Talk:Power chord

message: The first hit song built around power chords was The Kinks's "You Really Got Me" released in 1964 (Walser 1993, p.9): 
:"Rumble", Link Wray, 1957.  Skyraider 20:07, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting article in today's (12/20/2005) paper, "Fredericksburg Offered up Fertile Spot for Rock's Roots".  Who would've thunk that humble little Fredericksburg, VA was the site were Link Wray originally came up with "Rumble" and the power chord! That article stated it was 1958 that he wrote and recorded the song.  I'll fix it in the main article. Also to add - I added a link to that news article in the source, as it contains some very interesting information on the history of the Power Chord and Link Wray himself. If somebody else does not think it is appropriate, I will not shed any tears if it was taken back out. --SkiBumMSP 20:50, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Listen to "Rumble", guys. There are some chords that are just root/fifth but there are also a lot of thirds (and sevenths). To me it sounds like he was fingering full, open chords and it just so happens that on some beats his pick only hit the root/fifth strings. So any power chords Ray might have invented while playing Rumble were purely by accident. He deserves credit for pushing the limits of volume, distortion, and overall raunchiness in rock guitar but when it comes to power chords, I just don't hear it. Meanwhile, the Boogie pattern, commonplace by 1958, was already just a power chord with just some variations. It was forced to be, because the fingers that would otherwise have been playing the other notes of the chord were busy doing the "woogie". All anybody had to do in order to "invent" power chords, was to quit playing the 6th note every other beat, and add some distortion. --Jeff robertson 16:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: First?

message: This article contained an unsourced statement that claimed power chords are suspended chords. This is an incorrect statement. A suspended chord contains a second or a fourth and this note resolves to the third hence the "suspended" note resolves to the third. They usually don't resolve that way in folk music and a lot of contemporary note where they function as an individual chord. But this is the basis of the name. The power chord is r 5 8 nothing that resolves. I've took two years of music theory at Alabama and have played classical, jazz, rock so I know a little bit about this.
Burnedfaceless (talk) 21:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Power chords are not suspended chords

message: The tablature examples need to be formatted "so that they can comfortably be displayed on 800x600 monitors" as required of images (Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Size). Hyacinth 11:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --Army1987 13:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Hyacinth 13:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yikes, wake up to the 21st century and get yourself a new monitor pal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.111.37.174 (talk) 19:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tablature

message: according to guitar tabs i've seen, "rumble" by link wray doesn't feature a single power chord- just major chords and a 7th or two. it's such a common conception, though, can anyone give me a link for this? Joeyramoney 04:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't hear any true power chords in it either... --Msgohan 21:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, no power chords as far as I can tell. --LifeEnemy 03:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

text: according to  and every other tab in the universe, it has none. i have no clue why this is in the article. 67.172.61.222 01:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, I just agreed with ya'll further up the page, before I saw this discussion down here. I think a lot of people (possibly including Pete Townsend!) tend to use the phrase "power chord" to mean any guitar chord that is played with some amount of distortion and is very prominent in the song. This obviously clashes with the more common definition of root/fifth. --Jeff robertson 16:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  rumble 

message: As shapes like these considered power chords?
 E||----------------------------------9---|
 B||--------------------------8-------7---|
 G||------------------5-------5-------6---|
 D||--2-------4-------3-------5-----------|
 A||--0-------2-------3-------------------|
 E||--0-------2---------------------------|
If so, they should probably be mentioned in their own right, since, in my experience, they are among the top three most used power chords for metal, along with the perfect fifth and the perfect fourth. I think one of the tabs in the article has this shape in it, also. --LifeEnemy 03:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put it in the article. --LifeEnemy 03:22, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: To my opinion the are power chords. But it is the way how you play these chords on your guitar. If you swipe over the strings with one finger, then these chords are a strummed chords or plain chords. If you use the top of your index-finger, middle-finger and ring-finger and pull and release the 3 strings at the same time, then these chords are power chords. In that case, the chords are E5, D5, C5, G5 and C#5 or Db5 Bengud (talk) 16:50, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this a power chord? 

