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Solo acoustic fingerstyle guitar arrangements
In this episode of Guitar Books the Podcast, I’ll show you how to take the simple but beloved melody of Ben E King’s “Stand By Me,” and turn it into a variety of fingerstyle guitar arrangements.
This video is the culmination of mini-series on how to become a better acoustic fingerstyle guitarist through the use of general guitar method books. In previous videos, I’ve already shown you how to arrange several melodies from:
- Essential Elements for Guitar: Comprehensive Guitar Method, and
- Hal Leonard’s Guitar Method Book 1
These books contain many of the exact same exercises.
As I mentioned, today I’m going to show you the secrets of how to arrange an actual popular song (rather than a simple exercise): “Stand By Me” as performed by Ben E. King on his 1962 album, “Don’t Play That Song!”
Big picture: when you arrange a tune for fingerstyle guitar, your goal is to take an unadorned melody and to put all of that fingerstyle goodness underneath. This means that you will simultaneously play the melody and the harmony. Sometimes you’ll even want to add percussive elements. You ultimately want to sound like a full band all by yourself.
My arranging process has been codified in my book Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar, which is available as an eBook which you can purchase through the link below. All examples from this video and my other arranging videos will be provided with the purchase of Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar (attached to the back of the eBook).
In today’s video, I’ll walk you through the process of arranging “Stand By Me,” which is conveniently charted out for us as Example 112 from the Essential Elements book.
Arrangements:
112.1 Unadorned Melody
112.2 Add Whole Note Monotonic Bassline
112.3 Add Half Note Monotonic Bassline
112.4 Add Quarter Note Monotonic Bassline. Add Palm Muting to Bring Out the Melody.
112.5 Add Inner Harmony Along with Half Note Monotonic Bassline
112.6 Add Travis Style / Alternating Bassline
112.7 Add Inner Harmony Along with Travis Style / Alternating Bassline
112.8 Add Walking Bass Note at End of Bar 2 Along with Travis Style / Alternating Bassline
112.9 Add Walking Bass Note at End of Bar 2 Along with Half Note Monotonic Bassline
112.10 Syncopate the Monotonic Bassline and Some Melodic Rhythms
112.11 Add Thumb Slaps on Beat 2. Remove Inner Harmony for Now.
112.12 Add Inner Harmony Along with Thumb Slaps
112.13 Actual Bassline from the Ben E. King Recording (Transposed into Our Key)
112.14 Overlay Melody Over Actual Bassline from the Ben E. King Recording
112.15 Transpose Parts of Actual Bassline Down an Octave, Add Thumb Slaps
112.16 Arpeggiation Under the Melody – Idea #1
112.17 Arpeggiation Under the Melody – Idea #2
My own books:
Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to http://joemcmurray.com/checkout/ to purchase a pdf of my eBook. Learning to arrange melodies will also help your fingerstyle songwriting and your understanding of the inner workings of fingerstyle guitar. This book comes with the notated examples from my arranging videos.
Fingerstyle Blues Guitar: An In-Depth Study of the 12-Bar Blues in E Major – Books 1 and 2 are available in paperback or as an eBook through Amazon [https://a.co/d/g7Udsso (Book 1) and https://a.co/d/aDbh4H0 (Book 2)]. The first priority of these books is to quickly get you playing a solo instrumental 12-bar blues, and then to build on it until you can freely improvise or “jam.” You should be up and running by the end of the third chapter, and each following chapter will add icing on the cake.
My upcoming book, Arranging for Fingerstyle Ukulele, will be published by Mel Bay in 2026.
My music is available on all streaming platforms at https://open.spotify.com/artist/5dcokTG6C598OhTslHH5uo?si=hrQb7FViSZewDRSgECw9Ew:
Pins on the Map: my third fingerstyle guitar album was released on January 19, 2024. Watch the first single, “Open Road,” on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/uPBh8sZQsT4?si=EM_wAwnHFqU1VC9C.
Riding the Wave and Acoustic Oasis: my first two fingerstyle guitar albums.
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