From The Sound of Silence to a Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel were one of the most successful American folk duos of all time.
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel first started making music together as teenagers in 1957, originally calling themselves Tom & Jerry. Like many young musicians of the era, they were heavily influenced by the close harmonies of The Everly Brothers.
That early influence would become one of the defining characteristics of their sound. Paul Simon would write the songs. Art Garfunkel would provide that extraordinary high harmony.
And when everything came together, the combination was impossible to mistake for anyone else.
From Tom + Jerry to Simon + Garfunkel
The pair eventually signed with Columbia Records and released Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. in 1964. It didn’t exactly set the world on fire.
The album failed to gain much attention, and Paul Simon went to England to pursue music on his own while Art Garfunkel returned to university.
It looked as though the partnership was over. Then something completely unexpected happened. One of the songs from the album was The Sound of Silence.
Producer Tom Wilson decided to overdub drums, bass and electric guitars onto the original acoustic recording and release it as a single. The song took off. It eventually reached number one, and suddenly Simon & Garfunkel were back together.
Sometimes the biggest moments in music happen because somebody hears something in a recording that the original musicians didn’t even know was there.
The Sound of Silence
The Sound of Silence is a perfect introduction to what made the duo special. The original recording was intimate and acoustic. The hit version was transformed through overdubbing into something much bigger.
That distinction is particularly interesting for guitarists. A song doesn’t necessarily need a complicated guitar part to become a great arrangement. Sometimes the guitar provides the foundation and everything else builds around it.
Other times, the guitar is deliberately left exposed. Learning both approaches is invaluable if you’re accompanying a singer.
Homeward Bound + I Am a Rock
The success of The Sound of Silence led to the second Simon & Garfunkel album, also titled Sounds of Silence.
It contained several songs that would become staples of their repertoire, including Homeward Bound (U.K. release only), I Am a Rock and Kathy’s Song.
By this point, Paul Simon’s songwriting was becoming increasingly sophisticated. The songs were still rooted in folk music, but the arrangements were beginning to move beyond the limitations of a traditional acoustic duo. And this is where Simon & Garfunkel become particularly useful for guitarists to study.
The songs are often simple enough to play. But playing them well is another matter.
The guitar has to support the vocal without fighting it. The rhythm has to breathe. And if you’re playing with another guitarist or backing singer, you need to understand exactly how your part fits.
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary + Thyme
In 1966 came Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. By now, Simon & Garfunkel had developed a sound that was much more sophisticated than the folk-duo label suggested.
The album included Scarborough Fair, Homeward Bound and The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy), and Feelin’ Groovy, which remains one of my personal favourites. There is something wonderfully relaxed about it.
It doesn’t sound like a song desperately trying to become a hit. It simply rolls along. That’s another useful lesson for guitarists: sometimes the best thing you can do is make a part feel effortless.
Scarborough Fair
Scarborough Fair has a fascinating history. It wasn’t originally a Paul Simon composition. The song is an old English folk song with roots stretching back centuries.
While living in England during the period when Simon & Garfunkel had temporarily parted ways, Paul Simon learned the song from English folk singer Martin Carthy.
Carthy had recorded his own version and later felt that his contribution should have been properly acknowledged. Simon & Garfunkel’s version nevertheless became the definitive popular recording for millions of listeners.
It appeared on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and later became closely associated with The Graduate.
For a guitarist, Scarborough Fair is a beautiful study in fingerpicking, melody and atmosphere. It’s also a reminder that traditional songs are part of a much larger musical conversation.
You don’t have to write everything from scratch. Sometimes you discover an old song, learn it, change it and make it your own.
The Graduate + Mrs. Robinson
By 1968, Simon & Garfunkel were household names. Their music became inseparable from the Dustin Hoffman film The Graduate, which featured several of their songs. Most famously, Mrs. Robinson became one of their signature tunes.
The combination of film and music was hugely important. Suddenly, the songs weren’t simply records. They were attached to characters, scenes and a particular cultural moment.
This is one reason their music has lasted so well. You can listen to Mrs. Robinson today and immediately hear the world it came from in the film.
Bookends
Their 1968 album Bookends pushed the concept further. Rather than simply being a collection of singles, it felt like an album designed as a complete experience.
Mrs. Robinson was the obvious hit, but the record contained a much broader mixture of songs, spoken passages and atmospheric material.
Simon & Garfunkel were no longer simply recreating the acoustic folk sound that had launched them. They were using the recording studio as part of the creative process.
A guitarist playing Mrs. Robinson in a pub doesn’t need to recreate every sound from the original recording. The job is to reduce the arrangement to something playable while keeping the identity of the song.
The Boxer
The duo’s next big tune was The Boxer. First released as a single in 1969 and later included on Bridge Over Troubled Water, it became the duo’s most ambitious recordings. The recording process was famously elaborate.
The pair spent an enormous amount of time working on the track, experimenting with arrangements and sounds.
One of the most distinctive effects is the huge percussion sound heard during the chorus. The production involved recording a snare drum in an unusual acoustic space and using the natural reverb to create that enormous crack.
It’s a great example of something that happens throughout Simon & Garfunkel’s catalogue: the recording itself becomes part of the composition.
The song has been covered by countless artists, including Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Neil Diamond, Bruce Hornsby, Joan Baez and Mumford & Sons.
That’s another reason it’s such a useful song to learn. The basic composition survives even when the arrangement changes completely.
Bridge Over Troubled Water
In 1970, Simon & Garfunkel released their final studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Water. The title track became one of the defining songs of their career.
Ironically, Paul Simon didn’t play guitar or sing on much of the recording. Art Garfunkel took the lead vocal, and the arrangement gradually grows around him before Simon appears vocally towards the end.
