# Power chord
A power chord is a guitar sonority consisting typically of a root note and its perfect fifth, often with the root doubled an octave higher, and lacking the third that would make a triad major or minor.[1](https://www.howmusicreallyworks.com/chapter-six-chords-progressions/power-chord-d.html) It is the characteristic voicing of distorted electric guitar in rock, punk, and metal, where it functions as a chord despite containing only two distinct pitch classes.[2](https://research.spa.aalto.fi/publications/papers/powerchord/index.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Interval content | Typically, root and perfect fifth, 7 semitones apart, often with the root doubled 12 semitones higher; C5 is C–G or C–G–C[3](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/) |
| Quality | Neither major nor minor, because the third is absent; A(no3), an A triad with the third omitted, is the same as A5[4](https://www.guitar-chord.org/power-chords.html) |
| Fingering | One movable shape: root on the low E or A string, fifth two frets higher on the next string, octave two frets and two strings up[3](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/) • [5](https://www.guitarworld.com/lessons/guitar-chalk-sessions-power-chords-perfect-fifths-and-consonant-interval) |
| Under distortion | Distortion adds frequency components whose positions depend on the interval ratio; a fifth produces a resultant tone an octave below the played notes, such as 55 Hz from 110 Hz and 165 Hz[2](https://research.spa.aalto.fi/publications/papers/powerchord/index.html) • [6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886) |
| Historical landmark | Link Wray's 1957 instrumental "Rumble", built from two power chords, is credited in written guitar discourse as the first track consisting solely of power chords[7](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/12685/1/George%20Turner%20-%20Electric%20Guitar%20Performance%20Techniques%2C%20Meaning%20and%20Identity%20in%20Written%20Discourse.pdf) |
| Status in metal | Possibly the most ubiquitous musical structure in metal and the keystone of metal's sonic heaviness[6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886) |
## Definition and structure
A power chord consists of only two different notes, the root and its fifth, with either note possibly doubled at the octave; its defining property is the missing third.[1](https://www.howmusicreallyworks.com/chapter-six-chords-progressions/power-chord-d.html) Berger and Fales describe it as composed of a root, a fifth, and the octave in the lowest octave of a guitar's range.[7](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/12685/1/George%20Turner%20-%20Electric%20Guitar%20Performance%20Techniques%2C%20Meaning%20and%20Identity%20in%20Written%20Discourse.pdf) In the common perfect-fifth form, the fifth lies 7 semitones above the root and the doubled root 12 semitones above; the three-note shape still contains only two distinct pitch classes.[3](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/)
Because there is no third, a power chord is neither major nor minor, and chord symbols name it with a five, as in C5 or D5.[4](https://www.guitar-chord.org/power-chords.html) Notation software glossaries define it the same way, as a chord containing only the root and the fifth, possibly in multiple octaves, commonly used with electric guitar and high distortion.[8](https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.27/Documentation/music-glossary/power-chord) Dictionaries differ on the count: the Cambridge Dictionary calls it a chord of three or more notes containing the first and fifth notes of a major scale,[9](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/power-chord) while theory references hold that only two different notes are involved, the extra octave being a doubling rather than a new note.[1](https://www.howmusicreallyworks.com/chapter-six-chords-progressions/power-chord-d.html)
## Fingering and technique
The absence of the third simplifies the physical action required to sound the chord: in standard or drop tuning, the fingering is straightforward and easily moveable.[7](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/12685/1/George%20Turner%20-%20Electric%20Guitar%20Performance%20Techniques%2C%20Meaning%20and%20Identity%20in%20Written%20Discourse.pdf) In standard tuning, a root on the low E string with the fifth two frets higher on the A string gives the familiar movable shape, with the octave on the D string at the same fret as the fifth.[3](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/) Stated as a rule, any power chord with a root on the sixth or fifth string has a stable fifth two frets and one string up, and an octave of the root two frets and two strings up.[5](https://www.guitarworld.com/lessons/guitar-chalk-sessions-power-chords-perfect-fifths-and-consonant-interval)
