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GMC Forum _ PRACTICE ROOM _ The Christmas Song Challenge
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 8 2016, 09:13 AM
Since it's going to be Christmas soon, I realized that I don't have any Christmas songs in my repertoire and decided to change that. So I started to find out the chords and melody to Silent Night and learn it on piano. That's when I thought it'd be fun to make some kind of collaboration or challenge out of it.
So here's the deal:
- Learn to play Silent Night on any number of instruments
- Record a video of yourself playing and post it until 24th December
Anyone can join (instructors too!) and it can be as simple or complex as you like. Just the melody, or just the chords and singing, jazzy version, with solo etc. Be creative. It can be a single-track or multi-track recording with multiple instruments. The only requirements are:
- It must contain the Silent Night melody at least once
- Record all instruments yourself (or create synths, drum patterns etc), don't use backing tracks
Anyone interested? 
We might even make one of those slick collab medley videos in the end 
Posted by: fzalfa Dec 8 2016, 09:42 AM
i'm in !!
Cheers
Laurent
Posted by: Caelumamittendum Dec 8 2016, 06:43 PM
Quick and dirty take done in a couple of minutes. I accidentaly called it Oh Holy Night on youtube. Not sure if it still says that.
Posted by: TylerT Dec 8 2016, 09:50 PM
I'm thinking about doing a metal version !!!
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 8 2016, 10:44 PM
Cheers
Laurent
Cool, thanks for joining
Woah, first take already! I'll need some more days to polish my piano part before I even think of adding a guitar
I like the vibe!
Posted by: Ken Slocum Dec 9 2016, 04:21 AM
That was great and for putting it together in a short amount of time I enjoyed it. If you don't mind I would like to ask you what Key are you playing this in? And do you just play over the track I see? I know the instructions talk about no backing tracks, but I still would like to understand it........... Thanks. I would love to take a try at it.
Posted by: Caelumamittendum Dec 9 2016, 05:05 AM
I just got the chords from ultimate-guitar and put together a backing track with it. Nothing special, just the string ensemble. I played it in a major. I'm not sure if that's the "original" key though.
Posted by: Ken Slocum Dec 9 2016, 05:26 AM
Posted by: Caelumamittendum Dec 9 2016, 06:00 AM
I'm sorry that I couldn't help particularly more. All I did was get the chords, write them in Guitar Pro, export the midi and import it in my DAW, Reaper, and choose a sound, and then I played the melody on top. But as said, it's done very quickly, in a matter of minutes, so it could be better!
Posted by: klasaine Dec 9 2016, 06:36 AM
Merry Xmas!
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 9 2016, 02:09 PM
Beautiful!
Thank for sharing! Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 9 2016, 05:45 PM
That's a great initiative mate!
I hope to find some time before my vacation to work on this one!
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 13 2016, 01:28 PM
Great!
Posted by: Todd Simpson Dec 14 2016, 03:52 PM
Cool idea! Without a common backing, it will be seriously challenging to put it together as a collab simply due to folks playing in entirely different keys, at different speeds etc. But just attemping to put something like that together would be a great workout in musical editing to be sure!!
Todd
Posted by: fzalfa Dec 15 2016, 09:58 AM
Todd is right
without a BT we aren't able to done a collab....
Nice ken !!!!!!!!
Cheers
Laurent
Posted by: MisterM Dec 15 2016, 07:05 PM
Nice playing, nice tone....
Great great great great and great playing
Good idea !
I'm going to try to participate
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 15 2016, 07:28 PM
A collab video isn't mandatory. I will try to make it work somehow but that's not the point here. It's about creating a song recording yourself. You don't even need to provide a backing. klasaine didn't do that as well. Just make it recognizable
If you manage with a single instrument, great!I'll probably upload my own version next week
Posted by: sidthekid Dec 15 2016, 08:05 PM
Great initiative Wyverex! Its fun to see different versions of the same melody...hope to see more stuff like this
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 20 2016, 06:49 PM
I'll upload my video on Thursday. Any more videos incoming?
Posted by: HungryForHeaven Dec 21 2016, 04:49 PM
The plan is to upload a video no later than Saturday.
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 21 2016, 08:43 PM
Great
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 22 2016, 06:45 PM
Finally finished my video
Got a bit crazy on the post-production but it was fun and I could polish my Photoshop and PowerDirector skillz
As a curious side note: While mixing the piano sound, I tried to add a guitar VST amp into the effects just for the laugh of it. I was stunned by how much that improved the clarity and overall note definition so I ended up using the Lextac plugin for the final piano sound. The best results come by accident
Posted by: Todd Simpson Dec 23 2016, 04:46 AM
WOW! Frankly this is just amazing. The playing, the composition, the multi instrumentality, the mixing, the post production in audio and video. Impressive. You've combined quite an array of skills to make videos at this level Well done and congrats!
Todd
Got a bit crazy on the post-production but it was fun and I could polish my Photoshop and PowerDirector skillz
As a curious side note: While mixing the piano sound, I tried to add a guitar VST amp into the effects just for the laugh of it. I was stunned by how much that improved the clarity and overall note definition so I ended up using the Lextac plugin for the final piano sound. The best results come by accident
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 23 2016, 07:21 AM
Thank you I'm glad I started this challenge, it was a lot of fun, too!
Still eager to see more videos!
Posted by: MisterM Dec 23 2016, 06:35 PM
Hi Wyverex
Nice movie. Nice playing... Great Job
I 'll try to post mine tomorow before 00h00
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 23 2016, 07:27 PM
Looking forward to it, MisterM!
Posted by: MisterM Dec 24 2016, 03:42 PM
Hi
This is mine
Merry Christmas
Posted by: fzalfa Dec 24 2016, 04:06 PM
Pretty Nice Manu !!!!!!
This is my Christmas take, done yesterday evening, between some gifts packaging and cooking
enjoy
Cheers
Laurent
Posted by: MisterM Dec 24 2016, 05:02 PM
Thank you laurent
Nice take too
Happy X-Mas
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 25 2016, 12:36 AM
Very cool takes by both of you! I liked the jazzy vibe and the solo style
Thanks again to everybody who participated. There were quite some different versions of the same song. And at least for my part I can now play a Christmas song and that's what it was all about for me personally
Maybe I can try to mix the videos together somehow next week, but don't get your hopes up yet
Posted by: HungryForHeaven Dec 25 2016, 08:49 PM
Unfortunately I must admit that I have FAILED this challenge.
Your piano/guitar take is awesome.
Posted by: Wyverex Dec 26 2016, 08:24 AM
Next time then
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