Closer by The Chainsmokers / Halsey Tutorial/Lesson
Closer
Cadd9, D, Em7, Dsus4
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Video transcript
hey everyone my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be teaching you guys how to play closer by the chainsmokers featuring Elsie on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something that you want to learn so to play this song in the same key as the original version you will need a capo on your first fret if you don't have one that's okay you can play this whole song without one it'll just be a half step lower than the original song and before I go any further I also just wanted to take a moment to say that this tutorial is sponsored by my good friend Leo over at wooden Capo's he hand makes all of his Capo's they are beautiful and this is actually what I'll be using in my tutorial today I've talked about him a lot before because you guys know that I really believe in his company and what he's doing and his Capo's work just like any other plastic capo but they're even more beautiful because they're made of wood and you can choose what kind of wood you want and he'll even engrave it for you for instance I have my forever faithful butterfly logo and so you can personalize your capo so make sure to check out all his links that I'll put in my description box below if you're interested in purchasing one of these beautiful Capo's for yourself but now back to the tutorial this song is going to be really great for beginners because there's only three chords you need to know to play the entire song and they're pretty easy to transition between so let's go ahead and go over what chords you need to know okay so now let's go over the three chords you need to know for this song the first one is C at 9 which looks like this and sounds like this after that you need to know deep which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know is a minor 7 which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the only chords you need to know for the thumb now once you have those chord shapes memorized you should practice transitioning between them because the entire song does follow the same chord progression which is c @ 9d e minor 7 and then back to D so try practicing those transitions and one piece of advice I have is that if you're finding it hard to transition between the ci9 and the D and then again between the E minor 7 and the D one thing that you can do that sounds very similar but makes it a ton easier is instead of the D chord you can actually play a D suspended 4 chord which just leaves your pinkie right here next to your ring finger and if you do that then you don't have to move your ring finger or your pinkie for the entire song and it just becomes a lot easier to transition because you only have to move your first two fingers between all three chords so now you have so just in case it's a little bit hard for you to do those transitions that's a little piece of advice that I have that'll make it a little bit easier on you all right but once you have those transitions under your belt then let's go ahead and move on to some strumming patterns that you can use with this song juice so the first strumming pattern is the one I always start with it's so easy and you actually do use it throughout the song itself all you're gonna do is you're gonna play with your right hand one down stroke for every chord so we have and you can see I'm playing all of those with a downstroke just one time on the beat it's very simple so let's go ahead and do that together but your CI 9 chord because that's the first one in the song and you're just gonna play it with a one down stroke switch to E minor seven back to D and now before we go further in the tutorial I just wanted to emphasize that rhythm is gonna be really important in this song because there are only three chords throughout it the rhythm is what gives it more of a beat so let's go ahead and work on it by counting to four so when you count to four the important thing to remember in this song is that you're not switching on the first beat and the third beat like a normal lead song but instead it's gonna be a little bit of an offbeat rhythm so when you can't afford what we're gonna do is add and in between each of our numbers so we have one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four N and so now where you want to switch on those chords is going to be two and three and four and so you can see there that you're actually switching on the offbeat so it's a little bit hard to get that rhythm down especially if you're new to guitar and new to music so let's try that again we have one two and three and four and ok one more time 1 2 & 3 from there you just got to add in the other chord progressions and it's the same rhythm so we have C at 9 2 and 3 and E minor 7 and 3 two and three morning and three okay and then once you internalize that rhythm it's gonna be so easy to play the rest of these strumming patterns that I have to show you but before you move on to the next earning pattern let's go ahead and see where we would use this in the song and how it would sound so the intro is just gonna be one down stroke exactly that same rhythm we just practiced okay and the only place in the song that you're going to be using this one downstroke rhythm is going to be during the choruses so on your shoulders he stole in and just remember that if this rhythm is a little bit hard for you to play and sing at the same time it just takes practice because it is an offbeat rhythm it doesn't come as naturally as other rhythms might so go ahead and just practice that at your own pace and then when you're ready we'll go ahead and continue and I'll show you the next strumming pattern so now once you have that rhythm down with the first strumming pattern the second strumming pattern isn't that much harder what we're gonna be doing now is adding a couple of down strokes so again we have our ci9 chord on because that's the first chord in the song and you're just gonna play that down once and then right afterwards you want to kind of mute the strings by