Harder To Breathe Guitar Lesson

Harder To Breathe is a super fun song to learn, as we don't have a lot of different notes to play, but there are a few rhythm bits to get right if we want it to sound good.

This is a perfect song if you want to have a break from strumming chords and focus on your groove!

The Main Riff

The main riff of this song has two distinctive parts, so let’s dive into the first one!

We’re in the key of C# minor, and we’re playing over shape 3 of the pentatonic scale.

If you don’t know what a pentatonic scale is, or you don’t know shape 3, don’t worry! There’s no need to know the scale to play the song. Of course, it will help you understand what you’re playing, but you can still play the song without knowing it.

Here’s shape 3 of the C# minor pentatonic scale:

To play the first bar of the main riff, start with your index finger on fret 2 of the A string and move on to fret 4. Just so you know, fret 4 on the A string is the note C#, so you’ll play that note a lot! Try to remember where it is.

The rhythm here is super simple, we play fret 2 on beat 1, and fret 4 on the “and” of beat 1.

Your picking hand would then follow this pattern:

The second bar starts the same as the first one, but we’ll add fret 4 on the E string on beat 3!

The rhythm of the second bar would then look like this:

The third bar is exactly the same as the first one we’ve seen together! Easy!

On the last bar, start with fret 2 and 4 on the A string (just like we did on the first bar). After that, move on to fret 4 on the low E string, and go up the scale until you land on fret 4 on the D string!

The rhythm of that bar would look like this:

Remember to sing or hum along with the song to understand what rhythm you’re playing! I’m sure the patterns above will help you, but you should still try and learn it using your ears!

Let’s move on to the second part of the main riff.

The first three bars are exactly the same as the ones we’ve seen before, so that’s great news.

On the fourth bar, start with fret 4 on the A string on beat 1. Then, move on to fret 4 on the low E string, and go up the scale until you land on fret 4 on the D string, just like the last bar of the previous section!

That’s it for the main riff of the song. Take your time with it, and remember to dig in hard with your picking hand as we need quite a lot of energy!

You could, of course, add some compression and a touch of overdrive, have fun with it!

Changing the pattern

The biggest difference between what we’ve just seen and the next section of the song is the way we’re playing the notes of the riff with our picking hand.

We now want to strum every single 8th note we can. We’ll strum the 6 strings on our guitar, but we only want to hear one note (and therefore, mute all the other strings).

It also means we’ll play muted strums between the notes of the riff. Again, we’re strumming all the 8th notes!

The strumming hand is now constantly touching the strings on every 8th note subdivision, but the other hand is the one in control of what you can hear (either a note of the riff, or a muted strum).

That’s going to add a lot of energy to what is pretty much the same riff we’ve played before.

This technique is super useful, and very common amongst funk and rock players. I’d definitely recommend you look at our Frusciante course if this is completely new to you.

The only real difference between this section and the previous one in terms of the notes we’re playing, is the last bar.

When you get to the last bar of this new section, just play fret 4 on the A string (the note C#), and stop there. Don’t go up the scale anymore!

Take your time with this new section, it can be a challenging one if you’re not familiar with the funky technique we’ve talked about. You can also play the riff like we used to on the first part of the song and just add the muted strums in between the notes we’re playing! That would definitely be a good first step.

The Chorus

Let’s move on to the second riff of the song! In this section, we’re going to play a loop of 4 bars three times, where the first three bars are exactly the same every time, but the last bar changes every time.

So if you learn the first three bars, you’ve got most of it down!

Let’s dive in. On the first bar, we start on fret 4 on the A string on beat 1 (again, the note C#!). Let that note ring until the “and” of beat 4, where we play fret 4 on the E string.

On the second bar, stay on the same fret we’ve just finished on, and play that note again on the “and” of beat 1, the “and” of beat 2, and beat number 3.

On bar number three, we move on to fret 2 on the A string that we play on the first beat. Just like on the first bar, let that note ring throughout the bar until the “and” of beat number 4, where we play fret 2 on the E string. This bar has the same exact rhythm as the first one we’ve seen on this section!

We’ve now seen the first three bars of the loop we talked about for the chorus of the song. Remember that these three bars are played the same way every time! The last bar will change each time, and we'll now focus on that.

That means we’ll have three different endings.

On the first one, we’re only playing on the E string.

We’re going to play fret 2 on the E string on the “and” of the first beat. Then, we’re going to play the open E string on the “and” of beat number 2.

On beat number 3, we’re playing fret 2 again. We then repeat the open E string on the “and” of beat number 3, and we finish with fret 2 again on beat number 4.

On the second one, we’re playing pretty much the same thing as the one before, but we add the open E string at the very end, on the “and” of beat 4.

And on the last one, we’re only playing on the E string again.

We start with the fret 2 on the E string on the “and” of the first beat. We then play the open E string on the “and” of beat 2. After that, play fret 3 on the E string on beat number 3, followed by fret 2 on the “and” of the same beat. We then finish on beat number 4 with the open E string!

Remember that on the chorus of the song that we’ve just seen, you’d need to play the first three bars every time before playing any of these three different endings! These three options are all very syncopated, so take your time with them as they can be quite challenging to play.

The Outro

Last little part to learn in the song, the outro. It’s very similar to what we’ve seen before, so make sure you’re feeling solid with everything else before adding even more to what you’re learning!

On the first bar, we’re going to start on fret 4 on the A string (C#!), and we’re going to play that note on beat number 1, and the “and” of beat 4. It’s the same rhythm we’ve seen on the chorus, so it shouldn’t feel completely new!

On the second bar, we’re staying on the same note. We’re just going to play it on the “and” of beat number 1, the “and” of beat number 2, and the third beat.

On the third bar, we move up to fret 4 on the E string that we play on beat number 1. Then, play fret 4 on the A string on the “and” of beat 4. This is again the same groove we’ve seen together before!

On the last bar, we’re going to start on fret 4 on the A string (again!) that we’re going to play on the “and” of beat number 1.

On the “and” of beat 2, we’re going play exactly the same lick we’ve seen on the last ending of the chorus. We’re going to stay on the E string and play the open string, followed by frets 3, 2 and the open string again to finish.

And to finish the song, play fret 4 on the A string, the mighty C# that we’ve played so much!

In Conclusion

This song can definitely be a challenge as there are quite a few little melodies to remember, and the rhythm can be very syncopated.

Remember to sing the melodies you’re learning so you don’t have to count forever, and take your time with each different part, as they’re all quite similar in terms of technique and groove!