How to Play Sound of Silence on Guitar for Beginners

Hey everyone, today we're going to be going over Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. This is an amazing song. Let's take a quick listen first, and then I'm going to go through it all step by step. So now that you heard what we are going to be do, I'm going to be showing you two different tracks in this lesson. One is for more beginners. It's going to be more of a strumming track, which there is strumming that presents itself in this song later. And then there's going to be Track B for those who really want to get into the fingerpicking to make it sound more like the song. Now we are going to be using a capo on the 6th fret, so let's get your capo right here and let's get started with that first track. So if you're a beginner, I would highly recommend that you stick with Track A to work on your chord changes, to work on your timing. Now, if you are a beginner, just a note, there is an F bar chord in this song. Most of the chords are open chords. There's a C chord, there's a G chord, there's an A minor chord. All right, but there is an F bar chord, and if you are not keen on playing F chords, you can always play an F major 7 chord, which looks very much like a C chord with just one extra finger. All right, so the pinky goes right below the third finger and the second finger just moves one down one string. Okay, it'll work for this song to keep it simple for you. So if you're a beginner, I'd recommend Track A. So let's go over just the strumming pattern. It's a very, very simple pattern. It is down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, which is a simple eighth note pattern. Now If you're not going to fingerpick, you could use a pick for this to make the guitar a little bit louder. But I do recommend, even if you're a beginner, that you try the picking I'm going to give you for the intro to make it sound a little bit more like the song. But if you want to use a pick, you can. It's going to be down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Okay, or if you're just going to use your fingers because you do want to fingerpick, it's going to be down with the thumb up with your index finger.

Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up.

That's all it is. So if you hold this G chord and we just go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. So I listened to a— I think it was a live version, and when the strumming starts, which is on the second verse, that's all I heard was a simple eighth note strumming pattern. Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. So if I just take it quickly from that second verse, it would sound like this.

In restless dreams I walk alone, narrow streets and cobblestone.

Beneath the halo of a street lamp, I turn my collar to the cold and damp, when my eyes were snapped by the flash of a neon light that split the night and touched the sound of silence.

So you can use this strumming and play the entire song. Most of it is strumming, but if you want to learn the fingerpicking in the beginning to make it sound really, really cool, then let's continue on to Track B. Even if you're a beginner, highly recommend you watch this intro section I'm going to show you next. Okay, so this next section I'm going to show you is Really cool. It requires 3 fingers. We're going to be using our thumb, our first finger, and our second finger. Okay, and we're going to be using the bottom 3 strings. We're going to be using the G string, the B string, and the E string. Okay, the B and E string are going to remain open, meaning there's not going to be any fingers fretting on those strings. You can use either your first or second finger. I'm going to use my second finger, and I'm going to put it on the second fret of the G string. Okay. My thumb is going to own the G string. My first finger is going to own the B string, and my middle finger, my second finger, is going to own the high E string. So it's going to be G, B, E, G, B, E with fingers thumb, 1, 2. Okay, so those were— that's where our hands are going. They're not moving for this intro. The order we're going to play it in is going to be Thumb, 2, 1, 2.

Okay, so it's thumb, 2, 1, 2, and then we just repeat that.

Thumb, 2, 1, 2. Thumb, 2, 1, 2. Thumb, 2, 1, 2. Thumb, 2, 1, 2.

Okay, and it's played a little bit faster than that, and what it is is we play that Um, we play that measure 3 times in a row, and then we strum an A minor chord at the end. Okay, so it would be like this: 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, and that's our intro. And again, if you're going to use a pick and strumming, you can do this with a pick as well. Okay, so you can You can do that with the pick. I find a lot of students find it easier just using their— the fingerpicking. It's a little softer of a sound too. And I think when you listen to the record, you hear that softer sound, which is probably indicating that they're using their fingers on this. So now you're probably saying, okay, so I'm using my fingers and I have to go into strumming. How do I do that transition? Well, I kind of alluded to that earlier, which is you'd use your down strum as your thumb. And your up strum is your index finger so basically when you get to the end of this— You're gonna strum down with your thumb for that A minor and then it gets right into 1-2-3-4 G!

Da da-da-dah dah dadah... Dah da-da-da-dah dadah dah dadah...

Okay, so you just go right into that strumming with that pendulum of the arm— down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Okay, or if you want to stick with track B, I'm going to show you a simplified picking that you can use throughout the song or throughout this first verse to really highlight the essence of this song. But before we do that, I just want to quickly introduce myself. If you don't know who I am, my name is Lauren Bateman and I I specialize in helping older adults learn to play guitar, especially those over the age of 50. I have a specialized beginner guitar program called the 7 Level Guitar System, and I help students learn how to play fun songs just like this. Now, before we get into the specific picking pattern, what I want to do is just go over the chord progressions because I think it's very important to understand the structure of this song before we get into the pattern because there's some tricky timing things that happen in this song, and I feel it's really important to know what those are ahead of time. And if you want to follow along with the chord chart on my website, you can always go to laurenbateman.com under my song section and look up Simon Garfunkel and follow along with me there. Now fortunately, there is some repetition, but it takes you going through an entire verse, uh, to get through that repetition. So this song is just made up of a bunch of verses over and over again. So we start off with the double G, which you saw me play, all right, in the beginning of this. So it's 2 measures of G. And then a double measure of A minor. Okay, now this is where the harder part comes in because we have a half measure of F and a half measure of C. So each one of these is going to be 2 counts. All right, so we're gonna have to change maybe how we fingerpick and strum a little bit on those measures. All right, and then we have a full measure of C. But here's the really tricky part— they repeat the same thing. We have a half measure of it, half a half measure of C But here you're going to notice there's this 2/4.

