Good arrangements are often easier to play

One of the clearest examples of unnecessarily complicated guitar parts is six-string barre chords, especially on electric guitar. Why?

Because those barre chords are only useful in a very limited number of situations.

A long sustained note held for one or two measures can fill the spectrum nicely. They work for arpeggios that need sustain and require that particular voicing. But I can’t think of many other situations where strumming them is actually useful. On electric guitar, they usually sound terrible.

Unless you’re playing flamenco or a steel-string acoustic guitar, full six-string barre chords are often the worst option. They’re difficult and physically demanding for no good reason.

There are many other voicing options that work much better, especially when you have two guitars. Each guitar can take on a different role, and even if both are strumming, they can do so in different registers.

Most of the time, two- or three-note voicings are more than enough. Two notes are often sufficient for a strong strumming part. Three notes is optimal. Four notes start pushing it, but can still work.

In short, full six-string barre chords are overrated and unnecessarily complicated.

I think many musicians associate better or professional arrangements and performances with difficult parts.  Often, what sounds best is easier to play than harder parts that might seem like they should sound better.  Just because they're difficult doesn’t make them cool automatically.

The key is to think better and have more options to choose from. More options don't guarantee the best decision, but at least they provide a better starting point. If you only have one or two options, you might not choose something that works well. But with five, six, or seven options and wisdom, you're more likely to pick the best one.  Bear with me in the following analogy.

You could think of this as follows:  if you only have just one way to do things, you have to hope that shit works. Two options is usually a false dichotomy, like “if you don’t want pizza we need to get hamburgers”…there’s other stuff we can get.  But having four to five ways gives you a good set of options. Ideally, I'd say between five and ten choices is the sweet spot for music choices.

More than ten options can lead to Choice Overload. I like to compare this to restaurant menus. Imagine going to a place with only one item on the menu—I've never experienced this, but it sure would be limited.

A menu needs at least two items.  If a menu has five to ten, you can choose easily. Now, have you ever been to a Chinese restaurant? They often give you a menu with five pages, each full of pictures and about 25 items per page, they all look delicious…sounds familiar?

It’s overwhelming because now I feel like I’m missing out; when choosing from ten items, you give up 9. But when there are 100 items,  you're giving up on 99 options. That’s overwhelming.

So, to sum up, you need to expand your chord options. Think about how you play them, what inversions you use, and the voicings and registers you cover. If you can do this all over the guitar neck, you'll have more choices that fit your music better.

Sometimes the basic C major chord in the first position might be perfect. But what if it doesn’t work, and that's the only C chord you know? That's a problem.

Learn lots of variations and techniques like strumming, broken chords, arpeggios, or pads. Consider what register you'll play in and what voicings you'll use. All these options will help your music sound its best because you'll be able to choose what works best for each song.

When you make a good arrangement, everything you do makes sense. What does that mean? Whether the part is easy or hard to play, the most important thing is to make sure it's well thought out to achieve your goal.

If everything you play sounds as good as possible, any tension you have will lessen. Even if a part is difficult, you'll feel better because if the final result sounds great, it justifies the awkward fingerings.  And if a part is too easy to play, it’s also justified if it makes the song sound its best, even if your ego tells you “I shouldn’t play this easy on a stage.

Remember: it’s not about how easy or difficult the part is to play. It’s about making the song sound the best it can.

L. D. Bonilla

The Band Coach Method