Playing a melody and chords simultaneously is one of the hardest things to play on guitar. While this is fairly simple on piano on guitar it takes planning to create an effective arrangement of a tune.
Here is a chord/melody arrangement of the Righteous Brothers song Unchained Melody made easier by playing it in the key of G. This key allows the guitarist to use the open strings of the G and E minor chords to fill in the harmony behind the melody.
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Below is my detailed guitar lesson for this instrumental fingerpicked solo guitar arrangement of Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers. This guitar tutorial includes guitar tablature (tabs).
Unchained Melody – Solo Acoustic Guitar Lesson with Tablature Video Transcript
Hi Anthony here from learning to play the guitar in this video I’m going to show you how to play a solo acoustic fingerstyle version of the song Unchained Melody as famously recorded by the Righteous Brothers back in 1965 and also featured in The Ghost movie soundtrack from 1990 this version is in the key of G utilizing the relative easiness anyway of the open strings of the G chord
So the first thing we’re going to take note of here is how we’re actually going to pluck the strings. Generally my finger picking rule is that the thumb will play all the bass notes so the top three strings the E A D strings and then my index will play the G middle finger play the B ring finger will play the E string and I’ll stick with that rule for most of the tune. There will be some exceptions as we go along but that will be the majority of how I will finger pick this tune.
So starting off we have have our G chord and we’re going to pick the two extremities of the G chord the top 3G and the bottom 3G bass and treble. Then we’re picking our way through D G D strings index and thumb there middle finger on the B string index spring on the G. Then we jump the first finger down to fret 2 F bass note with the little finger on five for the high melody A note there together. There is a very nice little transition index and middle G B strings bar two E minor with a 3G Melody on top (thumb index thumb middle index finger off) open D thumb.
A bit of a jump here to fret 10 using my third finger is my recommendation stretching out now a C major 7 with the first finger on the fret 8 bass note stretching all the way to fret 12. So I’m going to do there a thumb pluck hanging on to these notes letting them ring out where possible. We’re now going to form the C major 7 chord. Here I’m going to pick eight nine. There I use my picking index on that string for an exception thumb index middle ring on that it’s a little arpeggio on the C major 7 chord there.
Then we’re going to go to the D chord with a simple D thumb pair on the bottom which is my middle and my ring finger thumb. Again jumping up little version inversion of D there five and seven and tab double seven little finger on the bottom string.
There second part starts the same way as all the verses begin with this G thing again same story from before but then we have a fret four on the D string, little finger on fret five on the bottom second and little finger because then I need my first finger to pluck the 3D there. So thumb ring finger plucking and then middle finger pluck the B string there slide that down. You can either use your little finger on the bottom if you find it easy to slide or change the third on that 3G note down there. it sort of doesn’t matter too much whatever it is.
Smooth E minor with that 3G note again again thumb is playing the bass every other string is a different finger. Now here I very importantly land a regular D chord shape 3 0 2 sus. First my bottom finger is missing but then I stick him down for the pair thumb 3 5 walking up through an E minor transitional thing to another version of D on the 5 7 and then we have a pickup into the next section which is into verse two.
So going into verse two we have that 3 D note as I said before back to the G same as before very similar 5 2 that E minor for 3G third or little finger on the bottom. A little variation here now I’m going to go D in the bass fret 3 fret 5 so a G and an A there. Melody on the bottom string again we back this 8 1 2 C major 7 stretch and that same arpeggio from before and the same run up from before too. So 7 double 7 then back to the G again with the same thing that’s that 4 5 thing being recycled E minor 2 3 thing again.
Now we have a little change coming up here jumping up to a high that super high note fret 10 D
little finger on the 10 first finger on the 7 a little arpeggio again ringing finger on the bottom thumb on the D string index middle ring then a little sus 8 added in then back then a bit of a D7 there with this number 8 on the bottom which is that C note. So I’ll do it again just watch my fingers. Then we have this little sixth run down. Double 7 open the string 4 3 based around the G chord of course and then a 3 4 four finger pops up to catch the 3D note there and then I actually hang on to the number 4 note there which is the B.
Then we have D but in this case I’m going to use fingers 1 and 2 because I need to stretch that number 5 A on the bottom there and then first finger back to the other number two F on the bottom. So stretch E minor 3 2 again which can be third or little finger probably third. So E minor 3D, open B one finger that’s all you need. Thumb hoping around there – notice how I do that. A little chord there E minor 9 D.
Now into the bridge in a C chord so pair with a thumb thumb index middle. A big jump here to an A minor 7 but all your need is 1 finger though so extremities (thumb index middle) bunch of fives. So it takes a bit of practice to get that smooth D7 jump but all you need is this finger here on fret 7 picking those thumb index middle index = a D6. Then we’re into a G but I’m going to use the G with the third finger little finger on the bottom pair cuz then we have the old G C sort of thing going on that. So in this part little finger on that number 3 F note so the bass notes ringing out all the way through. It’s a little bit fiddly here.
Into the bridge based around a C with a little melody plucking away through the bottom strings. D chord little pull off 3 2 then back to C thumb thumb 16th little skipping there. B flat so I bar chord it that way the ones and the threes pair so that was my thumb ring index middle ring, but you could double thumb that if you want. C again back to the same Melody C with the D E G notes there. Now stretching D related but 5 bass note zero to bit of that 6 chord again and then back to the G. So one more time just slowly. That whole line repeats twice D C and then B flat C stretchy D with the five sevens then back to the G. In this case I have the pair again.
It’s goes around the second time which is that pattern again and then you go back to verse 2. The second time round we loop all the way around as you can watch on my other (performance) video how I structurally set this tune out.