message: The tab for smoke on the water under the inverted power chords is wrong. Blackmore plays it, 0-3-5-0-3-6-5-0-3-5-3-0 (as an inverted power chord on strings G and D). I will go ahead and fix it. -Okashira — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.56.241.134 (talk) 16:21, 9 October 2007
I think some chord names in the Smoke on the water tab are shifted to the left so they're not in top of the corresponding fingering. Is this OK or should it be modified? Wikispaghetti (talk) 11:44, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Smoke on the Water

message: Central to the idea of power chording is that a melody is played as a sequence of chords (as opposed to the chords being an accompaniment to a melody).  The idea that an individual, isolated chord is a "power chord" due to its structure, intonation and/or distortion, seems completely incorrect to me.  Does this definition come from one of the sources cited in the article?
71.141.231.145 04:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know it's probably silly to comment on a a 15-year-old comment, but this is a subject that's near and dear to my heart and I want to chime in for posterity: Yeah, but it's also ridiculous to compare those Muswell Hill kids (much as I love them) to anything from the classical world, even what was happening in classical at that time, and even if they both happen to have coincidentally converged on arrangements of notes that didn't conform to harmonic restrictions that had died 150 years earlier. Pick up a copy of Kostka & Payne's 'Tonal Harmony' and read how painstakingly and logically Debussy arrived at his harmonic choices. When he used antiparallel fifths and octaves it wasn't because he didn't know the "rules" of music theory or thought they weren't important. On the contrary, it was because he knew them better than anyone and pushed them further forward, into areas nobody else had figured out valid ways for them to go. He was a tricky dude. He also composed using the whole tone scale for much more complex reasons than just "hey, if I stack 6 tones on top of each other it will sound cool" (although I admit it's been long enough since I read K&P to recall the exact development.) Whereas when the rock guys did those same things, they weren't thinking about harmony, they were thinking "Hey, that sounds fucking cool." And they were right! But any similarity between power chords is incidental convergent evolution. They may be the same thing to some listeners, but they're definitely not the same thing to the composer. They don't come from the same place and they don't fulfill the same function. The unstructured noise of Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz is a different thing from the unstructured noise of '60s psych and '70s avant/prog rock band noise jams, too. It's all kind of like fish and dolphins. Seems like maybe the same thing, but actually not even distantly related. (Interesting to note, BTW, around the same time, George Martin was doing things like the tape effects in the Beatles's "Tomorrow Never Knows", which *was* in fact a knowing, direct reference to modern classical composition ideas, and the classical world noticed it at the time. I just don't think they took the same notice of "You Really Got Me".) SteubenGlass (talk) 00:17, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of Power Chord 

message: This debate concerning whether parallel fifths is bad voice leading and shouldn't be used ought to be either cited or eliminated. In my experience (played rock guitar for years, studied classical guitar and music theory at a Universirty, etc...) no one has ever made this complaint to me, nor have I read of this debate in any book or articles. If this was based on an argument the author had with someone else once or twice, then this section should be removed from the article altogether. Jmckaskle (talk) 22:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and have removed the section. (Mark 17 December 2007)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.77.216.196 (talk) 23:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consecutive Fifths Criticism 

message: The article currently states: "Oddly, Townshend believed for many years that he had stolen his "windmill" technique from another artist."
Pete has said before he thought he 'nicked' it from Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards. He was backstage at a show and saw Keith doing the windmill motion. It turns out Keith was just doing the motion before a show to stretch out. --anon  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.16.12.66 (talk) 21:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pete Townsend's windmill motion 

message: I have added two audio examples to the article. Hyacinth (talk) 20:27, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Would it be possible to add an ogg sample complete with amplifier distortion?  I don't have a codec for the mid sample but am guessing it's undistorted, which sort of misses the point.  Thanks. 208.70.31.206 (talk) 04:48, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Wikipedia:Be bold. Hyacinth (talk) 18:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

text: See Wikipedia:Media help (MIDI) for information regarding playing midi files, and thus confirming your guess. Hyacinth (talk) 18:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested audio

message: There are other power chords like minor 3rd power chords and perfect fourth power chords and so on. Just listen to Metallica.
Basically the way I look at it is a power chord is a chord with only scale degrees with root-fifth power chords being the most common. I think the whole page needs to be rewritten.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.140.227 (talk) 19:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If we say "a power chord is a chord with only scale degrees", then how is that different to just a 'chord'? Incidentally, a fourth is indeed a common power chord, because it is an inversion of a fifth, and so the 'maths' of the overtones works out in a similar way.Happypoems (talk) 15:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Power chords are not just fifth chords