Two common shapes exist: a two-note shape of root and fifth, and a three-note shape with the root doubled an octave higher, barred with the third finger.[4](https://www.guitar-chord.org/power-chords.html) • [10](https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/how-to-play-powerchords) Like barre chords, the shapes are movable all over the fretboard.[4](https://www.guitar-chord.org/power-chords.html) An E power chord is usually played with the open low E string and a second-fret B on the A string, with optional added octaves at the second fret on the D string or fourth fret on the G string.[6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886) The shapes change when crossing the B string.[3](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/)
## Acoustics and distortion
A typical power chord is, in acoustic terms, a distorted interval of the perfect fifth, and it is one of the major musical tools in pop and rock music.[2](https://research.spa.aalto.fi/publications/papers/powerchord/index.html) [Distortion](https://www.edgepedia.org/distortion) is not merely an effect layered on top: the spectrum of a distorted guitar chord is more complex than the played notes imply, and the position of the additional distortion-generated frequency components depends on the ratio of the interval.[2](https://research.spa.aalto.fi/publications/papers/powerchord/index.html) Aalto University researchers conclude that these distortion components are the main reason the power chord has been so prominent in heavily distorted guitar music.[2](https://research.spa.aalto.fi/publications/papers/powerchord/index.html)
Under distortion, power chords also generate resultant tones lower than the notes played. If the open A string (110 Hz) and the E above it (165 Hz) are played as a power chord, the difference, 165 − 110 = 55 Hz, sounds very prominently as an A an octave below the guitar's normal range; the music theorist Esa Lilja demonstrated that guitar distortion manifests this illusory resultant tone into material, measurable sound spectra.[6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886) Distortion also causes the notes of the chord to merge into a single perceived pitch, blurring the traditional distinction between harmony and melody.[6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886)
The third is what distortion punishes. Playing an ordinary major or minor triad through a heavily distorted amplifier muddies the overtones so that the brain has a hard time figuring out that it is hearing a chord at all, whereas the thirdless perfect fifth remains distinguishable even with heavy distortion.[1](https://www.howmusicreallyworks.com/chapter-six-chords-progressions/power-chord-d.html) Because distortion adds aperiodic, unpitched noise and more audible harmonic overtones, the risk of clash rises with the number of chord tones; a two-note power chord whose notes are already harmonically sympathetic retains much more clarity than a triad.[7](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/12685/1/George%20Turner%20-%20Electric%20Guitar%20Performance%20Techniques%2C%20Meaning%20and%20Identity%20in%20Written%20Discourse.pdf)
## History
In 1957, [Link Wray](https://www.edgepedia.org/link-wray) and his Ray Men were backing the vocal group The Diamonds at a high school dance in [Fredericksburg, Virginia](https://www.edgepedia.org/fredericksburg-virginia), when they improvised the track later titled "Rumble"; written guitar discourse credits Wray with composing the first track consisting solely of power chords, though the thesis record frames this attribution as discourse-based rather than settled fact.[7](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/12685/1/George%20Turner%20-%20Electric%20Guitar%20Performance%20Techniques%2C%20Meaning%20and%20Identity%20in%20Written%20Discourse.pdf) Wray is commonly seen as the creator of the power chord and credited with introducing the approach in "Rumble".[11](https://chordify.net/pages/power-chord/) The main theme of "Rumble" is constructed from two power chords, the second changing every bar to fit an 11½-bar blues pattern, so that the power chords simultaneously constitute the melody line and fill out the track's timbral density.[7](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/12685/1/George%20Turner%20-%20Electric%20Guitar%20Performance%20Techniques%2C%20Meaning%20and%20Identity%20in%20Written%20Discourse.pdf)
Later landmarks include [The Kinks](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-kinks)' "You Really Got Me", one of the earliest hit examples, and [Black Sabbath](https://www.edgepedia.org/black-sabbath)'s "Paranoid"; Blink-182's "All The Small Things" is a later example of the same vocabulary.[10](https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/how-to-play-powerchords) In metal, power chords are possibly the most ubiquitous musical structure and the keystone of the genre's sonic manifestations of heaviness.[6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886)
