Otis Redding
(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay chords
(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding is an intermediate song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 6 chords (G, B7, C, A7, E7, D) across 3 sections: Verse ×2 → Chorus → Bridge. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 104 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: G → E7, 3 times.
- Difficulty
- Intermediateno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 104BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 6all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar, four beats to the bar: the shape lands on beat one and the dots mark the beats after it, so you can see where the change falls without any lyrics. Where a section has no strumming pattern written, play one chord per bar. Tap a bar to hear it.
Lyrics are not reproduced for this song: they are still in copyright and this site has no licence to publish them. The chords, structure, strumming and sing-along timing are all here. Songs whose words are public domain →
Verse× 2 · ♩=104
Chorus♩=104
Bridge♩=104
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
Dock of the Bay is a soul lesson disguised as an easy strum. The verse is G, B7, C, A7 — four chords, one per bar, and on the second pass the A7 can drop to a plain A while the bass walks chromatically down to it. The interest comes entirely from the dominant chords, and B7 is your first proper barre in a campfire context: press with the side of the index finger rather than the flat pad, and let every open string that is available ring out.
The chorus moves to E7, which is where the song lifts, and the bridge falls away to G, D, C — the same three chords you already know in a quieter order. The A7 in the verse is where most people fall over, because they have to jump from a barre at fret 2 to an open shape inside one beat. Move on beat four, not beat one: arrive early, then strum. Keep the strumming hand completely steady and let the low E and A strings carry the pulse.
Work at 85 BPM with a metronome, looping the verse until B7 to C is silent, then add A7 and count the loop four times without stopping. Treat E7 and the bridge separately, since both involve a bigger hand jump than the verse does. Finally, play with the click on beats two and four only, which is the quickest way to feel where this groove actually sits.
How to practise (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the recorded speed.
Learn the shapes easiest first
G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → B7 (x-2-1-2-0-2, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → A7 (x-0-2-0-2-0, beginner) → E7 (0-2-0-1-0-0, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner)
6 of the 6 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
G → E73×C → G2×D → C2×G → D2×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- Gevery section
- B7Verse
- CVerse, Bridge
- A7Verse, Chorus
- E7Chorus
- DBridge
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 62 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 62 → 78 → 94 → 104 BPM. The recorded feel is around 104 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 94 for longer than feels necessary.
Every section here uses the same set of shapes, so there is no section to single out. Whatever you can play once, you can play all the way through.
Playing (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay with a capo
This sheet needs no capo. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capoas written
G B7 C A7 E7 D
6 of 6 stay open
Fret 1
F# Bb7 B Ab7 Eb7 C#
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 2
F A7 Bb G7 D7 C
4 of 6 stay open
Fret 3
E Ab7 A F#7 C#7 B
2 of 6 stay open
Fret 4
Eb G7 Ab F7 C7 Bb
2 of 6 stay open
Fret 5
D F#7 G E7 B7 A
5 of 6 stay open
Fret 6
C# F7 F# Eb7 Bb7 Ab
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C E7 F D7 A7 G
5 of 6 stay open
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: Hotel California, Hey Jude, Wish You Were Here, The Weight.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay turns up across all 80 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
418bars of this chord across the songbook
59songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 80×.
10bars of this chord across the songbook
5songs use this shape
Most often followed by E, 3×.
363bars of this chord across the songbook
54songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
47bars of this chord across the songbook
14songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 10×.
29bars of this chord across the songbook
9songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 4×.
248bars of this chord across the songbook
44songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 40×.