Chords for Paul Davids and I Wrote a Song (Without Ever Discussing It!)

Hello everyone, welcome back.
Let me tell you a little story.
Once upon a time, it was June 2019 and I was sitting in a hotel courtyard in a small German village.
I was quite exhausted after a long day of travel and was forcing myself to stay awake to fight the jet lag.
There I was in my lawn chair when suddenly a human-shaped shadow appeared above me.
From it I heard the words,
Hey, Sammy G.
To which I responded,
Oh, hey, Paul Davids.
I had never met this man, but I recognized him from the many YouTube videos of his I had seen.
This Dutch fellow and I started chatting and I knew that day that I wanted to make music with him.
A few weeks later, I asked if he wanted to make music with me too.
To which he responded,
I do.
Today, I'm going to share with you what Paul and I made as well as the unconventional compositional techniques we used to make it.
Before we do that, a quick word from today's sponsor, Samurai Guitar Theory, which is myself.
I've got a back-to-school sale going on until September 16th for my course on the rudiments of music theory.
It's 45% off with promo code BACKTOSCHOOL over at www _ _ .samuraiguitartheory.com.
I'll put links to that in the description.
So like I said, instead of doing a traditional co-write, Paul and I came up with a musical game of sorts.
We would write a song without ever discussing it.
To start, I would write out two bars of a melody and then email that to him.
He would write the next two bars, send that back to me, [G] and we would continue doing this until we had 16 bars of music.
At no point would we discuss the chords.
We wouldn't talk about the style or feel, but rather we were simply writing a melody.
Once this was completed, we would each go and then turn the melody into our own fully produced tracks without ever discussing our visions with each other.
We also decided that at this point in the process, if we wanted to, we could go back and tweak the melody, artistic liberties were allowed.
When all was said and done, we would share our tracks with each other and you guys as well.
The first two bars that I came up with sound like this.
_ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ It's a simple enough phrase in C, and I left it open for Paul to take it wherever he wanted to.
I sent him this in an email a few days later.
I got a reply, and this is what it said.
Cool.
That already sounds like an absolute banger.
Here you go, Sammy G.
And attached was the next two bars he came up with.
Let's listen to that.
[B] _
[C] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
[C] _ [B] _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Very nice stuff, Paulie D.
This went back and forth for a couple of weeks until we'd accomplished our goal of writing 16 bars of the finished melody.
It [E] sounds like this. _ _
[C] _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ [B] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
_ [C] _ [B] _ [A] _ [C#m] _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [A] _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [Fm] _ _
[B] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [D] _ _ [F] _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Fm] _
[Em] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
What you heard is still a ways away from [Em] being a completed piece, but it's something to work with.
I then started fiddling around with the melody, putting some chords to it.
I took some liberties and made some changes to the notes and rhythms.
Here's the stripped down version of this song accompanied with the chords.
_ [Am] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
[A] _ _ _ [G] _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ [Em] _ _ _ [C] _ [Dm] _ _ [D] _
[G] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [Am] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ So having that, I was ready to hit the studio.
I wanted to do something fun that challenged me to do something new.
I suspected that Paul might do a beautiful guitar based arrangement.
After all, he is an amazing guitar player, so I wanted to do something different.
My plan was to turn this melody into an 8-bit song reminiscent of a soundtrack you might hear in an old NES game.
This is something I had never done before.
I downloaded a couple synth plugins that fit the style, listened to some old video game jams, and got to work.
Up next, you're going to hear the melody that Paul and I composed in an 8-bit style.
After that, I've gotten Paul to shoot a video where he tells you what he thinks of my rendition.
Here we go.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _ [Am] _ [G] _
[C] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [F] _
[E] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ [G] _
[Am] _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [G] _
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ [G] _
[Am] _ _ [E] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
[Em] _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ [E] _ [Am] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _ _
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Sammy, _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ [Am] _ _ [G] _ _
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [Em] _
[E] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ [Am] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ [Am] _ _ _
this is genuinely [C#] one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
The music, the video, the graphics, the production is just perfect.
I'm a real sucker for that 8-bit sound.
I love how our things are just so far apart from each other, but still that very recognizable melody that I already listened to for hours creating my own track.
But hearing it with these chords, man, just awesome.
Great use of these chords and some very nice harmonies for the melody.
It's just epic.
Hats off.
It's now officially my life goal to make that adventure happen in real life.
Hit that thumbs up, [G] guys, to make it happen. _ _
Cheers.
Oh, and it was an honor working with you, Samurai. _
Thank you.
And there you have it.
If you want to see [C] what Paul came up with, [Am] I've got his video linked in the description or you can head over to youtube [Em].com slash [Am] Paul Davids.
He did something totally different and as I suspected, it's very cool.
In his video, you can also see my reaction to his rendition.
And while you're over there, spend some time [D] checking out his videos.
[B] He makes [Cm] fantastic high-quality content and the man plays a mean [G] guitar.
If you like what [Am] I do, I'm sure you'll enjoy what he has to offer.
Before we wrap it up [D] today, I want to remind you [A#] guys that Samurai Guitar Theory of the Rudiments is [D] only on sale for a bit longer.
I've made this course [Dm] thinking of the guitarist who's played for a few years, has learned a number [A#] of things, but [C#] wants to start understanding why [A] music [F] works the way it does.
[D#] It's [F] professionally animated, making it easy to comprehend the difficult subjects and there are [E] interactive elements like [F] quizzes and lists of [F#] things to practice.
One [Gm] payment gives you lifetime [F] access and until [A#] September 16th of 2019, it's on sale [F] for 45% off with promo code [Gm] [F] BACKTOSCHOOL.
Links to all that [A#] stuff will be in the [A] description.
That's it for [Em] today.
Thank you all for watching [Dm] and an extra big thank you to Paul for [E] being part of this video.
[Dm] You can find that sweet, sweet [F#] Sammy [G] G merch over at www _ _ .shopsamuraiguitarist.com.
You [F] can find Paul's [C#m] channel by hitting [F] that button over there.
And if you're new here, hit that subscribe button over there for a wide range [E] of musical content.
[Cm] Until next time, [F]
[A#m] I'm Samurai Guitarist and I will see you again soon.
[F] _ _ [C#] _