Awesome Power Chord Songs

Beginner Grade 2 Module 12: Rock Power Chords & Techniques
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Paranoid by Black Sabbath is a great power chord song that also utilizes palm muting.

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If you’re more into that, Köld by the Icelandic band SĂłlstafir is a great Powerchord song to learn.
It is tuned in D-Standard, but if you’re using Guitar Pro, you can just transpose it.

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Welcome to the Community Roger :slightly_smiling_face:

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How do you minimize/stop the ‘string screech’ caused from the fingers lightly rubbing against the wound-strings as you move the power chord up and down the neck?

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Work on lifting your fingers up rather than sliding them. Sounds simple, hard to do at speed.

I find I want to lift to mute, and then lift more, then move in many cases. A plam mute won’t really mute enough to quiet the slide.

If you are impatient to improve before you get the feel of lifting straight up, you can try a coated string. They are not so rough due to the coating. I personally don’t like the sound of them as well as uncoated, but for heavy power chords, it is probably not a big deal.

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Another thing you should work on to keep noise down during the transition is pressing lightly when you fret the chords. This can be particularly difficult with power chords as they are often played hard and the temptation is to squeeze the neck hard too, but there’s no need - it takes time to build that hand independence - I’m still working on it.
A light touch will make it easier to move with little noise.

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Thanks for the quick reply and recommendations. I’ll give it a try.

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Thanks for the quick reply and recommendations. Loosening my grip and relaxing is a big problem for me. Especially early in the ‘learning a new song/technique’ process.

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34

Flat wound strings make a big difference. But they are expensive.

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Thanks for the response. I actually have a Melody Maker with flat wounds that I bought from a high school friend in ‘69. Love the guitar, but don’t pull it out much because of its condition. It’s the guitar that got me back into learning guitar after retirement.

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Elixir strings also help as they have a very thin coating which helps protect the strings. I use them on all of my guitars. Expensive, but they also last way longer than regular strings for me.

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Thank you for the response. I use Elixer 80/20 Bronze Coated Strings on my acoustic, and D’Addario XS Nickel Coated Strings on my electric. I really like them. They help; however I think over-pressure as I try to speed up is the root cause.

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One of my favourite songs, and a great one to practice power chord movement on, is Little Sister by Queens of the Stone Age

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39

The song is awesome, but it certainly could use a bit more cowbell! [/ducks]

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Video seems to be not available right now. :confused:

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If you’re into heavier stuff, the main riff on Death’s Crystal Mountain is pretty cool.

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Go with the Flow rhythm guitar is pretty good too and fairly easy.

PS: There’s a small mistake on a song name on the description, it’s “Brianstorm” and not “Brainstorm” by the Arctic Monkeys

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There’s like 20 songs in here, let’s go man! Many I love! Power chords come harder than the F, but so did figerstyle. I’m ready to dig in