Charlie17

Nevermind. I got it. Man are those tab websites worthless.

I have a pristine mix of the song completely vocal-less. It's cool to listen to or sing karaoke to or whatever to. dance to! haha here it is. I think, personally, the most underrated and important elements of this arrangement are first, Guy's Bass line in the verses is crucial to the way the song builds towards the soaring chorus. and second, Johnny's simple but perfect little riff during the chorus. It's a counter melody and frankly, he's a genius at writing these parts. Coldplay might not be coldplay without his guitars adding what they do to so many songs. https://www.dropbox.com/s/7yuhb683ayfdsz9/God%20Put%20A%20Smile%20no%20vocals.m4a?dl=0

If anyone knows where a tab is or just knows how this song is played on guitar(s) I would be very grateful. Otherwise I'm going to have to do this the old fashioned way and use a guitar and my ears and that sounds exhausting haha. But that's one reason Coldplay is so good. Never a dull chord. Thanks in advance :) Charlie

Ok, Sorry I couldn't help more. So playing the chord I wrote, which with the third string tuned to standard G would be (10-11-11-12-0-0) doesn't sound right for the first chord of the chorus when he sings "I hear.."? Oh well, I tried. Best of luck. He does make some unusual and beautifully voiced chords doesn't he? Playing some of his songs feels like learning a new instrument.

You know what I honestly think? At the time of publishing, there was a version of Oceans that Coldplay played at the BBC that very clearly shows his fretboard and finger positions. With that info, it's much much easier to deduct what the tuning is. I think I'm all set on tunings for AROBTTH and X&Y but i sincerely appreciate it. Considering it's a piano based song, I'd be impressed if the book you bought for AROBTTH has the tuning that Chris uses when he plays the scientist on acoustic guitar. It's definitely E-A-D-G-B-C, just like the song A Rush of blood to the head. Thank you my friend! As for piano, I listened to my friend who helps with me with my piano playing (and happens to read music better than I read English) play a few songs directly out of the Viva la Vida Hal Leonard book and it was spot on as far as the notes were concerned. She'd never even heard the song "Death and All His Friends," so rhythmically it wasn't exactly spot on. If it's a song where the piano is isolated, try a demo of Melodyne. You can just toss a song in there and it will separate the recording note for note, ESPECIALLY if it's a song like "O" where the piano isn't combined with guitars and synths and bass and drums for the entire song. I usually can work out chris's tunings if i'm at a loss by throwing the song in to Melodyne and seeing, with the song yellow for example, that the high E must be tuned to Eb because it's played open for every chord the entire song, as well as two B notes.

Yeah, those are definitely right for those two songs on X&Y, and those two songs are so classic as far as coldplay guitar that I imagine the others are spot on. Parachutes seems to have some of the most interesting tunings. I have the same "ink" chords as you. That's an example of a song book using traditional chord voicings when the song itself clearly doesn't use them. Twisted Logic does, with the guitar tuned down a semi-tone, (does your book agree with me on that one?) They're wrong (Ink's chords) and I don't even know how to play the song, I just heard him describe how he wrote it, and there's no way that's what he would have arrived at. He was trying to recall how to play "see you soon," and couldn't remember exactly and ended up writing Ink. Looks like See You Soon is tuned F#-G-D-D-B-D with a capo on the 2nd. ink has a capo on the 4th. who knows haha. All I know, is Hal Leonard's Ink is lost, on every note...so wrong that it hurts. Wow that was cheesy of me. hah. Sounds like a good one for Viva though on ibooks. Take care

Hey man, try this out. It's definitely not a tuning I've ever even considered for a moment in my life, but this is what the video+my ears are leading me to. Low E tuned to D#. A and D strings standard. Then Gb-C-D#. as a chord to get you on your way, try this one (the first chord from the chorus although he seems to voice it with the bass note on the fifth string rather than the 6th, the sound of this chord is a sign I think we're on the right track.) I also should admit, i'm not a huge fan of this particular song but these are interesting guitar chords (he has an amazing gift for transforming piano chords into the most uniquely voiced guitar chords). From Lowest string to highest (D#-A-D-F#-C-D#). (10--11-11-11-0-0) Play that chord out loud in that tuning and see if you agree it sounds to fit with what he's doing here. From there, I'd take a look at the video. It's possible that third string is just G. I'm quite confident about the 6th, 2nd and 1st strings though. Cheers. Charlie

I'll help you out. one sec

Yeah man. Speaking for myself, I don't give compliments for anything musically related unless I mean it. This is good work. Keep it up man. Hope you post some more bass videos so I can learn something I'm just picking it up and even if there is an occasional timing issue, your playing is good my friend. Thanks for posting.

