The Sound of Silence Easier Guitar Lesson

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here. In this lesson, we're going to be doing the sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. Such a great song. Gonna try to simplify it as much as I can for you guys. Let's get started.

Now. We are gonna need a capo for this song. We're gonna need a capo at the sixth fret. This will get us to sound more like Simon and Garfunkel. Now, I had a lot of people request this song, and if I could make an easier way to play it. So I've come up with kind happy medium here. So let's start off with the strumming, and then I'll get into the finger picking. So the strumming pattern, once we get into this, I listen to kind of a live version of them playing. It's all eighth notes. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and. Restless dreams I walk alone.

Narrow streets.

Of cobblestone.

Meet the hill above the street lamb.

Okay, so it's just all eighth notes. One and two and three and four and down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Okay, so the strumming for this is simple. So if you don't want to do the finger picking at all, though, I recommend maybe just trying the intro that I'm going to show you in a little bit, because it does make it sound cool, like the song. You can just stick with the strumming and that will get you through the entire song in a very, very simplified way. But if you do want to spice it up and you want to do a little bit of finger picking, let's get into how we're going to do that next. So the first thing I'm going to do is show you the intro. And this is the actual intro. All we're going to do is we're going to play the second fret on the G string, okay? And we're going to use our thumb and our first and second fingers. The first finger owns the second string. The second finger owns the bottom E string. Okay? So it's going to be, as long as you're fretting, the second fret on the G string. I'm just going to tell you the strings. It's going to be string three.

1, 2, 1, 3. 1, 2, 1, three. 1, 2, 1.

Okay. And your fingers are thumb two, 1.

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

Super cool. This song is so awesome. Thank you forever. Whoever requested it, I love it. I know a bunch of you did. So. Thank you. Now that's gonna be our intro and we're gonna do that three times.

That'.

That's two. That's three. And we're gonna end by strumming an A minor chord. So I know some of you guys are gonna ask me, Lauren, I was just finger picking. How do I go from strumming, you know, finger picking to strumming? I don't have a pick. Well, when I strum, the strumming pattern is gonna be down, up, down, up. We're gonna strum down with our thumb, up with our index finger. Okay. Down with the thumb, up with the index finger. That's what we're gonna do when we go from finger picking to strumming when we don't have a pick in our hand. So for this song, the first verse is usually finger picked and then the second verse, we start the strumming and then some finger picking comes in later. And we'll talk about that when we get there. So let's go over the chord progressions first. Okay. If you need to pull up the chord chart, I'd recommend it for this one. Go to my website. I'll put a link in the description below. You guys can find that. Pull it up side by side. But the chords, we have a double G, double A minor. We have F and C splitting a measure followed by a full measure of C. Then we have F and C splitting A measured followed by a half measure of C. They do this every once in a while, so you have to be careful with the timing. And you're counting in this so briefly. What does that mean? That just means a half measure of C. It's just that C is not four counts, it's only going to be two counts. Okay. Then we get back into the vision that was planted in my brain. We have a double F and then we have a C chord. And I'll give you the option for adding a walk down on the end of that C chord. And then we have an A minor chord, then an A minor chord. That's only a half measure, two beats. And then we have G and then we have double A minor. So how are we going to get through this? I'm going to show you. So you know when, when they're playing, they're varying up the picking pattern. It's not the same all the way through. I'm going to give you guys a picking pattern that you can use all the way through that I think will make this song sound great and it will simplify it for you. Guys. So let's get into that. So what I'm going to be doing is we're just going to be playing the tail end of like a Travis picking pattern. Now people are going to ask me, lauren, could I try just Travis pick this? So absolutely. You can Travis pick the song if you don't know what Travis picking is. I'll put a link to my video up there. You can go check that out after this. But we're just going to be playing a repetition of four notes over and over again. But it's going to sound great, trust me. So for chords like C and A minor, which are only five strings, we're going to be alternating our thumb between the bass notes on strings five and string four. Okay? That's what we're going to be doing.

On chords like G and F, we're going to be alternating between the sixth string and the fourth string. Okay? So as long as you are playing the chord correctly, you won't have to worry about what frets you're playing. You'll just need to know what string you're playing and what finger. So if we start with this G chord, let's start with the G chord because that's the first one in here. Hello, darkness, my old friend. The first finger is going to be owning the third string. The second finger is going to own the B string, the second string. Okay? And. And the pattern is going to be thumb two, thumb one. Okay. Sixth string, second string, fourth string, third string.

Okay. So if you know Travis picking, you know that this is just the last four notes of that Travis picking pattern. And we're just going to play those over again. All right, so that was your G chord, A minor. We're going to go fifth string, second string, fourth string, third string.

Okay, so this would be.

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

I've come to talk to you again.

Sounds C. It sounds nice. I promised you it would sound nice. So this next part, I'm going to tell you what we're going to do. We have a split measure here. So we have F and C. So we're only going to do that pattern instead of doing it twice. Because twice gets us one full measure. We're only going to do the pattern once. F, it will be played like a G chord and then right into C. Okay? And then this one, we have a full measure of C after it.

And then we repeat F1 pattern.

C1 pattern, and then C1 pattern again.

And then we have two measures of F.

Measure of C.

Measure of a.

Half measure of A To G.

To A minor.

And then this second verse is where we would pick up with the strumming. Okay, so I'm going to show you that I want to demonstrate it all the way through for you guys. Now before I do that, I just want to show you this walk down that's going to come into the song. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying the simplified version of this lesson so far. Make sure to subscribe to the channel and turn on those notifications. This way. You know, when I release more songs just like this. So let's talk about this walk down that comes in. Okay, what we're going to do is it's over a C chord. And the first half we're going to play C. Nothing there has changed. And then we're going to do bass note of the C chord. And then we're gonna lift up our third finger, we're gonna take our second finger and move it up to the fifth string. It's kind of like a C, B chord. And we're just gonna hit that B note. So it's gonna be.

And then we get into the A so it'll sound like this. C.

C, B, A minor. Let's do that again. So it's C.

C, B, A minor.

Again, one last time.

Okay, so that's where that walk down comes in. So on the demonstration I'm going to do right now, I'm going to play it through so you guys can hear it. So listen the first time and then back it up and then try playing along with me. Okay, so I'm start with hello darkness my old friend. And I'm going to use the walk down.

Hello darkness my old friend.

I've come.

To talk to you again.

Because of visions softly creeping.

The seeds that I was sleeping and the vision that was planted in my brain.

Still remains.

Within.

The sound of silence.

Here comes the strumming and restless dreams.

I walk alone.

In narrow streets of.

Cobblestone.

Neath the halo of a street lamp.

I turn my collar to the cold and damp when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light that split the night.

And touched the sound.

Of silence.

And then it keeps going and we go through more verses. And then at the very end, we do something just a little bit different on that last verse. So let's talk about that now. Hey guys, I really hope you're enjoying this lesson. Make sure to give me a thumbs up. This way, YouTube will show it to more students just like you. So the very last verse of this song, we're going to end on a G and we're strumming. And then you can either strum an A minor chord or you can go back to.

Whichever suits you, whichever you think is nicer. And that's how you will end the song. So I hope you guys really enjoyed this lesson. Don't forget, I do have a course. If you want to go check that out, put a link in the description below. Really appreciate, appreciate you guys, you know, supporting the channel. YouTube's gonna throw a couple more videos up over here. Go check those out. And I hope to see you guys in another lesson video.