Something Just Like This by The Chainsmokers & Coldplay Tutorial/Lesson
Something Just Like This
F/C, Gadd4, Am, C
Download Printable Guitar Guide
Unlock with Patreon
Watch play along cover
Unlock with Patreon
Are you new to playing the guitar? Watch my free Beginner Series where I show you all of the basics. You'll be playing your first songs in minutes!
Video transcript
>> Hey everyone, my name is Ellen and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to play Something Just Like This by The Chainsmokers and Coldplay on the guitar. Today I am featuring my Journey Instruments OF660 [music] guitar, which is one of the coolest guitars that I have. You actually can fold it in half and take it with [music] you anywhere you go, so it's a great travel guitar. Not to mention it also changes colors depending on the lighting, which is awesome. So if you are interested in this model or any of their other collapsible guitars, I'll make sure to link them in the description box down below. I want to give a quick shoutout and thank you to my patrons over on my Patreon page for voting on this song as this [music] month's student pick. So if you want a little bit of voting power in the songs you see me teach you on this channel, make sure to consider joining. [music] I will link that in the description box as well. Here's a quick overview of everything I'll be covering in this tutorial today. And with that being said, let's go ahead and get started. All right guys, so you only need to know four different chord shapes to play through this entire song and we'll start with our F over C, [music] which looks like this and sounds like this. >> [music] >> And by the way, if you don't know how to read these chord charts you're seeing on screen, I do cover how to do that my free beginner series right here on YouTube, so make sure to check that out right here. The next chord shape is our G add 4. >> [music] >> After that, we have our A minor. >> [music] >> And the last chord shape is our C major. >> [music] >> And those are the only chords you need to know to play through this song. So go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really memorize these chord [music] shapes as well as practice transitioning back and forth between them cuz it'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier for you. And if this is a skill you're currently struggling with, I do have a practice with me chord transition series right here on my channel. So I'll link that playlist in the corner for those of you who need it. But once you're comfortable with these chord shapes, we can go ahead and talk about the strumming that I would suggest for this song. Now as I always say, if you are brand new to playing guitar or you're somebody who struggles with playing guitar and singing at the same time, the first thing I would suggest doing is to bring up the song and go ahead and go through the entire thing with just a single down strum on each chord change as you sing through the song. And you want to take this time to really get used to what word or what syllable you're on whenever those chords are changing. So, here's a quick example of what that would look like. Been reading books of old, the legends [music and singing] and the myths, Achilles and his cold Achilles and his [singing and music] gifts. All right, so that's just a really quick example, but you would essentially want to do that for the entire song and just really make sure you know where those chords are going to be changing. This is going to help you a bunch when we get into the fuller strumming pattern as well. And this is actually something you do right now if you check out my Patreon page. I do have this entire guide available to download and print out. So, I'll make sure to leave that link in the description box for those of you who are interested. Once you've done that and you're comfortable with where those chord changes are going to be, then we can go ahead and add to this to create more of a full strumming pattern you can use for this song. guys. So, I have two different strumming patterns I want to show you today, but we're going to start with the one that is used more often in the song. As you can see, we're in an eighth note count and we're doing just all down strums, so it's going to sound like this. We have one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and down down down down [singing and music] down down down down. All right, super simple on the surface, but we are going to kind of break this pattern up into two different parts to play through most of the song. So, let's go ahead and start looking here at that first. see here our F over C and our G add 4 chord both have these little dash marks next to them. So, if you're looking at the guide on my Patreon page, these dash marks are just my way of signaling to you that we're going to break this pattern in half. So, I'm going to go ahead and add a vertical line here kind of in the middle. And what this represents is where we're going to change chords. So, in the example of this line, we're going to have our F over C chord on and we're going to do the first five down strums. 1 and [singing and music] 2 and 3 Then you're going to switch chords to your G add four at that vertical line and finish out the right half, which is the last and four [singing and music] and. Okay? So, we've got one and two and three switch [music] and four and. All right, great. And it's going to be the same for the next two chords as well. We've got our A minor starting out for the left half, one >> [music] >> and two and three. And then again, switch back to your G add four for the last three beats, and four and. Like 99% of this song is just going to be going from F over C [music] to G add four to A minor back to G add four. Okay? So, super simple with those chord transitions. What might be a little bit tricky is the counting of the strumming pattern. So, just remember where we're switching those chords. So, together it'll go like this. We've got F over C, one and [singing and music] two and three and four and one and two and three and four [music] and. All right. Now, something that I want to add in here while we're going over this pattern is accents and palm muting. So, these are two skills you'll often see come up in my tutorials because they're super useful. So, first of all, let's talk about accents. Accents are basically just when you want to give certain strums in a pattern a little bit more emphasis. And the way we're going to do that is we're going to play all the strings and kind of have a little bit more oomph behind the strum by kind of flicking your wrist a little bit more. In comparison, all of the other beats that are not accented, they'll get a kind of a smaller strum and we'll kind of concentrate more on just the middle strings of the guitar. You can see we have the one, the and of the two, and the four. Okay? So, with our chords, it would go like this. We've got F over C, one [singing and music] and two and three. Switch chords to G, and four and. >> [music] >> So, it's kind of subtle, but if you can hear the accented strums are just a little bit more >> [music] >> loud and a little bit more forceful. You don't want to like strum too hard on your strings, but you just want to give it a little bit more of a >> [music] >> energy, okay? So, again, we've got one [music] and two and three and four. And Okay? >> [music] >> Same with the next two chords. One and