Red Hot Chili Peppers - Breaking The Girl - Guitar Lesson

Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Deluxe Edition)

1991 4:55

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About Breaking The Girl

Fingerpicking is the heart of "Breaking The Girl," and it sets this track apart from the funk-driven material Red Hot Chili Peppers are best known for. The song lives in E minor, and the guitar part leans on a gentle, arpeggiated fingerstyle pattern that needs to feel loose and unhurried rather than mechanically even. Getting that organic feel right is the real challenge: your picking hand has to stay relaxed while maintaining consistent tone across the strings. The verse pattern is deceptively simple on paper but easy to rush, so set the Practice Toolbar to a slower tempo and loop it until the groove feels natural before bringing it back up to speed. The song also features a fuller strummed section as it builds, so you will need to shift smoothly between the delicate fingerpicking and broader chord work. Spend time on that transition in particular, keeping your fretting hand positions clean through the change.

• The guitar part is built around a fingerpicked arpeggiated pattern in E minor, demanding a relaxed picking hand and consistent tone across strings.
• Transitioning cleanly between the soft fingerpicked verses and the fuller strummed sections is one of the key technique challenges in this song.
• Because the tempo is gentle and exposed, any rhythmic unevenness in the picking pattern is immediately noticeable, making slow practice essential.