I'm honestly kind of glad youre giving me some pushback on this. And perhaps I was wrong to single out Hal Leonard...I have the HL song books for Viva, Mylo, and GS. There are so many transcriptions with traditional chord voicings that are correct in identifying the name of the chord, but not even close to the voicing Chris Martin creates with his tunings and fingerings. Example...OK. Just looked, I have "universal's" viva songbook. Tough to find anything good in there. Strawberry Swing for example. Or even worse, violet hill. It's coldplay guitar for dummies. I haven't seen Hal Leonard's X&Y. What did they use for the tuning of Square One and Swallowed in the Sea? As long as they got those right I'm willing to give them some slack. And yeah, there is some useful/accurate stuff in Mylo's song book. Up with the birds is wrong for sure.

Yeah absolutely. I'm gonna open up a link to a similar acoustic cover of warning sign that came out well by my standards. I always use the same little trick for recording acoustic guitar. Which is to record the part twice pretty much as identical as I can, the pan one take left and one right. Makes it sound wider and fuller than a single take would ever sound. Appreciate it man. https://soundcloud.com/cedmo013/you-were-an-island

Yeah. When I'm trying to play a coldplay song, those big Hal Leonard books are terrible. I have the ghost Stories one. Who transcribes these things. They're terrible. Avoid that one. IMHO it's almost always best to see if you can catch a video of a live performance to see frets and approximate fingerings. Then just keep in mind that Chris Martin tends to detune the first second third or all three high strings to fit the key of the song so they can ring open. Some of the music majors working for the book publishers don't seem to be aware of this.

Also, here's another song that I think works well with acoustic guitar rather than the main instrumentation on the album, Daylight. I double tracked the rhythm guitar with two voicings for each chord. A friend/teacher from macprovideo.com did the mixing. I like how it came out. Definitely a different feel from the album track. https://soundcloud.com/cedmo013/daylight-2

It's nice man. Especially for just picking it up today! I like it

Hey guys. Just wanted to pass this along. I've always thought this song was so much fun to play on an acoustic guitar. You'd never guess it from the album track but it works on guitar perfectly. The singing is another story haha. Cheers. Tuning is E-a-d-g-c-d# https://soundcloud.com/cedmo013/square-one-12_24_14-12-06-pm

That's a really cool/brilliant cover. Love it man. I bet your chords would sound cool mixed with the ones I settled on for the acoustic guitar in this cover I did. I think I have them written down or in my iPad. This is in a different key but the acoustic guitar chords are voiced much higher which would probably be pretty cool combined with yours. Cheers man, I love it. https://soundcloud.com/cedmo013/always-in-my-head_hwm_42

I don't mean this at all in an aggressive manner. But I imagine the reason you had to transpose the chords was because the ones you found were relative to a capo on the 7th fret like the recorded version uses (and this sound check version where you can see how high up on the neck CM is playing). Otherwise, how would you be able to do the finger picking in the song and play all those altered and subtle chords in the chorus. Again, I'm sure im sounding arrogant here and I apologize. Just a matter of how close you'd like to come to the chord voicings used in the recording. -Charlie

Chris Martin plays this song with a capo on the 7th fret and high e tuned to d. Here's a tutorial I made about a year ago for a similar thread. It's correct. And I'm playing it as I go through it so you can hear how it sounds. Cheers https://soundcloud.com/cedmo013/prospekts-march-partial

Yep. How did you know their click track is a tambourine? that's kind of nuts you know that. but yeah, just look and you can see they have their in-ear monitors that each have a mix of what's going on optimized for each band member. Chris obviously needs to hear his voice, the rhythm, and the tonal content to pitch his voice against. I'm sure they all have their preferences. What they're hearing during a show compared to what the audience hears is far far different.

