Claim a 30% off ToneGym coupon here: Sign up for ToneGym:.
My video on why guitars are not "in tune":.
Power chords, or fifth chords, are a staple of guitar music. Regardless of the easy sound and shape, there is a lot to talk about when it pertains to fifth chords, with even their classifcation as 'chords' up for dispute!
And, an extra special thanks goes to Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel's Patreon saints!.
This video was modified by David Hartley. Check out his YouTube channel here:.
The outro music to this video is my track "Clap" which you can hear in full on Spotify:.
ASSISTANCE ME ON PATREON:.
0:00 What is a power chord?
1:23 Inverted power chords.
2:06 Distortion and the Harmonic series.
7:21 ToneGym.
8:00 Power chord songs are still major or minor.
9:33 are power chords actually "chords"?
11:37 Power chords on piano.
12:52 Patreon.
Click Here To Learn Piano or Keyboard
Claim a 30% off ToneGym voucher here: https://www.tonegym.co/coupon/view?id=BJCX5YS0RZ1&aff=2104👂🏻Sign up for ToneGym: https://tonegym.co/?aff=2104
“Songs that use Power Chords”
Not an exhaustive list, I hope. Or this is going to be a very looooooong video.
This video could’ve been 15 hours long bc there’s so many songs lmao
Punk alone would get you at least thirteen of those hours.
All of rock…lol
Great content. Thank you for this.I learned so much from you ❤Heartfelt thank you from Miami
Thank you!
I wonder if anyone has played sections of one song with distortion in power chords, then either improvised or written the same (Or at least similar) sections without distortion with the different third note. Alternatively I wonder if anyones modified songs without distortion and with that change and whether that works in many cases or not. (Im guessing it wouldnt work so well for those songs just replacing that note with another instrument or the vocals as in the Greenday example.)
Since you brought it up briefly for context in this video, I think dedicating an entire video to explaining the harmonic series would be cool!
It’s nice hearing you break down so many songs with distortion.
It’d be cool to hear you break down genres by how they tend to utilize music theory and contrast it with examples that break from “tradition” if you will.
Great content man
2:24 Perfect Norwegian Black Metal chord there David! 🤘🤘
Very interesting indeed. I knew that the power chords omitted the third note, and therefore could fit into a major or a minor chord. What I didn’t know, and found the most interesting, was the physical reason behind using power chords in distorted guitars. My approach to science outreach is very similar to yours of music – I ask myself out of curiosity questions which I then answer to myself and the audience in a simple but not simplistic way. I liked that you asked yourself whether it makes sense to name them “chords” as it is made up of only two notes and, instead of saying “yes” or “no” you gave contexts where this or that definition worked better.
Wow!!! Really awesome analysis on distortion and harmonic series. I’ve played the guitar for 25 years and am pretty knowledgeable about music theory but never knew any of this. Very cool!!
inverted power chords are great as the bass will be playing the root low note and the 5th and 1st on the guitar will cut through the mix so much more, ZZ Top did this all the time
This could be filled with countless rock and metal songs but power chords can be used on bass as well, with some of the most well-known examples being While My Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles, the intro or Orion by Metallica, John the Fisherman by Primus, Ace of Spades from Motörhead (and just a majority of songs from the latter two bands), Money by Pink Floyd (based around a B5 power chord), Sober by Tool and numerous other songs
Me learning power chords on western guitar from a friend: “Yeah certainly a thing for rock guitarists because they are so much easier to play”.
Me 30 years later learning about the harmonic series and sound of overtones of the third in a distorted guitar: totally thunderstruck about the music theory genius that invented power chords.
(But it still helps that they are easier to play)
Thank you David for the well presented information. Brilliant in fact.
Fantastic video as usual!!! Keep going David 🙃
dude, you have such an excellent way of breaking down and explaining theory. It really makes all the difference and is a main factor in keeping my attention. Also, what a beautiful guitar you’ve got there… wow😍
Pete Townshend has talked a lot about this issue, explaining that he avoids the third when playing live with distortion to avoid the muddiness and complexity of the resulting chord. You can see this when he plays live. He plays an E chord shape with just one finger, muting the G string to get a power chord. He plays an A chord shape with his pinky on the 5th fret, thus avoiding the third and adding an additional 5th and octave. And he usually plays a G chord shape that avoids all thirds.
Townsend was kind of the George Washington of power chords. I can’t think of a power chord riff more iconic than the ones accompanying ‘Baba O’Riley” or “Won’t Get Fooled Again”- for example.
Maybe the most iconic and instantly recognizable power chord riff to classic rock fans would be ‘Aqualung’.
OMG,once again an extremely helpful, useful and captivating episode of Your channel😊😊 Really helped me understand better the concept of frequences and the fact, that why P5 interval sounds so smooth and complete, if compared to e.g M3 interval 😊😊And in addition, that Tone Gym is a pearl 😊😊😊🥳
The reason the harmonic series is related to distortion artifacts is a little more complicated than you make it out to be in this video. When you play two notes at the same time through distortion, you also get distortion from the *beat* between those two notes, not just the two notes individually. So you get undertones, too.
Those undertones are related to where the chord tones nearly line up in the harmonic series of lower frequencies, which is why root plus fifth gives you an undertone an octave down. More complex intervals have lower and lower undertones. And the more chord tones you add, the more undertones there are competing for space. This affects the harmonic overtones, too, but by making new, more complex overtones, not by making the overtones of each individual note fight for space.
Interesting–didn’t know about the distortion affecting the overtones in that way!
BTW I had always thought of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th notes of the Seven Nation Army riff as a (lazy) triplet.