message: I have a acoustic guitar,I am a begginer,I am trying to learn powerchords,however I feel its not correct to learn power chords with acoustic guitar,any suggessions?
user:Aj.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajay.k.king (talk • contribs) 14:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:What wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a manual.2C guidebook.2C textbook.2C or scientific journal. Seems simple enough: relax and stick with your acoustic guitar or get an electric guitar. Hyacinth (talk) 04:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

text: See: Pick up (music technology)#Piezoelectric pickups. Hyacinth (talk) 00:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Nothing saying you can't play power chords on an acoustic. They just happen to have a distinct effect when used with distortion. If anything, it could be seen as 'simple' to those who expect acoustics to be played with more finesse. — Nahum Reduta [talk|contribs] 04:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

text: I know that this is not the environment to help beginners in guitar playing. On the internet are a lot of websites especially for people like you. How I loved to show you around on the websites where I'm active, but this is really not the place for this and I won't advertise my websites here. Just look on the good spots and you'll find what you're looking for. Bengud (talk) 16:59, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Somebody help me

message: Seems that use of power chords would imply parallel motion—a melodic line moving in sync with its fifth and octave. Does this appear anywhere notable? — Nahum Reduta [talk|contribs] 04:10, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: When distortion is used, the fifth and the octave become (mathematically and audibly) less distinct from each other, so motions up and down may not be always considered to be 'parallel'. Of course most guitar playing with the common chord shapes ends up having a few parallel motions here and there, and in most music parallel fifths aren't considered 'wrong' (unlike in some classical styles where they are a no-no), so no-one makes a big deal about it^^Happypoems (talk) 16:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parallel motion 

message: They don't consist of three different tones to be chords which is a requirement.
Example :
The most famous power chord is E-B-E - played 6 string free 5th and 4th strings on th second fret. What he get here are two separate tones but the root note (E) is played also on the next octave group. Three tones with different pitches but two of them with same value. So this is just interval of a fifth but not chord. A chord would be E-B-F with two fifths and three notes with different value. I fixed this misleading claim in the article so please don't change it.--Leonardo Da Vinci (talk) 15:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: According to this page a chord can have two notes. Deadlyops (talk) 22:12, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia can not cite itself. Hyacinth (talk) 03:18, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a whole Terminology section early on in the article addressing exactly this point.Happypoems (talk) 09:37, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

text: Yeah, a lot of talk what powerchords are not. But what are they? Don't try to put them in the range of chords, but see it completely different. You have strumming (slice with fingers or plectrum over the strings up or down or up and down), fingerpicking (have one chord and pull-release strings you like, till the next chord) and plugging (mostly solo and mostly with a plectrum). I see power chords as an extra in this range. It's just great to use different techniques of guitar playing and using power chords is a fantastic way to combine in a song. To me it is not important if I use electric guitars or acoustic, I play it anyway. Be aware that this is my opinion, not a fact Bengud (talk) 17:15, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Power chords are not chords! 

message: There is something so amateurish and unencyclopedic about the following paragraph. Besides being uncited, it reads like original research written for a (poorly constructed) high school term paper. At the very least, it's lacking in technical rigor. The bolded phrases strike me as particularly problematic. Also, the superfluous commas impede comprehension.  
Not having a firm foundation in music theory myself, I'm not sure how to make it more precise and rigorous from a musical standpoint, but surely there is someone who can rewrite this to make it more technically correct, using musical terms of art to clarify the points being made. If nothing else, some citations to clarify the points being made would be helpful. Nonstopdrivel (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Most guitars are tuned based on equal temperament. This has some advantages, but the disadvantage is that some intervals are not all that good. Specifically, minor thirds are too narrow, and major thirds are too wide. This is noticeable in an acoustic instrument, but most people are used to it, and there is not much that can be done about it anyway, besides using an open tuning, and only one chord shape.
- The entire paragraph is not necessary, except to say that guitars are usually tuned in equal temperament. It is possible that it can be deleted, especially since the lack of a third in the power chord is not primarily due to the fact that it is out of tune in equal temperament. The 'power chord' has been used for centuries in ensembles which do not use equal temperament, or in those which would adjust the third scale degree to correct the inconsistency. Historically, it can be found whenever an instrument is playing in lower registers and needs to provide a clear and simple underpinning for more elaborate material in higher registers. No matter how in tune the third is, at this register it will be difficult to distinguish clearly from the tonic and the fifth. This would have been solved by placing the chord in a higher register or voicing the chord differently, but since electric guitars that use power chords frequently also use distortion, there is no register or voicing in which in the inclusion of a third sounds clear.
Perhaps the strongest reason for its use in guitar technique is already stated on the page:
1) 'Even when played without distortion, the simple ratios between the harmonics in the notes of a power chord can give a stark and powerful sound, owing to the resultant tone effect.'
2) 'Power chords also have the added advantage of being relatively easy to play, allowing fast chord changes and easy incorporation into melodies and riffs.'
It would take a bit of a rewrite, but I believe it would make the article more concise and factually accurate. 101.186.52.222 (talk) 08:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

