In 1967, Justin Hayward wrote a song so dramatic it needed a full orchestra, a mellotron impersonating that orchestra, and a flute solo just to get all the yearning out of the room. My budget for this clip was: one guitar and a slightly guilty conscience. Turns out that's enough.
This is a MelodyChords arrangement of Nights in White Satin — the melody and the chords crammed onto the same six strings so a single guitar carries the whole weepie. No band, no strings, no mellotron. Just E minor and about fifty years of accumulated feelings.
How this MelodyChords arrangement works
The whole trick of MelodyChords is voicing priority: the melody note is always the highest, loudest voice, and the chord tones live quietly underneath it. Nights in White Satin sits beautifully in E minor, so the open strings do a lot of unpaid labour — that famous Em–D descent lets the top strings ring while your thumb minds the bass, and suddenly one guitar sounds like three.
Concrete takeaway: grab each chord so the melody note lands on your top string, and pluck it last (or just a hair louder) so your ear tracks it as the tune, not as an accident inside a chord. Once you hear the melody floating on top, the harmony can be as simple or as lush as you like — the same principle that carries other ballads on one instrument.
Warning: play this to anyone born before 1975 and you will be legally obligated to accept a story about where they were in 1967. If you want the Guitar Pro file and the original video, that's what Patreon is for.