Fingerstyle Guitar Arranging Styles By Bill Tyers

Styles of arranging for Fingerstyle guitar are varied but the main concepts may be defined as follows:

Two Part Arrangement.

Consists of a melody line normally played on the treble stings with a bass accompaniment written for the bass strings. This type of arrangement works well with traditional reels and gigues. Example 1 illustrates this style.

Tavis Picking Style.

Melody on the treble strings accompanied by a boom chuck rhythm played on the bass strings with the thumb. Bass stings are normally muted with the right hand palm. Chet Atkins is recognised as being the player who popularised this form of playing.

Three Part Arrangement.

Melody in the top part accompanied by a bass line with a chordal harmonic part moving in between. The melodic line must be made to stand out from the accompaniment. This style requires a subtle touch to sound convincing but once mastered can produce beautiful music.