There is a special kind of arrogance in a song that pauses halfway through to teach you its own chords. "It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift" — thanks, Leonard, very helpful, now I'm sobbing AND taking notes. Hallelujah is the only tune I know that doubles as its own harmony lesson and still ruins your entire evening emotionally.
So here's my MelodyChords arrangement number three: Hallelujah for solo guitar, with the melody and the chords braided into one playable part. No singer, no band, no candle budget — just six strings doing the whole heartbreaking job at once. PDF and Guitar Pro files are down below for the brave.
How this MelodyChords arrangement works
The trick with a MelodyChords / chord-melody arrangement is voice priority: the melody always lives on top, sung by the highest string you're sounding, while the chords fill in underneath and your thumb keeps the bass honest. Hallelujah makes this gorgeously easy because Cohen basically handed you the roadmap in the lyric. In C major it's IV (F) and V (G), the "minor fall" (Am), and the "major lift" back up — so once you hear which note of the chord is carrying the tune, you know exactly which finger has to sing and which ones just quietly hold the harmony.
Concrete takeaway: play it slowly and voice it like a pianist would — let the melody note ring a touch louder than the chord tones under it. If your top note gets buried, the whole thing turns into anonymous strumming and nobody cries. This same top-voice-first logic is exactly what makes hymns like Amazing Grace sit so well on one guitar.
Fair warning: you will learn this "to feel emotionally superior at parties" and then get quietly wrecked by it in your own living room at 2am. If you want the tab, the PDF and the Guitar Pro file, they're on my Patreon — the fifth, the minor fall, and the monthly subscription lift.