James Bay – Let it Go

Every now and then -it’s rare, but it happens- a magician arises from the deep dark depths of music-wonderland.

With so many crap pumped out and stuffed in our faces by the wealthy record companies via the main Radio, TV and Internet channels these days, I’m even happier when this happens now than ever before. There’s a plethora of wonderful musicians (just one example behind that link) out there below the mainstream radar. Unfortunately, most of them don’t get the recognition they deserve. Flooded by the easy-money-seeking, hollywood-mentality bloodsuckers that mostly reign the common charts (I’m referring to record companies), they’re doomed to stay stunning on a dime. Fortunately -yes, yes, YES for that!- this guy is one of those rare occasions that did manage to stand out from the crowd of the talented non-recognized. A tiny sparkle of hope that maybe not all is lost and good music can in fact be appreciated.

Meet (although I suspect by now you already know him): Mister James Bay.

In this extensive tutorial I show you exactly how to play his -my humble opinion- best song to date, perfectly exemplifying yet again how great, super-awesome, FANTASTIC the HTP Chord + Pattern approach to music is for here -since a while- it again allowed me to easily and perfectly create a wonderful piano part out of an originally all-guitar (ok, ok + synth) tune.

Since on the record, James “dubs” himself (meaning he plays/records one guitar part, and then plays/records another guitar part on top of that) I decided, since we do have 10 fingers and are in fact able to reach all of those notes, to create a part interweaving both of those guitars for the Verse and then the guitar + stunningly tasteful synth addition for the Chorus.

For the beginners (and to start learning the song) I start with the stripped, only one -the main- guitar version. From there we start building it up to what turned out to be quite the haunting piano part. Beautiful. No credit to me. All goes to James. I merely copied and re-arranged.

I hope you’ll have a lot of fun with this one, as did I creating it!

Please let me know how you’re doing, if- and what you liked about it in the comments.

Cheerio, Coen.

About Coen

Founder of Piano Couture and creator of the Hack the Piano method. Coen is a musician, reader, writer, web-designer, eater and traveler. Find him at CoenModder.com

3 thoughts on “James Bay – Let it Go”

  1. Hi Coen,

    I was wondering if you have music sheet for James Bay - "Let it go" and if it's available about for me to purchase? I love version of this song.

    Reply
    • Hi Vince,

      Thanks for your comment! Do you mean the chord pic sheet? Or "classical" line-and-dots sheets? The former I can make, the latter is something that I never work with and don't have unfortunately. In fact my whole method of teaching and the approach here on Piano Couture is to teach people to play by ear and by chords to play WITHOUT ever needing sheet music. 🙂

      Let me know and glad to hear you like to video!

      Cheers, Coen.

      Reply

Leave a Comment

Subscribe to Get Free Updates

Stay up to date & receive free exclusive tips, tricks, lessons and offers.

Item added to cart.
0 items - 0.00
Subscribe To Our Newsletter

the Couturian

The Couturian is a free email newsletter with tips, tricks and lessons for playing modern piano without sheets.

Play It For Me

Get a custom-arranged piano recording
professionally played & recorded by Coen

Teach Me

If you want to learn how to play Chord Piano yourself,
this free workshop is the quickest way to learn how

Let's find what's right for you

How would you like your arrangement?