Power chord
As a power chord, English power chord, or power chord one above all in the will rock the electric guitar popular game chord variant called. Basically, a power chord a terzloser triad - virtually a " two-tone " because it consists only of root and fifth . The fifth tone can be played above or below the root, creating a variant with a fifth and a fourth apart.
Often the octave keynote is added to these notes, which makes the power chord appear even stronger. It corresponds to the fifth-octave sound or grip of the left hand of a piano player and is jokingly called the “monkey grip” there. A power chord with a fourth can therefore be interpreted as a fifth-octave fingering without a keynote.
Due to the lack of the third , no tone gender can be determined for the individual power chord without further harmonic context . Playing with power chords shows certain similarities to the practice of making music in quarters in the Middle Ages. This is also one of the reasons why some pieces of music from the Middle Ages can be easily converted into rock versions .
Power chords are mainly used in rock music when playing electric guitars , as they do not sound dissonant if the instrument's signal is distorted .
Examples of power chords with the root C (the high indices indicate the octave ):
- c 1 - g 1
- c 1 - g 1 - c 2
Conversely, this results in:
- g 1 - c 2
In the chord symbol script , a power chord is notated above the root note C as C 5 or C5, less often as C no3 , C omit3 or C 3 .
The first hit with prominent power chords dates back to 1958. Link Wray's instrumental piece is called Rumble . Other well-known tracks include Lou Reeds Sweet Jane, You Really Got Me by the Kinks , and Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who .