It—

this next C is only 2 counts. It's not like the C before, so we're only going to strum it for a half measure, or we're only going to fingerpick it for a half measure. So that's important to know because in this song that happens throughout, where you just see these random measures of 2/4, and you're going to have to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4. So you just It's very important to note this because the count is going to change. Then after that, again, 2 measures of F, then we have a full measure of C to A minor. And I'm going to show you how to do a cool little walk down in that section if you want to. I'll show you how to do it for both picking and strumming. And then we have a measure of A minor, then a half measure of A minor, G, and then A minor, and then another A minor. Okay. So you can see if, if we don't talk about the structure first, it can get a little bit confusing. Like, why am I only counting to 2 in some parts? And it's because there are measures where each chord is just played half of what you think it is. So that's important to know. So now that you have the kind of overall structure of these verses, let's get into the picking pattern. Okay, so this is going to be a simple eighth note picking pattern. Now if you go and listen to the song, you're going to hear variations. All right, they're not using the same pattern throughout. There's probably some impro— improvisation going, but I'm going to show you something that you can use for all the chords throughout the song, and I'm going to show you how to adjust it if you want to do a walk down or something else. So first, let's start with the pattern. We're going to go back to using the thumb, the first finger, and second finger, and that's all we're going to use for this pattern. So our 5-string chord, so this would be A minor, and C. Okay, so A minor, C. Or if you're, if you're playing F major 7 instead of the full F bar chord, it would also be F major 7. So if I start with A minor, our thumb is going to own the bass notes. Okay, so the bass notes of your guitar are the 6th string, the 5th string, and the 4th string. Okay, E, A, and D. We call those— those are kind of the bass notes of our guitar. And then your 1st finger is gonna own the G string this time, and your 2nd finger is going to own the B string. This time. And for our 5-string chords, our thumb is going to be alternating the bass between the 5th string and the 4th string. Okay, it's going to kind of have this pattern, and then we're going to put other notes in between it. Okay, so just go, okay, so that's what the 5-string chords are. Now the pattern is going to be thumb 1, thumb 2.

Thumb 1, thumb 2.

So it's gonna sound like this. Okay, so let's try that just very slowly on the A minor chord. This is gonna be our tempo.

Thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2.

Very slowly, just so you can get that down. So here we go.

1, 2, 3, 4. Thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2.

On your own. Okay, and that's going to be the same for the C chord.

Thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb to—

no change there. Okay, so that's going to be the pattern that we're going to use on our 5-string chords. Now for our 6-string chords, so this would be our G chord, or if you are going to play the full F bar chord, we're going to be alternating the thumb now between the 6th string and the 4th string. Okay, so we're hopping over that 5th string on this pattern. The first and second finger don't change though. They're still on— the first finger's still on the G string, the second finger is still on the B string. So this is going to sound like this now. Okay, same pattern, just a slightly different bass note. Okay, so let's try that now nice and slow.

1, 2, 3, 4. Thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2. Again.

All right, so there's your 6-string chords and there are your 5-string chords.

So what I want to do now is just go slowly.

I want to work on changing between an A minor and G. So we'll do it just like the song. We're going to do G twice, then A minor twice, G twice, A minor twice. Okay, so it's gonna sound like this. Okay, G twice, A minor twice.

Okay, I will go a little bit slower, but just so you can—

I just want you to get the feel of going between a 4-string and a 5-string. Here we go, nice and slow, starting with the G chord.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Here comes A minor.

Back to G.

