Iāve posted about my nephew and his guitar journey before, and how my wife and I have been trying to support him in that.
So last night he reached out and said he wants to do a Christmas song collab with us. So it looks like weāre the ones who will have to do the technical side of things. We have a couple ways to potentially handle it. My wife is going to try to use her copy of Acapella on her iPad. It can apparently bring in one video from outside iOS so long as all the other ones use it. If that doesnāt work out, I have video editing software on the desktop computer I could use. Itās a lot more involved, but an option.
Iām a little more concerned about my nephewās vision for how this will go, though. Last night he told us he wants to do a cover of Last Christmas. I looked it up and this is what heās after.
Fine enough on its surface. However, HE wants to play the acoustic guitar part (and sing) and he wants my wife to play ukeā¦and for me to play electric guitar. Which means the solo at the end. So Machine Gun Kelly does this song in Ab with the capo on the 8th fret. Simple transposition of the original that uses the chord shapes of the key of C.
I think my nephew doesnāt have a good handle on where my skill level sits. Part of that solo I think would be no trouble, but parts out it are WELL outside of my capability. For the rest of the song, I sorta hear the electric guitar doing some rhythm support in the background, but not terribly well. Of course this version hasnāt exactly been around for awhile so Iām not finding where anyone has worked out that part yet. I did find where the acoustic part has been worked out and posted on chordify. So of course last night my nephew said he is still working out the electric guitar part.
I have a feeling that I might need to tell him I canāt quite play what he wants me to play, but Iām not entirely sure what it would look like to be something I can do and still sound cool. Since it wouldnāt quite be how mgk did it. Any tips on how to handle this? I definitely donāt want to be a downer to my nephewā¦parents donāt really support him in his music very much. But I also want to play something and do a video collab with him. Heās actually been wanting to do something for awhile. This is the first song that heās actually brought up wanting to do.
itās great that you and your wife support the musical path of your nephew! Iām sure he appreciates it, no matter how it will work out in the end.
I donāt have any real tip, how to play this. But why not simplify the parts of the solo in a way you can play it? Probably your nephew will understand, that some stuff is beyond your skill level, when you explain it. When making music together, from my pov, itās not about being a copy-paste of a song performance, but making music together and have fun. Make it your own and adjust it to your liking and abilities.
Iām definitely going to have to simplify some things. But Iāve never done that with any guitar solo type stuff before (I have with chords & strumming a little bit, and I definitely did it years ago with piano simplifying right hand and left hand stuff). Iām not sure exactly how to simplify it so it still sounds good.
But then thereās the question of what the electric guitar is actually doing during the rhythm parts. I highly doubt any of us will be able to pin down whatās going on in that live performance when you never even see the electric guitarist close enough to see anything useful. So then how do I approach what to play there? For obvious reasons I donāt want to play exactly what my nephew or my wife are playing.
Oops, I completely missed the point of your question. Iām sorry, Nate.
Are you familiar with Triads? In case none of you can work out the electric guitar part as played, you can just play the chords as triads, either arpeggiated, as chips or any strumming pattern of your choice. This can be a nice addition to what your wife and nephew play and wonāt sound to similar, but add another layer instead.
Regards simplifying the solo, I assume the process itself is not too different from what you did for guitar or piano. But for that, you need to know how it is played in the first place, which is probably the trickiest part or do you have tabs already? My most simplistic approach would be to repeat the parts you feel comfortable playing with slight variations. But as I hardly dipped my toes into lead playing myself, I am not the best source of hints, Iām afraid.
I know what triads are. Am I familiar enough to say Iāve used them? Nope. Could I use them if I was told which ones to use? Probably, some way or another.
Yeah, as for the solo, no tabs. All weāve got is the recording. My nephew says heāll figure out what the solo is, but Iām not sure how good he is at that sort of thing. My wife warned him that I need lots of time to learn what I need to play, but again, I donāt know if he really understands/has a reference for what that means.
I do know that he doesnāt appear to use any sort of program to notate anything. Maybe heāll write it down on paper for me? Not sure about that. My wife asked for the chords and he just told her what they were over the phoneā¦so he doesnāt appear to really even make notes in songsheet form. Thankfully, we do have the songsheet for the original by Wham! at home, and in playing with it, I learned simply changing the key of the original yielded the chords he was describing.
Heās playing it with the capo way up on the 8th fret on his acoustic (like mgk does in the vid). I was thinking of maybe playing the rhythm part with the capo on the 1st fret (using chord shapes in the key of G) so I could take up some of the lower register while playing in the same key. That doesnāt get me into what to do with my guitar rhythmically, though. Triads would be something I could use and avoid the capo altogether, though. Probably a good idea when it comes to switching to the solo later.
Along that vein, I guess power chords could be an option for the rhythm part?
I do know his parents bought him a laptop for Christmas and Iād like to get him a copy of Guitar Pro so he can start writing things out in a way thatās easy to share. Like if he could send a GP file or pdf export of a GP file, weād be pretty golden.
