“All I Have to do is Dream” by the Everly Brothers is such a beautiful and well-known ballad. It features so lovely guitar work by the legend, Chet Atkins, too. We’ll start by going over some of the basic chord patterns, and then talk a little bit about how we can liven it up a bit and give it a bit more depth with the layers.

For the basic chord pattern, there are quite a bit of barre chords happening. There is an A to B pattern that happens, and while you can play the A open chord, it might be easier to play the A barre chord higher up on the fretboard and then shift to the B. It sounds pretty nice, too.

Once you get the basic chord pattern down, something that Chet does that adds a really interesting sound is that he just lifts the barre a bit and leaves the two thinnest strings open. It won’t affect the chords themselves, but it does ring out really nicely and kind of puts a romantic touch on the song.

If you want to get into layering, something else you can try is playing some higher voicings of the chords. On the original recording, there’s an electric guitar playing some lower parts, including a bit of a bass part, but you can also clearly hear those higher parts laid over top. Layering always helps to make a simple song more interesting and robust, and when done properly, it doesn’t have to overcomplicate things too much!