In this free acoustic guitar lesson from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman demonstrates how to play Heaven by Warrant on acoustic guitar. Be sure to click the link for the free tabs that go with this lesson.’
Introduction
Hey everybody how’s it going? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to show you how to play Heaven by Warrant. This is a fairly easy song to play, mostly just basic beginner chords and a couple of barre chords in there for good measure, but in all pretty simple. This is a an acoustic rendition that I put together so it’s simplified from the original version so you can just play this by yourself at the next barbecue or camping trip. So be sure to click the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at How To Play Heaven By Warrant On Acoustic Guitar.
Heaven Chords
All right so let’s go over some of the chords we’re going to be using in Heaven by Warrant. So the first one we have is C add nine (Cadd9); so I’m on the third fret of the A string with my second finger, second fret of the D string with my first finger, the G string is open and I’m on the third fret of the B string with my third finger and on the third fret of the high E with my fourth finger. Now there are other times in the song where they’ll actually do the Cadd9, but they’ll have the high E string open, so you just simply just remove your pinky and you’ll see that in the tab when you’re going through the song. Next we have G over B (G/B) and the only time they use this G/B I believe is in the intro, but we still need to go over it. So what it is basically is if you just take your regular G chord and just take your middle finger off and then just don’t play the low E start strumming on the A string. So going from the Cadd9 to that we just remove our middle finger and move our first finger from the D string to the D string second fret… Next we have D; so the D string is open and I’m on the second fret of the G string with my first finger, third fret of the B string with my third finger and second fret of the high E with my second finger. So those are the chords that are in the intro. Now in the verse we’ve got G, so if we just take that G/B and move your middle finger on to the third fret of the low E, that’s G. Now we have B minor seven (Bm7) and this is probably the most difficult chord in the song if you’re a beginner. We’re going to take our first finger and just barred across the first five strings on the second fret and then my second finger goes on to the third fret of the B string and my third finger goes onto the fourth fret of the D string… Then we’ve got D suspended four (Dsus4). So if we take D and you just put your pinky down onto the third fret of the high E string that’s Dsus4. Okay in the pre-chorus section we have just regular C; so I’m on the third fret of the A string with my third finger, second fret of the D string with my second finger, G string is open, I’m on the first fret of the B string with my first finger and the high E is open… And then later on in the song, in the solo section, we have A major, this actually has a key change. So how I’m doing it is the A string is open and then I’m barring the second fret of the D, G and B strings with my first finger and the high E string is open… Okay and then the last chord is going to be an unusual one; it’s A over A flat (A/Ab). So we take our regular A that we did a minute ago, but then we’re also going to pick up the fourth fret of the low E and I’m just gonna use my third finger. When you play that it’s a little dissonant sounding and you don’t want to hear the A string, so my third finger is just kind of drooping over a little bit to keep that A string muted… All right so I believe that is all of the chords for the complete song, so let’s go over this intro.
Heaven Intro
So this intro for Heaven by Warrant we start off with the Cadd9 and the strum on this I’m just trying to keep it simple. But this is like what I’ve said the previous acoustic guitar videos that I’ve been doing that you kind of want to really try to feel out that strumming pattern. But the strumming pattern that I’ve got for this is makes it it’s easy to play along with. So we’ve got Cadd9 and it’s one two three four; so down down down… So we just make that change and the second finger comes off, first finger moves from the D string to the second fret of the A string, same strum, so the first two measures. So now we go to that D and it’s one two and three and then on the four we’re going to put our pinky down and make the Dsus4 and then that’s tied to the downbeat of one of the next measure. Then we go back to D; four and two three and four and that’s the intro… and then from there it goes into the verse.
Verse
All right so for the verse we start off with G down down, that’s one way you could do it, but we want to feel it out. So when we go to this Cadd9 here it’s got that same strum that we started with on the G, so we have G, Bm7, Cadd9. Okay and then from there it goes into the pre-chorus.
Pre-Chorus
So in the pre-chorus we start off with C. So it’s the same kind of strum we did before, so we have one two three four… and then we got this little riff. It’s something that kind of the bass is doing in this part of the song, but I think it kind of really adds a lot to it. So we start off with that C, so the same thing though, down pause down down up and then we’re going to take our first finger and move it from the second fret of the A string to the second fret of the low E and we’re going to strum that and do a hammer-on to the third fret like that… so the first part of the pre-chorus… Now this Cadd9 is the one where you leave the first string open; now if you don’t it still sounds good but I like it with the open string, it kind of gives a leading tone to go into the next part of the song, the chorus.
Chorus
So for the chorus we start off with G with that same strum one two three four… So when we go to that Cadd9 the first two are long one strums; two three and four… Cadd9 again with the open high E and then from there I believe it goes into like another verse and then another chorus and then from there it goes into the guitar solo. So we’re not going to do the actual guitar solo, but I do want to go over what the rhythm part so that way you can play along with it.
Solo Section
All right so for the guitar solo it has this key change, so we start with A major and it’s that same strum, one two three four… so it’s just kind of like the same rhythm that was on the pre-verse or the pre-chorus, but there’s a key change. So we have the; A, E and D and then that repeats, I think it repeats three times on that D and then I believe from there it goes into another verse after that.
Key Change
All right and then finally we have the closing chorus which choruses out the song, but this is also a key change. So we start off, it’s kind of like the solo section sort of, but this is where it has that A/Ab. So we start off with the A and then it goes to the A/Ab, but the rhythm changes, so we’ve got… So when we go to that A/Ab we hit that on the downbeat of one; one and two and three and four and… then goes to D… and then back to the A/Ab, so those three measures… that’s at the very end of the song. So after it repeats I don’t remember how many times it does it, quite a few times. So that’s all of the parts to the song, quite a lot of stuff, but it’s very repetitive, just listen to the original song and you’ll be able to identify when you’re playing the parts. Now one thing I forgot to mention they are tuned down a half step and I am in standard tuning, so if you try to play in standard tuning along with the song it’s going to sound terrible because you’re going to be a half step higher in pitch; so if you want to play along with the original song just tune you know two down.
Conclusion
All right so I hope you enjoyed How To Play Heaven By Warrant On Acoustic Guitar and you got something out of it. If you like this video be sure to give it a thumbs up and leave me a comment down below if you have a question about this or any other guitar related questions; I try to check out those questions and answer them. If you not have if you have not already done so please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss out any of the content that we upload throughout the week. Well that is all I’ve got for you today. Thanks for watching How To Play Heaven By Warrant On Acoustic Guitar and have a great day.
