Leonard Cohen - Suzanne - Guitar Lesson

About Suzanne

Open G tuning and a key of E minor make "Suzanne" a slightly unusual combination to get under your fingers at first. Leonard Cohen built the song around a fingerpicked pattern that flows in a gentle, hypnotic way, and keeping that flow steady at 72 BPM is the real challenge: it sounds slow, but any hesitation between chord shapes breaks the spell immediately. The Open G tuning means your open strings are doing real harmonic work, so take time to understand which notes are ringing freely and which you are fretting. The picking hand deserves as much attention as the fretting hand here. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop individual chord transitions slowed down until the movement feels automatic, then gradually bring the tempo back up. Folk Rock guitar playing often rewards this kind of patient, detail-focused practice more than speed work does, and "Suzanne" is a clear example of that.

• The Open G tuning means several chord voicings rely heavily on open strings, so re-fingering shapes you know from standard tuning will be necessary.
• At 72 BPM the fingerpicking pattern feels unhurried, but clean, even tone across all six strings is hard to maintain at a slow, exposed tempo.
• Practise the chord-to-chord transitions in isolation using the Practice Toolbar looped and slowed, since any gap or buzz is clearly audible in the sparse arrangement.