Definitely, yes! And even āeasierā than triads in your case, as you probably have hands-on experience with power chords.
But also your idea with the capo in a different place is a good one. From an overall sound perspective, it seems the most suitable one, as both your nephew and your wife are playing within the higher pitch range. Adding a little more bass canāt be that bad.
I wish you loads of fun for this collab, once all is figured out. And in case, the thing with the solo wonāt work, you can just drop it completely. It should be fun and not cause too much trouble in the end, right?
If I were you I wouldnāt try and copy the arrangement exactly, but go for the same āvibeā. I think the original has quite a few layers going on.
Hereās my initial thoughts ā¦
Sounds like the first verse is acoustic only, then second verse there are some āsplangsā (single hit on a chord thatās held for the rest of the bar) and some picking too. When the drums kick in it sounds like palm muted 16th note power chords being played. Later there are some triads or small chord shapes played staccato with some syncopation. Then thereās some trumpet of course! I think the song is mainly made up from these parts.
With acoustic guitar, uke and electric guitar itās better not to be playing the same things at the same time, so perhaps have the electric playing the muted power chords, leave the splangs and picking to the uke? Remember you donāt need to all be playing all the time.
For the solo, I might simplify it but keep the upbeat energy by using double stops on the top two strings taken from the triads of the chord being played. You could play these as 16th notes all downstrokes for the energy and vibe.
Too bad I donāt have a trumpet still or I could try to add a little bit of a horn layer to it. Itās certainly crossed my mind to add an inexpensive trumpet and keyboard to our instrument collection to cover all the things weāve ever learned to play before so we can play around with them for layering parts in a recording.
I heard the muted strums but I couldnāt tell what they were. power chords make sense there. Iām not sure if the uke will be the best for the āsplangsā since ukes donāt tend to have great sustain. I hesitate to get too much into thinking about what my wife would do on her uke. Sheās better at figuring out how to adapt something for her own skill.
Thanks for the tip to try double stops in the solo. I do a bit of single note riffs in other songs, too, but I donāt quite have bends dialed. I will probably need to leave those out. Iām better at slides but Iām not sure about putting them in this one. The faster tempo on this song is going to be a challenge for me on its own. I usually play slower stuff.
Iāve been chatting with him this afternoon and it looks like heās tracked down the tabsā¦ Iāve asked him to send it over so I can work out what I can do with it. And heās being pretty accommodating about what I play. He even offered to let me do the acoustic part and heāll do the electric. Which on its face seems like itās a good idea since the chord shapes are no problem. But the problem there is that Iām going to have a HARD time getting the full chords in time. I feel more confident that I can get the changes in time while playing power chords or even triads.
Itās a little wonky. Apparently itās ai generated from an upload of the song. I think it did a better job of the solo than it did of the rhythm parts. At least gives me somewhere to start for the solo.
Great project!
My son is having the same song in his school music lessonsā¦ some will play instruments, some will sing.
Isnāt the chord progression the same as the original, just transposed?
If you play powerchords, itās not so important where on the fretboard you play, but the acoustic part should be better easily playableā¦ will your nephew research this himself - or will you have to deliver it to him?
I would also opt for a simplified solo, if you play a few notes that capture the vibe of the song that should be fine, hopefully?
Thereās a dropdown menu where you can select instrument/part. Thereās a rhythm ādistortionā guitar and a lead āoverdrivenā guitar. Iām not sure either is exactly that. The electric guitar sounded pretty clean in the recording to me. Maybe a boost pedal for the solo and thatās about it. Thereās a really frustrating nag popover if you donāt have a sub to that website.
Whatever I wind up doing, Iām going to write it up in GP so I can work with it in peace.
Yeah, it is the same chord progression, transposed. The capo makes the chords easier to play thatās for sure.
The difficult part for the acoustic part is that itās fast and I donāt think Iād be able to get clean chord changes at that tempo (even though theyāre all chord shapes I know and am comfortable with). Plus being that far up the fretboard, my fingers will be packed in tighter than Iām used to. Given how long it takes me to learn a lot of things, I think Iāll have an easier time with the changes using power chords. I think getting some notes in the lower registers will be important with the acoustic guitar going with a capo on the 8th fret and a uke doing whatever my wife decides to play. So playing the power chords at the low end will probably be where I hang out.
He figured out the acoustic part on his own so heāll play/record his part and send it over so we can make our parts work with his.
Yeah, I need help with simplifying the solo to work with the vibe of the song.
I think thatās a fantastic project to do together. I think that your nephew will understand that you are not at the stage of making a really professional recording, once you start trying it together. But Iām sure it will be a lot of fun and definitely a great learning experience for all of you. I would just try and persuade him to simplify it quite a lot rather than going for something exactly like the original. Iām sure there will be a video at the end and you will surely have loads of fun together.
