
Yellow
Recently, early Coldplay songs have made a comeback with my teenage guitar students. I had forgotten how extraordinary these songs were, specifically from the first two albums, Parachutes and Rush of Blood to the Head. With “Yellow” I wanted to do a fingerstyle arrangement that was minimalist and subdued — away from the driving nature of the original song.
Composer, Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones) famously created cover arrangements for another HBO production, Westworld. Rather than make a generic sing-along backing track, he would take a song like Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box, and reconfigure it as a true instrumental, getting to the essence of the melody.
I try to do the same with my instrumentals. With Yellow, I thought, how would Gustavo Santaolalla play this…if he were arranging it for The Last of Us?
You might also like to play…
Harry Styles: Sign of the Times | fingerstyle guitar + TAB
Nirvana: Heart-Shaped Box | fingerstyle guitar + TAB
Lana Del Rey: Video Games | fingerstyle guitar + TAB
How to play Yellow | fingerstyle guitar
The guitar tab for this piece is beautifully written across 3 pages. Yellow is best suited to intermediate guitar players and up. Enjoy! The guitar tab is available below:
My song structure looks like this, in accordance with the guitar tab:
Verse 1, To Chorus, Chorus, Chorus End
Verse 2, To Chorus, Chorus, Chorus End
End Verse
**Coldplay: Yellow | fingerstyle guitar
My version is played in a Drop D tuning. From low to high: D A D G B E