First Power Chords and Rock Riffs in E

This PDF guide takes you from your first power chord to a full riff in ten sheets, without ever leaving the key of E. A power chord contains only the root and its fifth (sometimes the octave): no third, so it is neither major nor minor, and its hand shape is the same everywhere on the neck. That is what makes it the best way into rock riffs: you learn a single shape, then move it.

A path in four stages

• Week 1 — The hand shape: E5, G5 and A5, then moving the shape along the neck, with no rhythm and no speed.
• Week 2 — The picking hand: tight eighth notes, palm resting on the low strings, muted strums.
• Week 3 — Gallop and syncopation: the gallop on a single string, the E pedal with a neighbouring chord, then the syncopated riff.
• Week 4 — Riffs on the move: the E5-A5-B5 climb, the E5-D5-C5-B5 descent, then a question-and-answer riff in the E minor pentatonic.

What the PDF adds to the online sheets

It is not just a collection of the site's sheets. The guide explains its learning order (fretting hand first, picking hand next, riff rhythms, then moves along the neck), offers a week-by-week practice plan and adds, for each sheet, its place in the path and a tip specific to the guide. Every sheet also links back to its online version.

Two versions of the same guide

The A4 version suits reading on a computer and printing. The eBook version has 108 × 144 mm pages (3:4 ratio) designed for 7-inch e-readers (Kobo, Kindle, Boox…), with enlarged text and chord diagrams; it stays readable on phones and tablets. The content is identical, only the layout differs.

Who is it for?

Guitarists who already know a few chords and finally want to play real rock and metal riffs. Plan on one sheet per session: it is better to replay one sheet for several days in a row than to rush through all ten at once.