It’s a fascinating example of knowing when not to be the main musician. Paul Simon had written the song, but that didn’t mean he needed to dominate the performance.
For a working guitarist, that’s an important lesson. Your job isn’t to demonstrate what you can play. Your job is to make the song work.
Cecilia + El Condor Pasa
The album also contained two very different songs: Cecilia and El Condor Pasa.
Cecilia is rhythmic, energetic and almost percussive. El Condor Pasa goes in the opposite direction, drawing on a traditional South American melody and instrumentation.
Put those songs alongside The Boxer and Bridge Over Troubled Water and you get a good idea of how broad Simon & Garfunkel’s musical world had become.
They weren’t a folk duo anymore. They were using folk music as one part of a much bigger musical vocabulary.
The Harmonies
Of course, none of this would have sounded quite the same without Art Garfunkel. The magic of Simon & Garfunkel wasn’t simply Paul Simon’s songwriting.
It was the combination of songwriting and vocal harmony. Garfunkel’s voice could sit above Simon’s in a way that made the melodies feel weightless.
For singers, their recordings are a masterclass in harmony. For guitarists, they’re equally useful because the guitar often has to stay out of the way.
If you’re accompanying two singers, you quickly discover that a busy guitar part can destroy a beautiful harmony.
Sometimes a simple pattern is enough. Sometimes you need to stop playing altogether, just like Paul did on Bridge Over Troubled Water.
When Two Great Musicians Want Different Things
Behind the beautiful recordings, however, the partnership wasn’t always easy.
Paul was the songwriter and increasingly wanted to explore new musical ideas. Art had his own ambitions and was becoming increasingly recognised as a performer in his own right.
The very qualities that made the partnership successful also created tension. Simon wanted control over the songs and arrangements. Garfunkel had a voice and presence that made him much more than simply a backing vocalist.
Eventually, the partnership could no longer continue. After Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon & Garfunkel split. And that was that. Or at least it seemed that way.
The End of Simon + Garfunkel
Both musicians continued with successful solo careers. Paul Simon went on to create one of the most adventurous songwriting catalogues of the following decades. Art Garfunkel also enjoyed a successful solo career, including the enormous 1979 hit Bright Eyes.
But the chemistry between the two remained special. They reunited on several occasions over the years, giving audiences brief opportunities to hear those unmistakable harmonies again. That says something about the strength of the original partnership.
You can replace a guitarist. You can replace a drummer. You can even replace a singer. But sometimes two voices simply belong together.
Simon + Garfunkel and the Working Guitarist
For a guitarist, Simon & Garfunkel are a fantastic repertoire to study because their songs cover so many different approaches.
You have fingerpicked folk songs. Strummed acoustic ballads. Rhythmic arrangements. Intricate harmonies. Songs where the guitar is central. And songs where the guitar needs to get out of the way.
Start with Scarborough Fair and study the fingerpicking. Then try The Boxer and listen carefully to the arrangement. Move on to The Sound of Silence, Homeward Bound, Mrs. Robinson, Cecilia, El Condor Pasa and Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Don’t try to copy every instrument from the original recordings. Instead, ask yourself: What is the essential part of this song?
If you’re playing solo acoustic guitar, what can you keep? If you’re backing a singer, what can you remove? If you’re playing with a band, which parts belong to the guitar and which belong to the keyboards?
That’s how you turn a recording into a working arrangement. You work with the people you have and do what’s best for the song in that environment you have.
Learn the Songs, Learn the Harmony
Simon & Garfunkel’s greatest strength wasn’t flashy musicianship. It was musical communication.
Paul Simon wrote extraordinary songs. Art Garfunkel delivered them with an unmistakable voice. The arrangements gave the songs space. And the harmonies made them unforgettable. That’s why the music still works more than half a century later.
If you’re learning guitar, don’t just learn the chords and thinks that’s it. Listen to the original recording. Learn the rhythm. Learn the vocal melody. Listen to the harmony. Then try removing things.
Can the song work with just guitar and voice? Can you make the guitar quieter during the important vocal lines? Can you create the same emotional effect with half as many notes? Those are the skills that turn a collection of chords into music.
The Legacy of Simon + Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel only made a handful of studio albums together, but the catalogue they left behind is enormous in cultural impact.
From The Sound of Silence to Mrs. Robinson, from Scarborough Fair to The Boxer, from Cecilia to Bridge Over Troubled Water, their songs have been recorded, covered and performed by musicians around the world.
And perhaps that’s the best reason to learn them. These aren’t just songs from the 1960s. They’re repertoire. They’re the kind of tunes you can still play to an audience today and immediately connect with people.
Paul Simon would go on to explore completely different musical territory as a solo artist, and that story deserves its own investigation.
But Simon & Garfunkel remains the place where the partnership began—and where two voices, one songwriter and some beautifully crafted arrangements created something that still sounds timeless.
Learn the songs. Learn the harmonies. Learn the spaces between the notes. That’s where the magic is.
Simon & Garfunkel Tunes | Related Pages
The Boxer | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| C (C/G) | C G/B Am Am/E |
I am just a poor boy, though my story’s seldom told…
Check out the full TAB lesson here: The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Scarborough Fair | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel using chords, lyrics, a chord chart, , chord analysis, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| A13sus4 | Asus2 | G C/E G | A13sus4 | A7sus2 |
Are you going to Scarborough Fair…
Start learning with the full lesson series: Scarborough Fair – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
Wonderful World | Chords + TAB
You can learn Wonderful World by Sam Cooke using chords, lyrics, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| B | G#m |
Don’t know much about history…
Simon & Garfunkel on the web
