← SONGS

Knockin' On Heaven's Door · Guns N' Roses

EXERCISE 21 OF 61
Fill at bar 28 (a small one)
51 / 92 BARS COVERED
0 / 61 PASSED · 1 BAR LIT · IN THE PART M
PART D
CHORUS
PART M
CHORUS 2
PART C
CHORUS 3
OUTRO
OUTRO 2
7 groovesGADCKM+2Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest
GROOVE · 11
FILL · 13
LAND · 13
RUN · 1
JOIN · 9
LINK · 8
SECTION · 5
WHOLE SONG · 1
ABOUT THIS DRUM PART

How to play Knockin' On Heaven's Door on drums

92 bars, 5:50, at 63 BPM: slow enough that every note is exposed. Crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick and nothing else.

61 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet.

TEMPO
63 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
92
LENGTH
5:50
DIFFICULTY
61/100

silence through bars 1-4, ride through bars 5-8, hi-hat through bars 9-15, ride through bars 16-24, hi-hat through bars 25-40 and ride through bars 41-56, and 2 more changes after that.

The beat

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 5, 7 and 23, and 6 more places -- 10.1% of every bar the kit plays. This one moves around more than most: the beat is where to start, not the whole job.

    5
    1.......2.......3.......4.......
CC |x-------------------------------|
RD |----x---x---x---x---x---x---x---|
SD |--------x---------------x-------|
BD |x-------------x-x-------------x-|
Knockin' On Heaven's Door -- the groove · x hit · o open hi-hat · g ghost note · r cross-stick · X accent

The fills

13 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 4, 12, 16, 28, 32, 36 and 13 more.

What the course does

It cuts the song into 47 exercises -- the grooves, the fills, and the joins between sections, which is where players actually come off -- and puts them in the order a teacher would. Each one opens on a reduction you can already play and adds the notes back a rung at a time, with a tempo to reach and a gate to pass before the next.

  1. The grooves the song is built on -- C, D -- 2 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  2. The grooves the song is built on -- G -- 6 exercises, about 30 minutes.
  3. Through Part D and the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 19 minutes.
  4. Through the Chorus -- 2 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  5. Bars 9-44 -- 4 exercises, about 26 minutes.
  6. Bars 20-41 -- 4 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  7. Bars 18-29 -- 5 exercises, about 30 minutes. Open above.
  8. Bars 22-37 -- 6 exercises, about 27 minutes.
  9. and 6 more sittings after that.
START THE COURSE ↑

Questions

What BPM is Knockin' On Heaven's Door?

63 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. Slow enough to hear every mistake, which is why the room lets you sit at the written tempo rather than under it.

Is Knockin' On Heaven's Door hard to play on drums?

61 out of 100, a step up from a first song, and the work is in the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 42 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

92 bars, about 5:50 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 47 exercises over 14 sittings, about 26 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Knockin' On Heaven's Door?

13 fills to learn, played 19 times: bars 4, 12, 16, 28, 32, 36 and 13 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 92 BARS ANALYSED