Hey rhythm strummers! Here’s how this great Nirvana songs sounds on acoustic guitar.
[Demonstration/Singing]
So I can really play about 30 seconds of the song in this free lessons and I want to save a little bit for the last part of this video. But in the mean time, I want to show you how to play power chords, because power chords are what this song is all about. And if you know how to play power chord, you can rock out on tons of great songs.
So here is how you fret a power chord. Take your first finger, just your pointer finger, and put it on the sixth string, 5th fret, then put your third finger on the fifth string, 7th fret or if that’s too much of the stretch, you can put you pinky there too. That is the perfectly serviceable two string power chord. But if you use your third finger, you can make a three string power chord by putting your pinky on the fourth string, 7th fret. So we have a couple different options there depending on how big your hand is and how flexible it is.
Now, once you fretted this notes, you’re going to want to do one more thing. You need to mute the string that you’re not fretting because power chords are use mostly in rock music and when you’re rocking, often you’re hitting all the strings and you don’t have to worry about avoiding the strings that you’re not fretting like that [Demonstration]
And so in order to do that, you keep your first finger nice and low laying across the strings, so that they’re muted, those of the third second and first strings that you’re muting. And one thing that keep in mind is normally when people learn how to play guitar, they arch their fingers, they play up of their tips and that’s not the right technique for power chords. You want your fingers down low like this. And you do that by fretting on the under sides of your fingers. You should have grooves like on the path of your fingers, not on the tip. So that’s how it should look.
[Demonstration]
Try testing out your power chord by playing each individual string, listening to C if the string is doing what it supposed to do.
Okay now once you’ve got that sounding okay and you might want to post the video here in and keep working on it until you got it, try scooting the power chord around a little bit, go down a fret. It should sound okay. This chord is called the close chord which means there are no open strings. And what that means is you can move it any around the flat board that end of those still sounds okay. So slip that around a little bit. And then when you’re getting that feeling comfortable, we’ll check out the next chord which is the fifth string root power chord.
So let’s look at that, fifth string root power chord is the same basic finger orientation. What you’re going to do is move all the fingers over the next set string. It’s like three people moving down on level one in elevator. And so now you’re fretting the fifth string, fourth string, and third string if you’re doing a three string power chord, or it might just a flat back, and you’re muting the second and first strings with the other side of your first finger. You also need to mute the sixth string now. You don’t want that bringing along with your power chord, and so what you do is when you place your first finger, you want to get it nudge up against the sixth string so that it is muted. And don’t do that by fretting the fifth string down like this, and then bending up the strings so that you got the sixth string muted, that will make the chord go out of tune. Instead, place your fingers carefully so that from the “get go” you’re up against that sixth string. Once you get that sounding good, start to scoop that around.
[Demonstration]
And next, I want to show you a simple rock riff that will teach you how to move these chords around. Let’s go back to the sixth string root power chord, at the 5th fret here. This is an A power chord.
So get back sounding good and here’s the progression. We’re going to start there and then move down to a G power chord, which is also sixth string root just two frets lower, and now you’re going to need to pop to the fifth string root power chord, that’s kind of difficult if you never done this before.
And then the last chord is the C power chord—excuse me that was a C power chord and the this is the D power chord, you’re just scooting up the fifth string with power chord, two frets and then back to your first chord, back to the A. so let’s try that nice and slow, and I’m going to give you a simple strum pattern if you want you can just strum each chord once too if the strum pattern is going to be too distractive. It’s going to go like this, and I’m going to play for you once and then you can jump in and try to play along with me after I’m done. It is going to go.
[Demonstration]
Okay so, that’s the progression. Are you ready? One and two, and three and four, and one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four,
[Demonstration]
So that’s my power chord lesson. And again, here is how they fit into Smells Like Teen Spirit.
[Demonstration]
So hope you get a lot of this lesson and you should be often running with power chords now. And if you like to learn the rest of Smells Like Teen Spirit, come over to rhythmstrummer.com and we love to see you there. Bye.
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