I hope you donāt mind, but I had a little play with the song this morning using my looper. This is how I would approach it playing live I think. Iāve tried to roughly match the tempo (itās about 160bpm I think) and Iām in standard tuning, so the chords are Ab, Fm, Bbm, Db. (On the acoustic I capoed at the 8th fret so its C, Am, Dm, G)
I had a little play with a solo using triads, trying to keep it really simple but with a similar vibe. Happy to go into more detail if youāre interested.
Itās a fun little arrangement.
The solo bit looks like this (I made the fingering as easy as I could for my fat digits )
I also love this project, Nate, doing your nephew a favour and helping to motivate him in his guitar endeavour and looked at this version, but was lazier than Paul.
So I threw the audio into my DAW and used the stem separation to hear the instruments easier.
Could send you the tracks that in a DM if you want, Nate.
Paul didnāt need that and did the Bass spot on.
Ok, a heavy metal player could maybe state this, but I hear quite some distortionon that electric guitar.
And the electric mutes their power chords like Paul and at times leaves the chord ringing, Paul did this also, but then it varies a bit along the track.
Nate, if you slowly approach one thing after the other, it will look less difficult.
well, at least if you compare the āsynthā version that the chordify site forces you into eventually, the original recording sounds MUCH cleaner. Only way I can get any distortion right now is by messing with my tube amp to push it a bit. Which Iāve done a little bit of to see what I can get out of it.
Not at all. This is great. And definitely makes for a more approachable solo.
I think weāll be doing this without a bass. Though my nephew does have a bass. If he wants to send over more than one part, we wonāt be able to use my wifeās app as the easy option. Itās annoying in that it will apparently only accept one part recorded outside the app. Everything else has to be recorded within the app. I have the capability to do it. It just requires a more complex setup.
And your little recording here does kinda make clear something I was wondering about - how would things sound with the tablet recording? Hopefully we can get a good recording from the amp. Thatās going to be interesting. I know my wife has been interested in a BT mic for a bit, but I also think she mentioned something about the app only working with the apple headphones with the built-in mic. You definitely need the headphones to hear the other parts youāre playing along with.
Well, I personally never tried it, but Iāve heard good things of Garageband - isnāt it free? and probably lets you add more tracks. And regarding recording - I think modern apple devices should cature the sound well if you place the device close enough to the source (just so that the recording doesnāt distort) in order to keep the reverb of the room at bay.
If Iām recording āproperlyā then I normally use Garageband. It comes free with a Mac and itās very good.
For a project like this a DAW would be ideal - Iāve used Reaper in the past which is quite inexpensive (I think itās $60) and a free trial is available. Like all DAWs thereās a learning curve and youāll need an Audio Interface - Itās a whole other can of worms
The recording I did today was just standing up iphone on a bookshelf and recording the amp - so probably the worst possible scenario! However itās so easy that I do it all the time for a quick and dirty recording.
Sure. Neither of us has used Garageband, though. The thing with acapella is how easy it is to make a collab video like this. But it does have some specific restrictions that limit what you can do. and if we have to work outside that app, then I do have an AI, Reaper, OBS, and Magix Movie Studio Platinum to use (all on Windows). Itās more complex, but it avoids the restrictions that acapella has.
Working on transcribing this song so I have something to work off of. Regarding timing and whatnot. The songsterr thing my nephew sent over is mixed and Iām trying to figure out what I can use.
So mgk is doing this (capo 8) on the acoustic. This is easily verifiable in the video because you can see he is doing this.
This is what the songsterr thinks the electric guitar is doing during the rhythm part. Itās clearly 8th note power chords, but which power chords I donāt know. My ear is not good enough to pick them out. On its own, the progression sounds reasonably good, at least. I just canāt tell if it works with the acoustic part. I did a ātestā change by doing a C5 to A5 change at the start and it didnāt sound as good with GPās playback function.
Itās easy enough to play, but I need a better ear than mine (and probably better understanding of music theory) to tell me if it works. What songsterr thinks the acoustic guitar is doing is very clearly wrong so I donāt know if I should trust it here. Iāve set these two up as separate tracks in Guitar Pro and Iām not sure if they work together or not. Some stuff sounds off, but other parts sound like they work.
Iām also working on my own simplification of the solo but thatās still a work in progress. I think songsterr has that part āmore correctā since thereās less going on there to muddy it up. But I had to take out the 16th notes because thatās too fast for me. And I think Iām going to change the part with the bends. I canāt do that many right after the others and have them sound any good.
I can send the gp file along if anyone wants to play with that. Since I canāt post it here directly, you can message me with your email address and I can send it over.
Maybe Iām making this more complicated than it necessarily needs to be, but Iām a more visual learner, so being able to see it transcribed is helpful to me. Not to mention the process of transcribing it is helpful.
Thoughts? Iām also doing some experimenting to see if I can find something that sounds better to me.
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