| | | Hey Friend,
I decided to take the power chord inversion discussion from yesterday and create a little riff for you to hear how an inversion can give a chord a different sound.
Download the MP3 and take a listen.
If you look at the chord chart, you'll see this entire progression is based on the E5 power chord.
I messed around with the fingering to discover the stepping-down sequence on the sixth string.
Here's what I find interesting: the progression starts with the root chord E5 and ends with a version of the four chord. Even though most of the time you want to end on the one (I) chord so the song sounds resolved, landing on the four chord (IV) still gives a feeling of resolution, albeit not entirely complete.
Okay, I see you're scratching your head a bit...
What 'choo say?
Chord progressions come from keys, just like scales do. Now, I'm not going to say every chord in a song has to fit exactly into a key, but for the most part this is how it works.
Your song starts in a key. In this case I'm in the key of E major. E major has seven notes:
NOTES E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D# = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 INTERVALS
Each note also tells you which key to take the next chord from. I'm not going to get into the details of how this works today, but just take the following at face value...
The base chord you use for a progression in the key of E major are:
CHORDS E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m, D#dim = I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii dim CHORD NUMBER
The large Roman numerals signify major chords. These are the happy sounding chords (from the emotional spectrum), and usually the chords used to give the song an ending, or resolution.
When a song is resolved, you feel like it's complete, like it ended on a good note. When a song ends on a chord that makes you feel anxious or angry, you don't come away from it feeling like it finished up completely - like there should be more to put it to rest.
Like I said earlier, ending on the root chord (the I chord) is the best way to get to that resolution. The V chord is next best, and then the IV chord.
Wanna leave your listener in a real lurch? End on the ii or vi chord!
Or even the minor version of your I, IV or V chord.
Whatever chord you end up with serves the purpose of the song, and you learn how to work those in to get maximum emotional value. Those little tricks start separating the amateur songwriters from the pros...
Anyway, back to our example. This little progression I put together for you starts with the E5, goes to a C# form, and then, surprise, surprise, I used another E5.
But I used the inverted form, so the B note is in the base. Lastly, you have the Esus4 chord, but the four note from the scale is A and it's acting as the base note for the chord.
This gives that neat walk-down effect with the C#, B and A notes as the roots of each chord.
There you have it. We used two voicings of the same power chord (E5) in the progression, and they actually sounded different, even though the same notes are in play.
Kinda cool, yes?
This is just another example of the cool things you can do with power chords. There are literally hundreds of possibilities you can explore with Easy Power Chords. Get a copy today and see what kind of cool progressions you can come up with!
Peace~
Dave |
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