I decided to stick with the big hits one more time this week, so if you're interested in how to play Billboard's current no 1, The Chainsmokers - Closer, this is your tutorial.
Consisting out of just 3 - albeit quite juicy extended - chords, this tune once again proves how monotonously minded and sound/production driven the current overall musical taste is. Not to say that it doesn't sound cool. The synth sound and overall production on this tune are astonishing. The vocals however... not so much. Just my taste.
However, since we're mainly here to learn keys, I felt we could flip the lack of variation in chords to our advantage and see this as a very suitable tune to introduce you to extension chords and show how much depth and color they can bring to the musical palette, even when there's just three of them going back and forth for the full 4-minutes-plus of The Chainsmokers - Closer.
It also gave me the chance to cram a few different options of playing that same progression within my newly set 10 minute tutorial limit, to give you a glimpse of the many options you can have when you're comfortable speaking music with chords.
In this weeks tutorial I'll show you:
- The three chords that hold the entire harmonic structure of The Chainsmokers - Closer
- How to strip those down to play those in their most basic form, both enabling even the very beginners to play along and showing the foundation of the juicy ones
- How to make a basic, limited set of chords sound way more interesting by dressing them up with extensions
- How to make them even more interesting by adding in some variations in playing patterns
- Proof that sound and hooks are king if you want to score these days
- Yet how you can still make this all sound cool on just a piano
Used Chords image below the vid.
Let me know what you think in the comment box below!
Cheers, Coen.
THE CHAINSMOKERS | CLOSER ft. HALSEY
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