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Mr. Tambourine Man
by Bob Dylan • Lesson #578 • Jan 9, 2025
About This Lesson
In today’s lesson I’ll teach you how to play Bob Dylan’s folk classic Mr. Tambourine Man. At its core, this can be played as a 3-chord song that’s quite beginner friendly. But as per usual, I’ll also include a handful of ways you can level things up. This includes several ways you can add flourish to various chords, as well as utilized drop-d tuning as Dylan does himself. Let’s get into it!
- 0:00 Overview
- 1:49 Verse & Chorus Basics
- 5:17 Strumming Patterns
- 7:57 Flourish with Dsus2
- 10:14 Flourish with Asus4
- 11:15 Flourish with Gadd6
- 12:23 Sneaking in an E-minor
- 14:18 Using Drop D Tuning
Quick Links
Practice Notes 4 pages
Lesson Discussion
Single-Strum Demonstrations
Here’s a few zoomed in videos, with tabs, showing me slowly playing through the chorus and verse progressions. I do a single strum of each measure, which is what I recommend when getting started. Master this, and then add whatever strumming pattern you like!
Standard Tuning
Drop-D Tuning
Play-Along Covers
Here’s some playthroughs where I put everything I teach together into one package, with lyrics on screen for context. The standard tuning example uses an intermediate strum (down-strums on each quarter note), while my drop-d video plays through the entire song from start to finish, using a “full” strumming pattern and chord flourish added throughout.
Standard Tuning (with intermediate strum)
Drop-D Tuning (with full strum)
Watch Bob Dylan Play It Live
Note, his guitar is tuned down one-half step. If you’re in standard tuning, you can play along with him by adding capo 2nd fret and using the chords I teach.
Required Chords & Techniques
Here’s a few suggested lessons if you need help with the chords this song uses, including the chord variations (Dsus, Asus, Gadd6, etc). Likewise I show my quick tip for tuning down to Drop-D without a tuner… it’s a good one to practice!
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