What are electric guitar power chords? The almighty chord of heavy metal and various genres of heavy rock. Without them our music would lack the darkness needed to achieve the heaviest growl we all love. The first time I picked up an electric guitar and learned my first guitar power chord I was fricken stunned. WOW! I played an actual chord. LOL! Those were many years ago and when I look back at how easy they were to learn it still was an exciting time.
Well, enough about me for a few minutes. How bout you? Have you ever wanted to learn how to play power chords? As long as you've got 2 functioning fingers on your fretting hand you can play a power chord. Well, I shouldn't write it off as being super simple for everyone. You still need to have rhythm and and ear for tone. Both can be learned of course so don't worry. But, once you get that rhythm and timing down your power chords will really start to shine through.
There are a few pretty cool songs you can get started with too that have nice slow power chord riffs that are easy to learn but tons of fun. Smoke on the Water, by Deep Purple, and Iron Man, by Black Sabbath are two of the most notable beginner songs that most people start with. Another great song with flowing power chords is Rock you like a Hurricane by The Scorpions. A little faster but still quite manageable to learn. Really though, I would say the best genre to look at for learn would be Punk Rock. You'd be hard-pressed to find a Punk song that didn't have an onslaught of 3 chords power riffs.
Using a metronome while learning power chords for guitar is the best way to learn your rhythm and start to increase your speed. That is if you don't have a band to play with of course 
. The power chord is made up of 2 to 3 notes depending on how powerful you want the root note to be. For example: an E power chord is made up of the Root note "E" and the 5th note "B". This is also known as an E5 chord. A first position "E" power chord is the easiest chord to play. It consists of an open "E" string (not fretted) and a "B" note at the 2nd fret of the "A" string. 3 note power chords (given the previous example) would be the root note one octave higher to complete the chord. So from the previous example you would also fret an "E" note on the 2nd fret of the "D" string. Voila, a 3 note "E" power chord.
Get your amp fired up, pick your favorite guitar instruments and start grinding out those power chords. Before you know it you'll be playing master of puppets by Metallica. have fun with them, they are such a blast to mess around with.