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Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan – Fingerstyle Guitar Lesson

Bob Dylan

SONG DETAILS

DIFFICULTY:

3

TUNING:

Standard

TEMPO:

69 BPM

KEY:

G major

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door was written by the great pioneering singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 1973. The song was written for the soundtrack of the film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

This is one of Dylan’s best-known and most successful songs, and in this lesson we’re going to be learning a reasonably simple fingerstyle arrangement of it.

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door is an incredibly easy song to play, perfect for beginners that want to learn basic open chords. Having said that, this being an instrumental arrangement inevitably brings a few challenges but I’ve purposely tried to keep things simple to show you that fingerstyle arrangements don’t always have to be highly complicated.

Alright, let’s start learning Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, hope you enjoy!

Learn To Play Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Knockin' On Heaven's Door (Performance)

As you learn to play this fingerstyle arrangement of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, be sure to frequently return to the performance as a good reference point and guide.

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The Intro Lesson for Knockin' On Heaven's Door

In this lesson we learn how to play the intro to Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. The chord progression that you learn here is used throughout the entire song from start to finish. This really helps to make things straightforward, just 4 very basic open chords played at a slow tempo repeated over and over.

If you’re after just the chords and the lyrics for Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door then you can find them here.

How to Play the Verse

The verse is certainly no harder than the intro, all you really need to do is add the vocal melody over the chord progression that you’ve already learnt.

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Chorus Lesson for Knockin' On Heaven's Door

There’s just the chorus to learn now, and again it’s no harder than any other section of the song. Learn this part and you’ve learnt all the individual parts of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.

Structure: Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Outro (same as intro)

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