taking the side of your right hand or you're playing hand and then stopping the strings so you have okay and then you want to go to your D chord because that's the next chord in the song and this time we're gonna be strumming it down twice and then giving it another mute so so far we have C F mute D and then again you're gonna play E minor seven and this time you're just gonna play it once mute and then on the second D you want to play it three times followed by a mute so that's the whole pattern you just have to get used to the rhythm and playing it together so let's do it again we have so the important thing to remember is that after you play all these chords you want to try to mute the strings just to give it more of that rhythm that the original song has and then the other thing to remember is that C AB 9 and E minor 7 are always going to be played just with one down stroke and then the D is what switches and the D is going to switch between strumming it twice on the first D and then three times on the second D so let's pretend this whole thing is around the whole verse is gonna go like this C at 9 one mute and then you play D twice then you plant you minor 7 once mute and then D three times so let's put it in rhythm see what that sounds like we've got if it's getting confusing remembering which D to play twice in which D to play three times you can play the whole song with just playing the D three times so that'll sound more like this so if that's a little easier for you to play the rhythm is very similar then go ahead and play it that way but if you want it to be more accurate like the song then you want to switch off in your D cords between trimming it twice and strumming it three times so one last time let's go through this strumming pattern we have and now let's jump into the last strumming pattern here it is and I know you can see that it's kind of a jump from the other two patterns but it's very intuitive once you break it in half like we're gonna do so let's just focus on the first half of the strumming pattern it's just down down down down up so if you put your C ad 9 chord on that's the first chord in the song then what we're gonna do is we're going to strum one down stroke on every beat so and then on that last beat we're gonna do four and so kind of keep in mind that rhythm we had practiced earlier one and two and three and four the so let's try that again without me counting the beats we have and that's the first half of the pattern so now we just have to move on to our D chord and then do the second half of the pattern which is down up down down down up so go ahead and put your D chord on and practice this with me we have one more time and then again if you like to think about it in rhythm I'll count the rhythm for you it's so now we're playing a lot more of those offbeat's all right so now if you string that to the end of our C ad 9 chord and the first half of this pattern we can do the whole thing together and it'll sound like this so again that and then once you get that rhythm it's gonna be the same thing except now you're gonna go from E minor 7 to D so let's try that a minor 7 is gonna take the place of C at 9 and it's the same rhythm so we have and then you already know this part we're going to switch to D and play the rest of the strumming pattern so let's try that again we have E minor okay so now you just want to string everything together we're going to go from C at nine to D and then from a minor seven back to D okay and then all you want to do now is speed it up a little bit until you can play it at tempo and I think the best place to use this in your cover would be during the pre-chorus and then one last thing you can do to add to this pattern if you want to dress it up just a little bit is to add in a palm mute and that will just kind of distinguish the rhythm a little bit more so with a palm mute it'll sound like this and all I'm doing to play that is I'm letting the side of my playing hand rest right here on the strength as I strum them so it's not letting them ring as much and when you do that then it sounds really cool because all of the down strums will be muted and all of the other strums will be ringing because you'll let your hand go and it'll just sound really cool if you want to give it a try and then that's all you need to know to play this song I kid you not it's only three chords paired with three strumming patterns and that's all you need for the whole song so let's go ahead and play through the whole song I will list right over me what strumming pattern I'm using for which part of the song and yeah let's go ahead and play through closer by the chainsmokers good luck it was nice to meet you stop thank you guys so much for watching this tutorial I hope that it helped you even if it's just a little bit if you like this video please make sure to give it a like down below as well as subscribe to my channel that way you know every single time I upload a new video for you guys and don't forget to check out some of my playlists if you are still in the mood to play some guitar my basic tutorials include songs that are easy to learn just like this one and my detailed tutorials can sometimes go in a little more detail so they have like picking patterns and maybe some more barred chords and things like that so if you're a little bit more advanced then maybe check that one out and then my TMT tutorials are just where I give you tips and tricks on how to take care of your guitar and get better at different skills on the guitar so make sure to click on any of those links if you want to as well as follow me on any of my social media sites this is what I do a lot of polls and giveaways and just fun stuff like that so feel free to follow me on any of those if you would like to again thank you so much to Leo from wooden Capo's for sponsoring this video please make sure to check out his links in the description below if you are interested in buying one of these cables for yourself and yeah I guess that concludes everything so thank you guys so much for watching and I hope to see you in my next video coming soon