Beginner Guitar Lesson 39 - "Every Breath You Take" - Chord Progression

Now that you have drilled that picking pattern, you should be ready to tackle the full chord progression. Again, this is quite lengthy, so I advise you to break it down into four bar parts. Our first goal is to familiarize you with the chords themselves.

You already know the CM9 (major 9):

Next try voicing the A minor 9 (Am9) as shown below. The number 1 in brackets illustrates the finger and fret that need to be added when playing this song.

Now try an F major 9 (FM9). Again, the number two in brackets illustrates the finger and fret that is added when playing this song.

Following that we have a GM9 chord.

There you have it. Those are all the chords in the verse and chorus. Now, the bridge is another matter, but perhaps we will learn that another time. For now, on to the order of the chords and maintaining that muted picking pattern throughout. This technique is not easy, but is a reachable goal for you, so consider this song a healthy challenge!

Below is the notation and tab for the progression. Please follow the order closely and also pay attention to the chord symbols in red. To aid you in further understanding this, a camtasia file is provided here.

Practice the picking pattern for each chord first. Drill each one for about 5 minutes starting at 90 bpm with two notes per beat and build up to 120 bpm. Having done that you should be able to tackle the whole sequence.

The snag here is changing between chords. I suggest you practice the changes at a slow tempo, such as 80 bpm, until you gain accuracy and speed. Having said that, if you have followed our earlier lessons, you should already be fairly confident at changing between at least three chords.

All technique discussion aside, enjoy playing this beautiful sequence.

                           CM9                                                        Am9

Keep practicing!

As for trying different ways of learning how to gain mastery over your guitar quicky, while still enjoying every moment of your practice time, over the years I’ve tried just about every single idea that you can imagine, both on me and on my guitar students. As a result, I know first hand what works, and these are the teaching methods that I've tried to use in these lessons.

Feel free to try other ideas, but I think you’ll find, just as I have, that nothing can compare to using the combination of lessons and materials that you find here.