## Harmonic and theoretical interpretation
Strictly speaking, the power chord is not a chord but an interval of two notes; octavation of the two notes can create a fuller, chord-like sound.[12](https://www.guitar.ch/en-us/guitar/chord/chord-power-chord-tritone.html) Some reasonings disqualify power chords altogether from the definition of chords, describing them more correctly as intervals, though they function as chords in practice.[4](https://www.guitar-chord.org/power-chords.html) Because the fifth is a very stable sound, it is well suited to riffs with distortion, which is what earned it the name power chord; by contrast, the tritone, or diminished fifth, is unstable and was feared in ancient music as diabolus in musica.[12](https://www.guitar.ch/en-us/guitar/chord/chord-power-chord-tritone.html)
The missing third is also the chord's harmonic license. Lacking a 3 or b3, power chords are neither major nor minor, and this ambiguity lets the chord stand in for the triad built on almost any root within a key or outside of it.[13](https://www.premierguitar.com/lessons/digging-deeper-power-up-your-power-chords) Power chords are often used in parallel, so a series of them creates the effect of a single melodic line rather than independent voices.[6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886) Under heavy distortion the notes merge into a single perceived pitch, further blurring the line between harmony and melody.[6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886)
## Comparison with other sonorities and instruments
Against a full triad, the difference is one note with large consequences: A(no3), an A triad with the third omitted, is the same as A5, and the omitted third is exactly what determines major or minor quality.[4](https://www.guitar-chord.org/power-chords.html) Removing the third also gives other instruments room to imply major or minor color, and yields a simpler interval structure suited to heavily distorted sounds.[3](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/) The same root-and-fifth interval translates directly to keyboards and synthesizers, where it serves the same function of a stable, distortion-friendly two-note harmony.[3](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/)
## By the numbers
- In the common perfect-fifth form, 7 semitones from root to fifth; 12 semitones from root to the doubled octave; C5 is C–G or C–G–C.[3](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/)
- 110 Hz (open A string) plus 165 Hz (the E above) yields a prominent resultant tone at 55 Hz, an octave below the guitar's normal range.[6](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886)
- Two playable shapes: the two-string root-and-fifth shape and the three-string shape with the octave added.[4](https://www.guitar-chord.org/power-chords.html) • [10](https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/how-to-play-powerchords)
## References
1. [Power Chord — How It Works, D Power Chord, How Music Really Works](https://www.howmusicreallyworks.com/chapter-six-chords-progressions/power-chord-d.html)
2. [Power Chord, Aalto University Signal Processing and Acoustics](https://research.spa.aalto.fi/publications/papers/powerchord/index.html)
3. [Power Chords, Mixed In Key](https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/power-chords/)
4. [Learn how to play power chords, Guitar-Chord.org](https://www.guitar-chord.org/power-chords.html)
5. [Power Chords, Perfect Fifths and the Consonant Interval, Guitar World](https://www.guitarworld.com/lessons/guitar-chalk-sessions-power-chords-perfect-fifths-and-consonant-interval)
6. [Power Chords and the Basic Illusion of Heaviness, Heaviness in Metal Music, Oxford Academic](https://academic.oup.com/book/62310/chapter/552773886)
7. [George Turner, Electric Guitar Performance Techniques: Meaning and Identity in Written Discourse, PhD thesis, University of York](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/12685/1/George%20Turner%20-%20Electric%20Guitar%20Performance%20Techniques%2C%20Meaning%20and%20Identity%20in%20Written%20Discourse.pdf)
8. [Power chord, LilyPond Music Glossary](https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.27/Documentation/music-glossary/power-chord)
9. [Power chord, Cambridge Dictionary](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/power-chord)
10. [Guitar basics: learn to play power chords, MusicRadar](https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/how-to-play-powerchords)
11. [Long live the power chord, Chordify](https://chordify.net/pages/power-chord/)
12. [Fifth Chord (Power Chord) and Tritone for Guitar, Guitar Encyclopedia](https://www.guitar.ch/en-us/guitar/chord/chord-power-chord-tritone.html)
13. [Digging Deeper: Power Up Your Power Chords, Premier Guitar](https://www.premierguitar.com/lessons/digging-deeper-power-up-your-power-chords)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical practice and theory › Instruments, theory, and world traditions › Guitar*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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