Yay! New guitar cover day!!! Okay actually this video was recorded way back in early July because I predicted that I will have no time to play once I started work. And indeed that is the case. But that's not the point. The point is, I have finally recorded the one song that has been played more than a thousand times on my phone. This Is Amazing Grace (by Phil Wickham) has been the top song in my "Most Played" playlist for quite a while now. Surely this song is that amazing!
But, the greatness of this song is not to be confused with the toughness of this song. Man, the guitar parts are one of the toughest I've played yet. So many different techniques in one song, even the pedalboard is not spared. But first, click here to listen to my little humble cover!
So I assumed you've heard the cover. Now I will go on to explain what I did in the video! Firstly, the effects used are pretty standard. SP Compressor for the usual increase in sustain and clarity and Boss DD-5 for the beloved dotted 8th delay. This time, I kicked in some reverb to make the signal less dry when playing single notes. My choice of drive is the OCD again (wait, what else can I choose for lead drive?), a simply fabulous pedal set in LP mode because I don't need that picking dynamics and sensitivity in this song.
The 5th pedal I used in the song is the Nano POG. Ahhh this pedal isn't kicked on until verse 2, and only verse 2. Ever since my Hosanna cover, I have pretty much played every other song without touching the board at all. But this time, it's imminent. Verse 2 utilises a very special kind of technique that only works with a heavy delay (unfortunately I didn't turn the delay up enough so it didn't show). I rarely see that technique being applied in songs so I don't really know what it's called. But I know it makes verse 2 sound pretty awesome!
Other parts of the song is equally as tough. The chorus is the part that made me screw up 90% of my takes. The chorus is based on the foundation of 4 chords (A#, D#, Gm, F), but also kinda copies over the lead notes. Basically, each chord is pressed in 3 different ways, resulting in 12 different shapes for the chorus. And the strumming pattern is not your ordinary strumming pattern. It is supposed to be way faster than what I did, but I decided that following the exact tempo of the lead lines is good enough. It's distortion after all; the naked untrained ear wouldn't know.
Verse 1 is tough on it's own too. Alternate picking while palm muting is easy, until you have to play some hammer-ons and slides occasionally. I have went out of tempo a few times in the videos because I can't switch back to the original muted picking fast enough after playing the slides (A string, 10th to 12th fret). That awkward split second silence kills me inside.
Other than that, the bridge is fairly simple. And the intro and outro lines are my favourite; super addictive riffs that I could repeat like forever. If one day I were to play this song live on stage, I'll be sure to practise the verses and chorus way more than what I did for this video.
And there you have it, one of my most favourite song covered by yours truly. You can be sure that I will record a version 2 of this song because there is so much I can improve on. I will take my time to analyse my video and make a better one in the future!
Side-tracking a little... Recently, someone questioned me about the vibrant colours on both my YouTube video thumbnails and my blog layout. To me, the more colourful, the better. Because when life is full of colours, life is exciting! But to some, too many colours, become annoying. So for YouTube, I have switched all thumbnail titles to black and white for simplicity's sake. But for my blog, it will stay this way for the rest of eternity!
P.S. Hope you guys like the new font on my blog. Looks a lot neater now eh?
Edwin Ang
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