If you have your audio file in an MP3 or m4a, actually any audio format, you should at least try out this online free mastering service called LANDR.com. They'll compress your audio to make it competitively loud without going over 0dB which is the level audio begins to distort. It's free unless you request your sound files back in lossless formats like .wav. They send Mp3's back free though. It's a great service considering it's free. Just make sure your track has some "headroom." Approximately -5 dB at the loudest parts is ideal. I'm not sure about the sound card thing. It's never crossed my mind honestly. I've recorded into my Mac through three audio interfaces and also just the built in mic and the issue of a sound card never came up. Maybe it's different for PCs. And did you think Alecias keys sound more "mellow" than the Giant? I have both and depending on how I set the sound of the keys (from soft to hard) the giant tends to have almost unbearably soft dynamics on the initial attack of the note. Thank you for your compliment on my cover. I'm not a piano player so that one was definitely difficult. And lastly, an audio interface just allows you to record with nice microphones, supply power to condenser mics (ones used to record in studios that sound better but are prone to feedback and handling noise). If I play a midi keyboard with Alecias keys into Logic Pro without an audio interface plugged in, there is zero difference in quality in sound. So I don't personally get the sound card thing. But try lander for making your tracks nice and loud without distorting. :)

I own quite a few piano VST's and although I liked addictive keys a lot for a while, if the "Giant" is on sale. I would get it. The amount of control you can exercise over the sound of the notes, not to mention it just sounds beautiful, make it worth every penny. Another thing you can do that works quite well, is to record your midi performance, and then bounce the tracks with a few different pianos and kind of mix them together. The results are often very nice and surprisingly more expressive sounding than any one VST on its own. And using compression will help to glue the tracks together usually. Pianos are one instrument in particular that benefit from compression for one reason or another. I did a cover of "O" and used only the Giant as my sound source for piano. I've tweaked my personal favorite sound on the giant since then, but you still get an idea of how it sounds doing covers. You need an audio interface to use for recording actual audio. MIDI is not audio, so never believe someone who says, this usb cable or 5pin midi cable is "better sounding." That would be a boldfaced lie. Midi just lets the computer know which note(s) were hit, how hard they were hit and when they were hit. No audio involved. The information then triggers the sample. But if you record a voice with a microphone or and electric guitar with a 1/4 inch cable, the audio interface is necessary and cheap ones will sound bad. The really cheap ones I mean. Anything by Apogee is great and UAD and probably focusright or a Steinberg or Avid Mbox or something will likely do the job. but it's not gonna be audiophile pristine. Depends on what you're budget and priorities are. Hope that helps along with all the other info you've read. Here's a link to "O" if you want to hear the Giant as i tweaked it. And I am by no means a "sound designer." This instrument is straight forward in terms of customizing. https://soundcloud.com/cedmo013/o-10-13-14

A D chord with an e note....sounds like a Dadd9 to me man. haha. i'm joking. yeah that tuning works i was playing around with it today. there are about 34 different ways to play The D and E chords with the A passing chord between with this tuning. I've also just used a standard tuning and let the b and e string ring open and use barre chord formations at the 10th and 12 frets on the sixth string. Magic as a song is very flexible for ways to play it, it turns out. The sound of the B tuned down to A and left to ring open sounds good and there are also options for fretting the second string to make the passing chord sound as it should. It's not a simple Amaj, it's more of Asus2 or an Esus4 depending on what you wanna call it.

E-A-D-F#A-E?

What tuning does chris use for the acoustic guitar on magic

"While I REALLY love Atlas, I'm aware that it was a little too simple, musically and lyrically, so maybe that was the reason of it not being nominated." Sorry to be disagreeable, but at least with regards to pop music, the circle of fifths, major or minor keys, and just basic western music theory, Atlas is not simple musically. It's complex. Maybe the vocal melody sounds simple and it is. But I'll take back my comment that it's complex if you could tell me what key the song is in. The best coldplay songs are typically very simple. Yellow...the Scientist...to name two. Atlas...no. It's the work of someone who knows all the rules and has chosen to break them (the verses) and the fact that it comes across as simple means it's accesibke despite its complexity. I think it's kind of genius