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The Father of the Power Chord!

(*begin_nerd_stuff)

Essentially, any wave (electric guitars create electrical waves by having the metal strings vibrate across magnets) can be decomposed into sine waves. This means that anything that can be done to a regularly occurring waveform can be done to the sine waves that would build it up. Thus, it's simplest to use sine waves as a model, since you're not going to lose any truth in doing so.

A fundamental music tone, the "root", has a frequency measured in "waves per second" - how many up and downs pass a point during one second. That's the "frequency" in Hertz (Hz). Concert "A" pitch is 440Hz. An octave above that is twice that frequency, or 880Hz. We still call that pitch "A", but it's an octave (eight whole steps) above the concert A. Being exactly twice as many waves as the first pitch, they line up nicely when you play them together. They sound pleasant!

This concept continues if you add a middle note. It so happens that if you add a note 5 whole steps up from the root (in this case, "E" is five steps up from the root "A"), you get a wave ratio of almost exactly 3:2. While not perfectly aligned, the whole numbers mean the peaks and valleys of the added waves complement each other. 

A three tone chord composed of a "root", a "fifth", and the "octave" (same as the root, only one octave higher) is referred to by guitarists as a "power chord". Crucially, it is neither "major" nor "minor" for reasons belonging to even more theory nerditry. 

Link Wray damaged his speaker on purpose in order to get a distorted, ragged sound. It's so common today that it's hard to believe it had a beginning, but he began it (guitarists today use electronics to change their guitar signal rather than damage their gear). That distorted sound becomes unpleasant quickly if the waveform gets overly complex, so Link's "power chord" fit perfectly. 

(*end_nerd_stuff)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFCpUZVyXgg&list=RDKFCpUZVyXgg&start_radio=1

I like that song because Bonzo is playing an actual melody line on the bells of his cymbals during the middle part.