If you’re learning guitar on your own with Fender Play or Justin Guitar, here are some helpful links for you to keep in mind.
Extra Credit Suggestions
Fender Play starts teaching students power chords at about Level 3, Course 06 (Electric, Rock genre) with the two-finger C5, G5, and F5 power chords. The lesson location will vary a little bit depending on if you’re using acoustic or electric guitar and the genre, you’re in. It’s a good lesson. As of this blog post, the practice exercise song for Electric / Rock Genre is “Holiday” by Green Day. I found the chord practice exercise and “Holiday” practice riff boring. Here are some suggestions on how to hack Fender Play.
Take a look at Justin Guitar’s Power Chord Lesson
Justin Guitar’s power chord lesson is a great introduction to power chords. He shows you the positions for the B, A, G, E, D, and C power chords. I particularly like the fact that he emphasized the importance of muting other strings as a part of the lesson. As I got better with muting, I noticed that my chords sounded better during the exercises. He also makes several practice song suggestions without giving you any help in finding the right tabs to practice. It’s one of the most annoying things about Justin Guitar. I know that it’s a song licensing problem for Justin and that it’s not his fault, but it’s still annoying. I’ve dug up the tabs I could find on songsterr.com and put them in the resources below.
- Cocaine, Eric Clapton – Songsterr.com
- Molly’s Lips, Nirvana – Songsterr.com
- Anarchy in the UK, The Sex Pistols – Songsterr.com
- Seven Nation Army, The White Stripes – Songsterr.com
- Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana – Songsterr.com
Seven Nation Army with Power Chords
Fender Play used to have a lesson using “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes where they taught fretting single notes on the A-string. That lesson looks like it’s gone from Fender Play now (I’m guessing that was due to music licensing issues.), but you can find the Seven Nation Army tab on Songsterr.com. I found chorus 1 good for practicing moving power chord shapes down the neck.
Blitzkrieg Bop, The Ramones
Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones is a great song to practice power chords with. The purists out there are going to tell you the real version used barre chords, but I honestly could not care less. This one is a fun, fast, and loud power cord practice song that I still enjoy practicing today. It is pretty fast, but it uses the A5, D5, and E5 chords in a pattern that makes practice repetitions fun. Start slow and you’ll find that you’ll be able to speed up fairly quickly. My suggestion is that you use a metronome and start at 60 bps. As you get better, you can increase the speed. I think you’ll find that you’ll be able to speed up fairly quickly with regular practice.
That’s it for my Fender Play Extra Credit Hacks. If you like the suggestions, or have suggestions of your own, feel free to add them to the comments below. I’d love to hear from you.
Resources
- Justin Guitar: Your Ultimate Guide to Power Chords for Beginners
- Cocaine by Eric Clapton – This is one of Justin Guitar’s practice song suggestions for power chords, you’ll be looking at the first section of the Intro.
- Molly’s Lips by Nirvana (Ultimate-Guitar.com) – Mentioned in the Justin Guitar lesson. I’m not a fan of Ultimate Guitar, but the tabs at Songsterr.com weren’t very good, so there you go…
- Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols – Another Justin Guitar suggestion
- Songsterr.com: Seven Nation Army tab – Take a look at chorus 1. I thought it was good practice for fretting power chords up and down the neck.
- Songsterr.com: Smells Like Teen Spirit – Justin Guitar mentions this in his power chord lesson. This popular Nirvana song is something that I’d wait until I’ve mastered the earlier practice songs. It’s fairly fast at 117 bps and has string muting in the song. If you haven’t gotten to Fender Play’s string muting at about Level 4, Course 09: Rhythm Tricks, Stopping Sound, I’d wait to learn this one.
- Songsterr.com: Blitzkrieg Bop – This is one of my favorite power chord practice songs. It repeats A5, D5, and E5 power chords over and over again. It’s fast, but you can start slow. It’s also down picking only, which I think is more beginner friendly.