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Every Breath You Take Guitar Lesson – Fingerstyle

The Police

SONG DETAILS

DIFFICULTY:

5

TUNING:

Standard

CAPO:

2nd fret (optional)

TEMPO:

117 BPM

This is the full fingerstyle guitar lesson for Every Breath You Take by The Police.

Every Breath You Take was written by Sting and the song appears on The Police’s 1983 album Synchronicity. This is one of the bands best-known and loved songs and it was so successful that it stayed at the number one spot on The Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks!

This arrangement of Every Breath You Take can be pretty tough at certain times. The intro and verse aren’t too hard but parts of the chorus are demanding, likewise the bridge will certainly be challenging for some of you. Having said that, it’s well worth the work as it’s such a joy to play.

Alright, let’s start learning how to play Every Breath You Take!

Learn To Play Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take (Performance)

As you learn to play this fingerstyle arrangement of Every Breath You Take, be sure to frequently return to the performance as a good reference point and guide.

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Every Breath You Take Guitar Lesson

In this first lesson we’re going to learn the main riff/progression of Every Breath You Take and then we’ll look at the verse of the song. Really familiarise yourself with the chords and get comfortable changing between them and, as always, really take your time as you bring in the melody and put the whole thing together.

How to Play the Chorus

Next we have the chorus, things certainly get a little harder here and it’s pretty fiddly at times. You’ll really need good technique and some left hand strength to play it well.

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How to Play The Bridge

This section of Every Breath You Take is a lot of fun to play but it’s also pretty hard to get right.

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How to Play The Instrumental Section

For this section you’re playing the main progression of the song, but you’re also adding in the melody line on top. This sounds like two guitars playing simultaneously.

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How to Play The Outro

There’s just the outro left now and this section is similar to the instrumental in that you’re playing two parts together but this bit is even harder! Bear in mind that you could just play the main progression as the outro and that would still sound great.

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