How To Build Your Own Fingerstyle Arrangements

EXCERPTED FROM ACOUSTIC GUITAR SOLO FINGERSTYLE BASICS

TEXT BY ANDEW DuBROCK | VIDEO BY DOUG YOUNG

Unless you’re Mozart or Beethoven, you probably don’t find complete symphonies floating around in your brain. But you might experience nifty single-note melodies that come to you while you’re showering, doing the laundry, or perhaps eating a particularly tasty chocolate bar. Turning these melodies into complete fingerstyle guitar arrangements isn’t as hard as it may seem, especially if you break down the process into several steps. In this chapter, we’ll look at how to build an arrangement of a melody from the ground up by working on the traditional tune “Greensleeves.”

Know the MelodyAlthough you may be able to whistle the melody backward in your sleep, it’s always good to determine where a tune lies on the fretboard so you don’t plunge headfirst into a dead-end arrangement. Make sure you learn the piece with all the correct notes, because it is harder to unlearn a mistake than it is to learn the song correctly the first time. Example 1 shows the melody of “Greensleeves” in open position. Play it through several times before moving on to the next step.

Harmonize the MelodyHarmonize the melody is really just a fancy way of saying add some chords to the melody. You can harmonize your melody in many different ways. The simplest approach is to look up the melody in a book and use the chords listed there. But I would recommend not relying on this crutch too often. Instead, try listening to recordings and using your ear to pick the chord progression out of the mix. This method gives you hands-on experience while developing your ear at the same time. 

A third way to harmonize your melody is to come up with your own chord progression. You can get started by checking out a book or listening to a recording and then adding twists of your own, or you can create the whole progression based on how you want the tune to sound. Remember that there is no right way to harmonize a progression; this is your arrangement. The chord diagrams in Example 2 show how I’ve harmonized the melody of “Greensleeves.” Notice that some of the chords are unexpected—for example, the Em in measure 4 and the Fmaj7 in measure 6.

Add a Bass LineAfter harmonizing the melody, you’ve essentially got a rough draft of your bass line. Just follow the lowest notes of each chord in the progression, and there it is! The down-stemmed notes in Ex. 2 show the basic bass line for my arrangement of “Greensleeves.” But if you play Ex. 2, you’ll notice that I haven’t followed the chord progression exactly. In measure 1, I’ve added a walking bass line to join the Am chord to the C  in the following bar. Walking bass lines generally move through adjacent notes from one chord tone to another, and they are a great way to connect bass notes in an arrangement. Also note that I’ve added a D bass note in measures 10 and 22, effectively changing the sound of the E chord to E7.

Fill Out the ArrangementHere’s where you get to stretch out a bit. One of the first things to consider when filling in an arrangement is the feel of the piece. Think about the song as a whole and how you want it to sound. Consistency is important; switching from solid 16th-note accompaniment to whole-note droning may sound a little forced. In the final arrangement, my goal was to fill out the piece with the modern-day melody but give it a more Elizabethan flavor; the rolled (quickly arpeggiated) chord on the downbeat of each measure helps bring this feeling across. The basic philosophy was to fill in the chords on the downbeat with these strums and then arpeggiate behind the melody throughout the rest of each measure. As a general rule, try using your thumb (p) on the lowest note of each chord and your index (i), middle (m), and ring (a) fingers to grab the rest of the chord. You’ll need to move this formation around a little to get every chord, and you may find the E chord in measure 7 a bit tricky. You’ll need to separate your ring finger from your middle finger by one string to get the B note on the downbeat of the measure.

Always take playability into consideration. You can create the most amazing arrangement in the world, but what good is it if you can’t play it? In my final arrangement, for instance, the pull-off in measure 2 is easier to perform than picking both notes would be, and picking the two-note chord at the beginning of measure 3 is a lot easier than strumming a whole chord right after your index finger hits the open G string on the “and” of beat 3 in the previous measure.

Once you’ve established some consistency in your arrangement, you can start exploring minor variations. For the second section of the piece (measures 13–25), I’ve varied the rhythm by shifting the two eighth notes from the first beat to the second beat in the first few measures. This subtle change keeps the song from sounding too much like a computerized arrangement.

Also check out the harmonic variation on the last note of the piece. That A major sounds great but a little odd, since we’ve been in A minor. This substitution of the major third for the minor third at the end of a piece was common in late Renaissance and Baroque music—enough so that they came up with a special name for it: the Picardy third.

Finally, break some rules! Following any formula precisely can create sterile-sounding arrangements. In measure 22, I’ve added a scalar run in the bass. This line is similar to the one in measure 9, but the extra few notes make it the most difficult measure in the piece. There are several ways to play this measure, but try out the suggested fingering first. If this ties your fingers in knots, you can always substitute measure 9 for measure 22 and come back to it once you’ve got it under control. I decided to break the rules again by changing the rhythm of the melody itself in measure 21 and adding an internal pedal point E to complement it. Breaking away from the pattern can make a piece more interesting, but be careful not to overdo it. If every measure deviated, there would be nothing to hold the piece together!

Use Your EarsNow that we’ve methodically built our arrangement, take a step back from the process and just play through the piece. Is there anything that you’d like to change to make it better? If so, do it! When it comes down to it, what really matters is that it sounds good, and all the analyzing in the world can’t guarantee that your ears will be pleased.

GREENSLEVES