitar that is the reason they are sitting beside each other.

Playing at higher frets of Guitar is actually difficult, we generally ignoring playing chords on higher notes of Guitar.

Repeat the same procedure to play other subsequent power chords second position. 

Let me quickly share their sequence C Power Chord -> C# Power chord (Db Power Chord) -> D or D5 Power Chord -> D# Power Chord (Eb Power Chord) -> E Power Chord.

All the Best!!!

So far we have learnt How to play A Power Chord, A# (A Sharp) Power Chord, Bb (B Flat) Power Chord, B Power Chord, C Power Chord, C# (C Sharp) Power Chord, Db (D Flat) Power Chord, D Power Chord, Eb (E Flat) Power Chord, E Power Chord, F Power Chord, F# (F Sharp) Power Chord, Gb (G Flat) Power Chord, G Power Chord, G# (G Sharp) Power Chord, Ab (A Flat) Power Chords on Guitar.

I believe this lesson build your basics on Power Chords and helped you understanding all Power Chords their different positions and power chord pattern and you will be able to play all of them correctly and will be able to find the power chord name by yourself.

Just visit my complete Blog ‘How to Play Guitar’ to know easy and interesting different techniques and guitar concepts and to know more all about Guitar Chords and things.

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Happy How to Play Power Chord and Guitar Chords Learning!!!