Fun fact that will haunt you at every open mic for the rest of your life: this song is called "What's Up," but nobody in it ever asks what's up. Linda Perry wails "what's going on," the chorus is basically one enormous "hey-yeah-yeah-yeah," and 4 Non Blondes still carved this 1992 three-chord anthem so deep into our collective skull that you're humming it right now. You're welcome, or I'm sorry — pick one.
This little clip is my MelodyChords arrangement: the whole thing on one guitar, melody and chords glued into a single fingerstyle part, so you can be the singer, the band, and the emotionally exhausted friend at 4am all by yourself. No band, no karaoke machine, no shame.
How this MelodyChords arrangement works
Underneath all that primal screaming, "What's Up" is almost aggressively simple: G, Am and C on a loop — a I–ii–IV progression that just keeps circling like it's got somewhere to be. The MelodyChords trick is to stop thinking of those as chords you strum and start treating them as chords you sing. You hold the bass note (G, A, C) under your thumb, and you voice the actual vocal melody as the highest note of each shape on the top strings. Melody on top, harmony underneath, one guitar doing the job of two people.
Concrete takeaway: grab a chord shape and find the melody note within reach of that shape instead of leaping all over the neck. If the sung note sits a step above your top chord tone, add a finger; if it's already inside the chord — congratulations, you did nothing and it still works. That's the whole secret to chord-melody playing: let the shape carry the harmony while your pinky chases the tune.
And if your version comes out sounding less like a heartfelt 90s anthem and more like a heartfelt 90s anthem played by someone having a stroke on beat three, join me on Patreon for the tab and Guitar Pro file — where the notes are in the right order and the screaming is strictly optional.