Awesome Power Chord Songs

Beginner Grade 2 Module 12: Rock Power Chords & Techniques
1

Check out these awesome song recommendations to practice your power chords!


View the full lesson at Awesome Power Chord Songs | JustinGuitar

2

White Stripes, Hardest Button to Button is super fun, and easy! It was my first actual rock song I learned. Also, the rhythm part of Wild Flower by the Cult. Justin has a great lesson for that.

2 Likes
4

Glycerine by Bush is another great and easy to play power chord song

4 Likes
5

I recently stumbled across the song Narcotic by Liquido (one of my favourite songs during my childhood). Easy Powerchords and very fun to play (and sing) along to!

1 Like
6

Can’t explain by The Who is a great power chord song

3 Likes
9

The Passenger by Iggy Pop could be good one for palm muting and also the percussive hit. A fun one to get people going too!

2 Likes
10

Song 2 by Blur is an absolute cracker to have a go at, also break out the Fuzz for a monster sound :love_you_gesture:t2: :love_you_gesture:t2: :love_you_gesture:t2:

1 Like
11

Thank you Justin, great lesson as always! :slight_smile:

“Michael Jackson - Beat It” is a good one as well. The main riff is fun and it uses power chords for the rhythmic parts in the verses.

1 Like
12

Yes! I had pieced together some of this song decades ago. I didn’t know what a power chord was back then, so I used full barre chords. I never did figure out the B and C# chords by ear. Learning is so much easier these days with the internet.

1 Like
13

Another great power chord song that slides and jumps strings is Santa Monica by Everclear. Super fun to play also!

1 Like
14

Here’s a couple of power-chord songs, which are beginner friendly (either are slow or have simple power chord progression’s), which I’ve found while looking through songsterr’s library:

Deep Purple “Smoke on the Water” (verses are: x55xxx; xx33xx; xx55xx; x55xxx; xx33xx; xx66xx; xx55xx; choruses arpegiating G5 and F5 power chords on the 6th and 5th string mostly);

Marilyn Manson “Sweet Dreams” (the rhythm section incorporates cool melody to learn and the choruses are going from 466xxx to 355xxx to x355xx and back again to 466xxx);

ZZ Top “Rough Boy” (the rhythm part is all palm muted x02xxx; 24xxxx; x24xxx; x46xxx power chords).

2 Likes
15

Sheena is a Punk Rocker by the Ramones listed as a song option in the lesson description now has a song lesson. https://www.justinguitar.com/songs/ramones-sheena-is-a-punk-rocker-chords-tabs-guitar-lesson-sg-062

1 Like
16

Dio, Holy Diver. I started this 2 weeks into beginning Module 1 of Beginner 1 (so end of June). I got it right within…2 weeks. I probably got that one right before any sequence of open cord changes:) It is an awesome power cord practice off the 5th string.

Here it is how it is done from Doug Aldrich himself: Riff Lords: Doug Aldrich of The Dead Daisies, Dio and Whitesnake - YouTube

2 Likes
17

Another great example of practicing power chords is the chorus riff in For Whom The Bell Tolls by Metallica. Good opportunity to practice power chords, palm muting, triplets and stepping strings.

It is short, but very tight, I love practicing that.

2 Likes
19

The Offspring - Self esteem
Is a Good Power Chord Song Also :wink:

1 Like
20

These lessons are a real problem…

If you think about the beginner course, prior to learning power chords we were pretty limited in the songs we could learn. In each Module, Justin would give a list of about 6 songs, maybe we only liked 3 of them enough to add to our repertoire. Focus on those few songs and it would eventually make sense to moved forward once those songs were reasonably practiced.

But with the knowledge of power chords, suddenly there are 100 songs that we can play, and it’s so easy to want to learn and play every power chord song that pops into your head from the past 30 or more years. There’s multiple Green Day tunes, and Kravitz, and Offspring, and Nirvana, and they just keep popping into my head. I can’t spend 10 minutes on new songs, I find myself jamming along with my stereo for an hour. It’s just so much fun!

But I haven’t touched my acoustic repertoire in a couple of weeks. No “free falling,” no “what I like about you,” no wonderwall.

I feel like I’m at a breaking point, and I could easily get lost in songs and not focus on the lessons. I notice that next module is back to acoustic, but I’m still going to want to pick up my electric and learn and play power chord songs. But I also want to play my acoustic songs, and there’s just not enough time in a day. I’m not retired.

Anyone else finding this to be a problem?

1 Like
21

A few points:

  • It’s totally fine to pursue learning power chord songs at the expense of other things for awhile. Power chords help build your hand strength for things like the F barre chord, plus it makes you happy, which is what this is really all about.

  • If you spend the next few months doing nothing but play power chord songs on your electric, then it might take a few practice sessions to get comfortable with your acoustic again and to remember the “acoustic” songs you were playing, but that’s OK. Everything we practice has a synergistic effect; time spent with your hands on the instrument is the most important thing.

  • Although your overall skills development may progress faster if you balance the two (50% on learning power chord songs, 50% on other practice items), who cares? As long as you’re not wasting your time working on skills that are way beyond your current capabilities (such as practicing sweep arpeggios when you still can’t strum the old Faithfull pattern), anything you do on your guitar will make you a better player.

YMMV

5 Likes
23

Since I’m hanging out on this Rock Guitar module, I wanted to start doing a little more with the minor pentatonic than just running up and down the scale.

The solo to Cocaine so far has been a blast to learn! I find a video that plays the song at half speed and shows tabs of the notes being played. It’s really just straight ahead E Minor pentatonic that we can play at the 12th fret.

There are some more advanced techniques in the solo (bends, vibrato, two note bends, two note bends with vibrato), but it’s worth playing around with to get familiar with how to phrase a solo using the minor pentatonic.

First part of the solo uses only 3 notes! But it’s so soulful.

1 Like
24

A perfect song for this module is So What by P!nk. The iconic riff is based on the first position of the minor pentatonic (F# minor instead of A Minor, that is 2-5 on 6th string instead of 5-8) and the chorus is all easy powerchords! I have been having lots of fun with that song.

1 Like
25

thank you!!! Good recomendation! I forgot about that song, I think the last time I heard it was like in 2010. I tried it and its so much fun to learn, easy and can give you some more confidence with these power chords.

1 Like