[JessThrasher]

Well as you all know, powerchords are predominently found in rock/heavy metal and all my favorite bands songs or most of them. Mostly, I've seen powerchords always played with heavy distortion and palm muting. Do you ever play powerchords clean or with light distortion? And un muted? Or is it just not the nature of it.

[coldethyl]

To me, powerchords just sound meatier with a liberal use of distortion.

[Fretsource]

Originally Posted by coldethyl

To me, powerchords just sound meatier with a liberal use of distortion.

Agreed. The cleaner they are, the less they deserve to be called power chords. Without the 'power' they're just chords, in fact not even that, just bare fifths.

[JessThrasher]

Originally Posted by Fretsource

Agreed. The cleaner they are, the less they deserve to be called power chords. Without the 'power' they're just chords, in fact not even that, just bare fifths.

Perhaps just plain "wimpy" chords.Not.

[allthumbs]

Third Eye Blind were known to play power chords on the treble strings down near the nut. It seemed to work ok.

[PepticDust]

I don't play power chords clean on the electric often but will play them on my acoustic. For some reason I just prefer the hard sound of an E5 power chord over an E major chord.

I've seen quite a few punk bands play power chords clean on acoustics during unplugged sets.

[OldG]

Hey peeps, its been a while so I thought I'd better add a post here and there...

I tend to play power chords with the octave added, fills out the chord nicely, and even sounds good on an acoustic (to my ears). Power chords really lend themselves to rhythmic damping with the fretting hand as well as the palm too... so great for any style, imho.