two and three and four. [music] And Okay? So, those are accents. I would recommend adding those in throughout your cover. Just keep it going the whole time. And then the second thing I wanted to show you guys are palm mute. So, basically, what we're going to do there is we're taking the side of our hand that has our pick in it, and you're taking the fleshy side of this hand or your palm, and you're kind of gently laying that on your strings right here over the bridge of your guitar. So, it's pretty far away from where your sound hole would be. Mine is up here, but if you have one right here like a typical guitar, you would slide your hand back. And as you strum, you'll notice that if you're making contact with those strings, it'll dampen the sound of them. So, it'll kind of create that muted sound. >> [music] >> All right. So, if you can add in a palm mute while still keeping those accents in, that's going to be your best bet of playing this song to keep it really like rhythmic like the original one. So, let's go ahead and put all of that together to see how it goes. So, starting on F over C, we've got one and two and three and [singing and music] four. And We're still having those accents and those palm mutes. [music] >> [music] >> Now, when we're going at this tempo, it does sound a little bit like a drag. Um but what we're going to do is when we speed it up to full tempo, this palm mute is going to add a really percussive element along with those accents to create more of a like a rhythmic beat to the strumming. So, let me go ahead and speed it up to full tempo so you can hear what that sounds like. We've got 1 2 ready go. >> [music] >> All right, so you can hear how adding both of those in creates more of that sound like the original song. So, let's go ahead and put some lyrics in there so you can hear how it comes together. >> I've been reading books of old, the [music] legends [singing] and the myths, Achilles and his gold, Hercules and his gifts, Spider-Man's [music] control, >> [singing] >> and Batman with his fists, and clearly I don't see myself upon that list. >> All right, so it moves super quick and you can use this exact strumming pattern to play through most of the song. Now, the only place that I would suggest doing something different is going to be in the chorus. So, let me show you guys a different pattern on screen here. So, for strumming pattern two, we're going to do still an eighth note count, but it's going to look like this. We've got one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. All right. And what we're going to do for the chorus is we're going to actually have two measures to play through this. So, the first measure is what you see here on screen. We've got down down up. I'm going to add a vertical line here cuz again, we're going to split the measure and do two different chords. So, we've got down down up and then down down up on both chords. On our F over C, we're going one and [singing and music] two and so down down up and then switch chords to your G at four and we're going down >> [music] >> down up. Okay? So, F G >> [music] >> Now, when we get to the next pairing, the A minor to to G, what I'm going to do is just change this uh rhythm up just a little bit. And now what we're going to do here is on A minor, we're going to go one and [music] two and three and another split here, and on that last beat, that four and, we're going to go back to our G. >> [music] >> Okay? So, the A minor to the G is one and two and [music] three and four and. So, now what you want to do is you want to put both of these together to play through the chorus. So, from our F over C to our G add four, we've got one, two and [music] switch, three, four [singing] and switch. And now we're doing the new measure, one, two and three [music] and switch, four and. All right. And you if you play it at tempo, it'll sound a lot like the song. It should be fairly intuitive. So, it'll sound like this without stopping. All right. And then you would repeat that again. >> [music] >> And that's how you could play through all of the choruses. So, speeding it up to full tempo sounds like this. >> [music] >> Oh, I want something just like this. All right. So, again, if you wanted to stick with that pattern with the all down strums, you could use that to play through the entire song. However, in the chorus, I like to let it be a little bit louder, and so I'll take the palm mute away and I'll do more of this ringing um strumming pattern that we're doing here, this two-measure pattern. Um but again, you don't have to do that. But this is the way I like to play it, and between those two strumming patterns, you can play [music] through the entire song just like that. All right, guys. So, again, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over these strumming rhythms and get them kind of under your muscle memory so that you can play them without counting the beats. That's the only way that it'll be easier to sing on top of it eventually. And it does take a little bit of time and practice and patience. So, go ahead and just make sure to give yourself grace when you're doing that. But once you have these strumming patterns under your belt, I did want to show you guys that kind of intro tab. It's super easy to play. So, I just want to show you that really quick. So, let's go ahead and talk about that next. All right, guys. So, for this little intro tab, it's super easy. I'm not sure if anyone wants to learn it, but I just wanted to show it really quick because it's really easy to play. All you're going to do is have your index finger here on the first fret of the B string and your ring finger here on the third fret of the high E string. And we're just going to go back and forth between [music] these two notes. So, as you can see on the tab here, we've got >> [music] >> And that's the whole intro tab. You can hear that at the intro of the song before the singing comes in. We've got >> [music] >> Been reading books of And then you'd come in with strumming of old, [music] the legends [singing] and the myths. All right. So, if you wanted to, I just wanted to throw that little pattern in there. I think it's kind of fun to play at the beginning. But yeah, you can totally ignore this whole section too if you want. So, one last time, go ahead and pause the video if you want to look over this little intro tab. Super easy to get. Um you don't have to play it at all, but I do think it sounds kind of fun if you put it at the beginning of your cover. Once you've got this down, we can put together everything we've learned in this tutorial today to play through the song. One, two, ready, go. >> [music] >> Been reading [music] books of old, [singing] the legends and the myths. Achilles and his gold, [music] Hercules [singing] and his gifts, Spider-Man's control, and Batman with his fists. And clearly I don't see myself upon [singing and music] her list. She said, "Would you >> Want to have fun jamming to the rest of the song with me? Then make sure to check out my Patreon page where you can unlock access to this as well as all my other fast track and play along guitar tutorials. I'll make sure to leave a link for it in the description box down below. If you enjoyed learning this song with me, then you should definitely check out this video. [music] Not only does it have a super similar vibe and feel, but it's just as fun and easy to play. So, see you over there. [music] Bye.