Posted on 02/10/2024 7:41:05 PM PST by nickcarraway
Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’, The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’, and The Who’s ‘My Generation’.
I’ll have to go back and give a re-listen.
Tesla......
three chord rock&roll...
That chord that started “A Hard Day’s Night”
Hoover vacuum cleaner
maybe
As I pointed out to you, Mozart used the power chord to end the Kyrie in his Requiem in 1791.
For the benefit of non-musician readers / listeners, please diagram the first and fifth note making up the power chord in various keys.
The basic blues shuffle is a power chord.
The C Major chord, for example, would be the Root, 3rd, and 5th notes.
5th - G
3rd - E
Root - C
The C minor chord, for example, would be the Root, 3rd, and 5th notes.
5th - G
3rd - Eb (flat) - also thought of as lowered by a half-step.
Root - C
The "Power Chord" has the advantage of being ambiguous since it's neither major nor minor because of the missing third.
The C "power" chord, would be the Root and 5th notes.
5th - G
Root - C
Across all Root notes based on the white keys on a piano, a simple chord chart would be:
5th - G A B C D E F# (sharp)
Root - C D E F G A B
Of course, chords could also be formed with the Root notes of C#/Db, D#/Eb, F#/Gb, G#/Ab, A#/Bb, which happen to be the black keys on a piano.
Technically, a power chord isn't a chord at all. It's an interval. Chords are made up of three or more notes, whereas a power chord only has two.
The "first" and "fifth" denotes where that note lies in a given major scale. The simplest example is in C, where the scale is C D E F G A B. The power chord is the first and fifth notes in that scale, thus C (the lower sounding note, or root) and G (the higher sounding note.)
Other common examples would be in G major (G A B C D E F#) where the first is G and the fifth is D. E Major (E F# G# A B C# D#) would be E and B. F major (F G A Bb C D E) would be F and C.
Michael
Jimi Hendrix is the inventor. Don’t gaslight us!!
Put more simply, it’s what medieval music was until sometime during Ars Nova, before the Black Death. Back then, the power chord was what longhairs still call it, the perfect fifth—”perfect” because it could be tuned to a pure 3/2 frequency ratio. By the time of Howlin’ Wolf equal temperament had gummed up all musical tuning for two centuries, and so the the power of the power chord resided, not in its tuning, but in it sense of emptiness that drove the music forward to some choral conclusion.
Most of us Non-Musicians would know what we were looking at, even if the power chord were properly diagramed.
If we heard it, many of us would get it.
...would not know...
Pete Townsend has stated in interviews that if it were not for Link Wray's power chords in "Rumble", he never would have picked up a guitar.
That's a pretty strong influence, IMO.
Does it sound cool to do a slide from one power chord to another?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.