Ukulele Power Chords
Posted by Ian on April 5, 2008
Power Chords on the Ukulele
Something that most every rock guitarist has an understanding of is Power Chords. Power chords are merely a root note with a
second note that is a 5th above it…. they are not really chords in the traditional sense (a chord is a combination of three or
more notes).
Power chords can have various uses on the uke… whether it be playing a song that has them in it or substituting a major chord
for one to achieve a different sound.
There are many ways to finger a power chord on the uke, and I shall explain a couple.
For starters, here are two basic ways of fingering a simple two note power chord….
A|——2–3
E|——0–1
C|0–1——
G|0–1——
–C–C#-E–F
A common variation on power chords is the adding of a note an octave above the root….
A|3—4—5
E|3—4—5
C|0—1—2
G|0—1—2
–C—C#–D
Another common variation comes from inverting the notes in the power chord….
A|0–1
E|0–1
C|—-
G|—-
–A–Bb
And there are other variations and ways of fingering the chords that you will be able to figure out with a little bit of experimentation… so have fun!
John Solon said
Hi Ian,
Sorry to be dense, but I don’t understand your chord diagrams. They look to me as if they show two notes per string:
A|——2–3
E|——0–1
C|0–1——
G|0–1——
–C–C#-E–F
Can you help me out, please?
Tnx ‘n’ cheers…
John
Ian said
Ah, sorry about that. I guess I wasn’t all too clear…
Essentially, in the diagram that you picked out, there are the fingerings for four different power chords: C, C#, E, and F. open C and G is C, first fret on C and G is C#, and then second fret on A and open E is E, and third on A and first on E is F.
Hope that that helped.