Breaking the Girl -- Red Hot Chili Peppers (Guitar Cover)

a beautiful ballad with a beatles-esque pre-chorus and a sophisticated chord progression happening during the choruses. i took what sounded like the most accurate portions from several tabs -- there are many different ones out there for this song -- and combined them with a pretty careful study of frusciante's hands during his recording of the song as depicted on the 'funky monks' documentary to arrive at how i've played it here. you'll need a 12-string tuned down half a step to be faithful to the record, but it also sounds pretty great played on a 6-string acoustic.

by request, here are the chords for the chorus. the four recurring chords are (remember to tune down half a step):

e
b
g 5 7 9 12
d 5 6 7 9
a x x x x
e 5 7 8 10

the first time around, the pattern ends on a E chord in the seventh position, with a pinky subsequently thrown in at the 10th fret as embellishment, like so (forgive the weird spacing on the '10' here, i can't align it properly):

e 10
b 9 9
g 9 9
d 7 7
a
e

second ending is an F chord with an open high E string:

e 0
b 1
g 2
d 3
a 3
e

if you 'like' this, please take a second to click the following link and 'like' my band, too, if you're so inclined: http://www.facebook.com/thebattleshipscometh

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Breaking the Girl
• Cover
• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• RHCP
• acoustic
• 12 string
• twelve
• bloodsugarsexmagik
• chili peppers
• guitar
• how to play
• lesson
• cover song
• music
• rock music

[BlackCrescentBrigade]

Have you ever thought of doing covers without the music in the background? That is what keeps my cover vids up. I don't perform to the 'copyrighted music'. I play MY guitar and INTERPRET the music. I would recommend it for future vids. Good playing too.

[jomilkman]

@BlackCrescentBrigade in cases where i don't think that having the copyrighted music is a useful reference point for anyone's learning purposes, i don't use it. my primary concern here is demonstrating (as best i can) how to play tunes note-for-note. i haven't run into any trouble yet in any instances where copyrighted music is audible on my clips, probably because it's self-evident that i'm not promoting it as my own, nor trying to make a quick buck off of it, etc.. thanks for the compliment!

[TheMonkeydick]

no capo??

[jomilkman]

@TheMonkeydick nope. just a simple matter of tuning down the guitar half a step -- nothing more. if you want proof, run a search for the "funky monks documentary," which shows john recording his parts for the song on a capo-less 12-string.

[snowboy1080]

excellent



[jomilkman]

@alwallace1984 glad to help!

[alwallace1984]

@jomilkman you just made my life more beautiful today, thank you SO much for replying so quick ! I must say it sounds pretty awesome, even on a 6-string. Thanks again man !

[jomilkman]

@alwallace1984 thanks! i tabbed out the chords and added them to the video description ... check them out there.

[alwallace1984]

Very good work man, the feeling of John is cleary there ! I've been DYING to find the correct chords on the chorus, not a single tab (even the official) is accurate. May I ask you which chords you use ? That would be SO great !

[jomilkman]

@miguelrhcp thanks a lot!