Coldplay wrote a song so relentlessly uplifting it comes with its own puppet apocalypse music video, and then had the audacity to call the instrumental version "i" and the good one "ii." Naturally I decided one guitar should carry the entire thing — melody, chords, and all that sunrise-in-a-major-key optimism — with nobody else in the room.
This is my MelodyChords arrangement of "Life in Technicolor ii": a solo fingerstyle take that plays the vocal melody and the chords at the same time, so you get the full Coldplay glow without needing Chris Martin, a piano, or a single balloon.
How this MelodyChords arrangement works
The trick behind any chord-melody arrangement is embarrassingly quick to say and maddening to do: the melody always lives on the highest string you're playing, and everything underneath it is just harmony holding the door open. For "Life in Technicolor ii" that means keeping the bright vocal line as your top voice, then tucking the nearest chord shape below it — and, crucially, letting open strings ring through so the whole thing shimmers like the original's arpeggiated intro instead of sounding like someone angrily typing.
Concrete takeaway: before you play a single bar, sing the melody and find those notes on your top two strings. Once the tune is anchored up there, harmonising underneath is mostly a matter of picking chord shapes that don't collide with your melody note. That one habit — melody first, chords second — is what turns any song into a solo guitar piece. It's the same engine behind every fingerstyle cover I do.
Is playing melody and chords at once harder than just strumming? Yes. Will your thumb file a formal complaint? Also yes. Grab the tab and the Guitar Pro file on my Patreon, and if you enjoy this bright-major-key masochism, my Viva La Vida arrangement is right next door.