If you’re starting out on guitar, watching seasoned guitar players shred away can be a little intimidating. However, some guitar techniques that look and sound cool aren’t that difficult to play.

Here are some guitar skills that look more difficult to master than they actually are. 

 

Power chords 

If you’re memorizing the basic open chords like C, D, and E, something like a G5 might look funny to you. 

Power chords are the building blocks for many punk, grunge, and alternative songs. Power chords are made up of just the root note and the fifth note, sometimes with the octave of the root note included. They’re different from major and minor scales because they’re neither major nor minor, and don’t include any other notes. 

The tough part about mastering power chords is to strum only the strings inside the chord. Once you master that, you’ll be able to play many songs – like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with ease. 

Check out this Power Chord Workout for Guitar course to get started.

 

Fingerpicking 

Fingerpicking gives songs like “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas and “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers their distinct textures. When you fingerpick a song, you use your fingers to pluck the strings rather than strumming with your hand or a pick. It can take a little bit of time to get used to the different movement, but often you’ll be playing simple chord progressions, so it takes less brain power than it seems to. 

Check out our Acoustic Fingerstyle – Level 1 course to get started! 

 

Bending notes 

“Bending” is when you play a guitar note and then push the string horizontally across the fretboard, changing the pitch. Eric Clapton uses this often in his playing, and it can be heard prominently in “Sunshine of My Love” by Cream. 

Bending sounds high-level, but it’s fairly simple to learn. Check out Ultimate Lead Guitar Techniques to learn bending, and other impressive-sounding solo techniques. 

 

Pinch harmonics 

Pinch harmonics, aka pick or pitch harmonics, or “squealies”, creates a high pitched tone by silencing the main frequency of a note, allowing the overtones to come through. ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons uses this technique frequently to make his solos more memorable – you can hear it used in “La Grange”. 

It may take some work to learn how to incorporate pinch harmonics into your work, but to actually learn how to make that sound is not difficult. Check out Metal Essentials Level 1 to learn how to make this technique work.