Now, the key with this— and we're going slow, and when we do the playthrough later, it'll be a little bit faster. The key with this picking pattern and, and the special thing about this fingerpicking pattern is even if you screw up, even if you make a mistake, don't stop playing. Keep the eighth note pattern going because even if you make a mistake, it's going to sound good. What do I mean? So this is our pattern, but if I like absolutely— if I accidentally grab the wrong string, as long as I keep that eighth note pattern going, it's gonna sound right because you're holding a chord and your timing is still correct. So even sometimes if you maybe catch the wrong string with your finger, don't worry. It's actually probably going to sound nicer because it's going to add an extra note in there that maybe, maybe you're not expecting, and it kind of gives a little bit of that improvisation to it. So if you make a mistake, it's not a mistake because it's still in time and it will still sound good. Now before I do a slow playthrough of the first verse for you, what I want to do is just talk about those split measures, okay? And then after the playthrough, I'll show you how to add in the special walk-down spice as a little bonus. But let's just talk about that split measure. So we have the F chord to C. So I'll use F major 7 for you that are beginners. That was a horrible F major 7. There we go. Okay, so if I'm doing F major 7, it would be thumb 1, thumb 2 on the first chord. And then thumb 1, thumb 2 on the second chord. Okay, even for those half measures. All right, so when you have those half measures of 2/4, it's just going to be 1 thumb, 1 thumb, 2. Okay, so just think of it as that one pattern. So if I take this from the F, it's going to be thumb 1, thumb 2 to C, thumb 1, thumb 2, half measure C, thumb 1, thumb 2.

Okay, so again, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2.

Okay, so that's how you handle those half measures. So this playthrough, I'm just gonna do the first verse because this is where all the picking happens. We're just gonna go very slowly, okay? We're gonna go nice and slow.

Hello darkness, my old friend.

Okay, we're gonna go that speed, nice and slow, okay?

1, 2, 3, 4.

Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk to you again.

Because a vision softly Creeping left its seed while I was sleeping, and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains. Within the sound of silence.

Now you probably heard I may— might have hit one or two wrong notes. I know on that last G chord I did hit one wrong note, but you keep going and it sounds good.

It still works.

Now before I get into the full playthrough up to speed, I promised you I was going to show you this walk-down thing. Let's start first with the strumming because that will give you the timing, and then we'll talk about the picking, which is a little bit different. Okay, so a lot of this you're going to be strumming. If you want to add this walk down in, it's very simple to add.

So it'll sound like this: and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains.

So when you're strumming, it's just that last beat, the 4-count. So we have— remember our strumming pattern was 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. And I'll put the pick down because we're going to be using our fingers.

Okay, so 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

Well, what's going to happen on the 4 and, on that last down-up, we're just gonna lift our 3rd finger. So that's gonna go away, and then we're gonna move our 2nd finger up one string. Okay, it's gonna be like a C/B chord. So it's basically a C chord with a B in the bass. Okay, and I would just do it simply this way with your first and second fingers. Okay, I guess the more official way would be to do it with the third finger, but I just, I just do it this way. Works perfectly fine for me. Okay, and it's only moving one finger. So again, it's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, and then you land on A minor.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

So it just provides a little bit of movement. Now we want to do the same thing on the fingerpicking, but it's going to change up how we're playing it a little bit. So we have thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2. Okay, that's a full measure.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

So it's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. I probably— I'm gonna play it fast. I'm thinking because sometimes what I do on autopilot versus thinking are different. Let me just play it real quick.

Yeah, I'm doing thumb 1, thumb 1.

That's what my muscle memory is doing. So muscle memory is what you do when you stop thinking and you just play. So if you do thumb 1, awesome, that's what I'm doing. If you do thumb 2, it's not wrong, it doesn't matter. The most important part is the bass movement. So it's going to be 1, 2, 3, 4. As long as you do that thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 1, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 1, and then getting on that A minor.

So thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 1, thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 2.

Okay, so that thumb 1 I'm keeping the thumb on that 5th string. I'm not alternating the string for the walk down because it's like I said, it's the bass note that's important going from this 3rd fret to the 2nd fret, C note to a B note to an A note. That is a bass walk down.

So one more time, we got thumb 1, thumb 2, thumb 1, thumb 1, thumb 1, thumb 2.

All right, so now I'm gonna do a full playthrough a little bit more up to speed with the intro in the first 2 verses, okay, with the fingerpicking and the strumming. What I want you to do is I want you to watch the first time through. Just watch, just listen, and then come back, rewind, play along with me. Use the settings cog if you need to slow me down, okay? You can do that too. So I'm gonna pick the intro, I'm gonna pick the first verse, I'm gonna strum the second verse so that you have a complete package for this song. All right, here we go. Ready?

1, 2 Here we go.

Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk to you again.

Because a vision softly creeping left its seed while I was sleeping. Sleeping, and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence.

In the rest of streams I walk alone, narrow streets of cobblestone.

—neither halo of a street lamp. I turned the collar to the cold and damp when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light that split the night. Touch the sound of silence.

Now, if you enjoyed this lesson, I do have an entire course that is all about fingerpicking. It's called Fingerpicking 101, and it takes you from the absolute basics of fingerpicking to playing cool songs like Dust in the Wind, Blackbird, Landslide, and so many more. So if you're someone who really enjoyed the fingerpicking aspects of this song and you really want to take your fingerpicking to the next level, then I highly recommend you go to the link in the description below, check out my Fingerpicking 101. I think it's one of the best skills to develop on the guitar, because as soon as you start fingerpicking, people assume that you're an amazing guitar player. So go check that out, go to the link in the description below. It's called Fingerpicking 101, and I hope to see you in a lesson real soon.