Modal RunsA5 Chord (Power Chord)
The power chord is just the root and the 5th — no 3rd at all, so it’s neither major nor minor. The notes of A5 are A, E.
The workhorse of rock and metal: because it has no 3rd, it stays clean and unambiguous even through heavy distortion, where a full triad would turn to mud.
A5 voicings on guitar
Every playable, root-in-the-bass grip standard tuning offers, computed from the chord’s own formula — not a fixed shape library.
No clean root-position grip was found for this chord in standard tuning — try it as an arpeggio instead.
Hear A5 against a drone →Free, in your browser. See every voicing on the full neck.Add the octave above the root for the classic fifth-power-chord shape, then try inserting a major or minor 3rd to hear what the power chord was deliberately leaving out.
Formula and intervals
R - 5 — 2 notes.
Scales that fit A5
Every scale below contains all of this chord’s notes — safe territory to improvise in over it.
Also compatible: Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, Blues, Major Blues.