text: I've squashed this a bit, removing the bits that seem less relevant. It may well be true that a just major 3rd through distortion sounds nice than 12TET major 3rd - but I'll let someone else do the maths / find the reference.Happypoems (talk) 17:41, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amateurish, original research 

message: Could the open 'stacked' power chords of the last paragraph be named, as those above (D5 through C5)? 92.217.189.177 (talk) 21:35, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: See: #Is there a term for two power chords stacked together?. Hyacinth (talk) 06:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  drop-d four to six note power chords 

message: Check out the example of a chord symbol of a fifth chord given on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_names_and_symbols_(popular_music)#Power_%22chords%22 .  That page includes the sentence:  “Most commonly, power chords (e.g., C–G–C) are expressed using a "5" (e.g., C5).”  The “5” in the “C5” in that sentence is superscripted, consistent with the superscripting used in other chord symbols throughout Wikipedia.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:646:C401:1210:1C28:D74:7AB5:F451 (talk) 18:20, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chord symbols should use superscript “5” for consistency w/ other Wikipedia pages. 

message: For example notes C4, G4 and D5.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.4.144.122 (talk) 08:58, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not think so. There is not really any sort of name for that. Xdude gamer (talk) 17:56, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

text: Yes, chords based on stacking fourths or fifths instead of thirds are referred to as quartal and quintal harmony, respectively. You'll see quartal harmony mentioned all the time in articles about Andy Summers from The Police. I don't know how rigorous these terms are, though, whether they're considered valid musicological terms by formalists and pedants, or are just made-up slang like "power chord". SteubenGlass (talk) 23:52, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Very much so: quartal and quintal harmony. Hyacinth (talk) 06:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there a term for two power chords stacked together? 

message: After all, they're the same thing. Orse, a line should be added at the start, along the lines of 'Power chords are what some guitarists call open fifths, because they like to speak like a ponce.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by SquidSix (talk • contribs) 15:45, July 16, 2021 (UTC)
:There's a difference between a category and the implementation of items in that category. Hyacinth (talk) 06:20, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should Be Joined With Open Fifths Article 

message: The common way of guitar playing is strumming (usual on a non-amplified or acoustic guitar) or fingerpicking (plugging one string at the time, usual done with solo's). Using power chords means plugging 3 or more strings at the same time. Here you'll find some examples in standard guitar tuning (eADGBE):
A5 = x022xx or 577xxx
B5 = x244xx or 799xxx
C5 = x355xx or 8-10-10-x-x-x
D5 = xx023x or x577xx
E5 = xx245x or x799xx or 022xxx
F5 = xx356x or 133xxx
G5 = xx578x or 355xxx
Knowing this it is easy to make you own power chord.
Like a plain G chord is 320003. A self made G5 chord could be 320xxx or xxx003. As long as the first and the last of the 3 digits has the tone (in this case the G tone). Even thought that rule (the first and last of 3 digits) is sometimes thrown in the bin, it gives you space to try whatever you like and whatever sounds good.
All of my examples the first and third has the tone, exept one (G5 320xxx). This is the only one where the difference between third and first digit is not two or three, but minus 3. The tones of this power chord are G-B#-D. Bengud (talk) 16:05, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you proposing a change to the article? Wikipedia is not a forum. OhNoitsJamie Talk 16:08, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simple ways to use Power Chords in practice 

message: Definition of powerpoints 47.15.141.184 (talk) 06:10, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of power chords