Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door Guitar Tutorial

Welcome to my Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door Guitar Tutorial by Bob Dylan. This easy 4 chord song on guitar is perfect for beginners. It’s almost a 3 chord song, considering 1 of the shapes is so close to another (and not even required really – we go over the details in the lesson). The strumming pattern is very easy, as well, and the lesson is designed for even absolute beginners to be able to easily follow and learn their first song.

Knocking On Heaven’s Door Chords:

We start out by showing you the chords necessary to play this tune: G, C, D and Am7. Then we quickly go over some switching tips (leaving the 3rd finger down when switching from G to D is really helpful!). Afterwards, we practice going through the chords, in order, using downstrokes only.

In the next part of the tutorial, we cover the strumming pattern. It’s a really common one: Down, Root, Down, Down-up (D-R-D-Du). I show you what the “roots” of each chord are and then we play through the tune with the pattern.

It’s that simple! In the future I’d like to do the Guns ‘n Roses version – let me know down below if you’d like to see it too!

-James