© S. Wilkins 9 April, 2005

Every Breath You Take

Background to "Every Breath You Take"

"Every Breath You Take" was written by Sting and originally performed by The Police in 1983. A few years ago the famous hookline and guitar riff of this song was sampled and used by Puff Daddy as the chorus for a rap song. This "re-hashing" of old songs became very popular by rap and R&B artists in the late 1990's and early 2000's.

Your task is to record this famous 8-bar riff into a sequencer by listening to a recording of it and working out what each instrument is playing.

What to do:-

1. Click here to hear the MP3 excerpt of "Every Breath You Take"
2. Connect a MIDI keyboard to your computer (optional)
3. Set the left locator to 1 and the right to bar 9 (8 bars total)
4. You will need 3 tracks:-
   1. Drums (channel 10)
   2. Bass guitar
   3. Muted Guitar
5. Listen to the MP3 of "Every Breath You Take" and try and figure out what each part is playing, by playing along with the song and listening out for the right notes. (This is very hard.)
   HINT: The chords for this 8 bar riff are | G | G | Em | Em | C | D | G | G :||
6. Either record the notes in as you play the keyboard or enter the notes in your favourite edit window
7. Hints for each part:-
   1. Drums - standard rock beat (hi-hat quavers, kick on 1, 2&, and 3, snare on 2 and 4)
   2. Bass guitar - play constant quavers on the chord note
   3. Muted Guitar - play an arpeggio or broken chord
8. Choose appropriate sounds for each track. They should sound as close to the recording as possible
9. Cut and copy all three parts so that they play for 24 bars all together (ie. 3 x 8 bars each)
10. Either record or enter the notes of the melody onto a new track. The melody should start in Bar 8 and should be played through twice
11. Adjust the volumes, panning and effects of each part using the MIDI mixer window