Knock, Knock, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

1. Knock, Knock, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door Simple Melody and Chords

3. Start with learning the Chords • Do in 1st position then once that is mastered move to Barre chords. • Once the chords are learned do the melody. • You will need to figure it out. Hint is that the Chord Rules and the melody is mainly in the chords. • As a group have each person play the chords and then the melody. Help each other out. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

4. Notes in the G chord are G, B and D D is D, F# and A Am7 are A, C, E and G C is C, E and G. The melody follows the notes in the chord for the most part.

5. Work on the melody in various locations. There are 3 versions here. Play it more relaxed than the rhythmic notation indicates. The chords are constant throughout the piece.

8. Now parts you might play • These are just examples and there are many other options for parts on this.

9. This is what we went over in the one class last week – just the first line

12. C sus2 Dsus3 1 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a (all 1/16th notes) Here the chord is resolving to the C chord. Listen closely. This note can then be hammered as another method to play it. Same thing can apply to Am7. G 1 3 4 2 0 0

13. Same chords but variation D G D C G Notice now striking chords Carry on with the 2nd measure and see how cool this sounds. You must play freely with this and take it slowly. Don’t worry if you hit an incorrect note as long as you are holding down the chord it will work fine.

14. 1 e & a 2 e & (a 3) e & (a4) e & Try a number of these to get ideas on the open part.

15. G G G G Some other ways to play the G chord 1 7th fret 3rd fret 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 3 2 3 3 What you want to do is find out all of the notes in each of the chords. Once you have done that, map them to the guitar and try as many voicings and ways to play them as you can think of. You will be surprised at how many different ways you can play each chord. I have given you some for the G chord. It contains the notes G, B and D. The Am7 chord is A, C, E and G, the D chord is D, F# and A, and the C chord is C, E and G.

16. Fill in the notes in G (G, B and D) Fill in the notes in D (D, F# and A)

17. Fill in the notes in Am7 (A, C, E and G) Fill in the notes in C (C, E and G)

18. Fill in 9 ways to play the G chord.

19. Fill in 9 ways to play the D chord.

20. Fill in 9 ways to play the Am7 chord.

21. Fill in 9 ways to play the C chord.

22. Now one way of mixing up the chords from before G D Am7 G D C

23. Now one way of mixing up the chords from before G D Am7 G D C

24. Now one way of mixing up the chords from before G D Am7 G D C

25. Now one way of mixing up the chords from before G D Am7 G D C

26. Now one way of mixing up the chords from before G D Am7 G D C

27. Whole Song • This means as a group there should be each part. • Everyone should learn the words to the song. • At least one of you should sing the song. • For 3 parts, one could play a bass type line, another the barre chords and the last one fills on top or arpeggios. • You might even want to write a hook to the song. • A hook is a melodic idea.

28. Put it all together • This will take some time working as a group. • Best if you can work in class and maybe even some out of class. • Most important thing is that you start to sound like one voice not 3 or 4 separate voices.