There are two kinds of people: those who hear the opening synth line of Numb and instantly feel seventeen again, and liars. I fall firmly into the first camp, which is exactly why I sat down and squeezed Linkin Park's entire anthem — vocal melody and all — onto a single guitar.
This little clip is a MelodyChords arrangement of Numb: no band, no backing track, no second guitarist quietly judging your timing. Just the melody and the chords fused into one solo fingerstyle part, so you can be dramatically alone with maximum efficiency.
How Numb works as a MelodyChords arrangement
Under the hood, Numb is a stubbornly simple loop: F#m, D, A, E — that's i–VI–III–VII in F# minor, the four chords that have been quietly running emo since before emo had a haircut. The trick in a MelodyChords arrangement is that you don't strum those chords and sing over them; you make the highest string carry Chester's vocal line while the lower strings just imply the chord underneath.
Concrete takeaway: for each chord, find the melody note first, park it on your top string, then build only as much of the chord as your remaining fingers can reach below it. You almost never need the full four-note voicing — a root and a third under a ringing melody note already tricks the ear into hearing the whole chord. Fewer notes, more feelings. If you want to know how I fish the melody and chords out of a track in the first place, I ramble about exactly that in figuring out the chords or a melody.
Is it emotionally responsible to play the most 2003 song ever written, alone, in a dark room, on one guitar? Absolutely not. Do it anyway — and if you want the Guitar Pro file and the tab so your fingers can go numb too, they're waiting on my Patreon.