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Home ❯ Songs ❯ Simon and Garfunkel ❯

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Mrs. Robinson

by Simon and Garfunkel • Lesson #51 • Mar 11, 2017

Editor’s notes

Welcome to my guitar lesson teaching Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel. I’ve made two lessons, one of which teaches the basics and the other of which gets into some more complex licks and fills you can add while strumming. I’ve also included a separate video showing a complete play-along cover, where I put it all together. I’ll be playing with no capo (add capo 2 if you want to play along with Simon and Garfunkel). Good luck!

Free Video Lessons

My beginner lesson, focusing on chords and strumming:

For an intermediate lesson showing some of the runs and fills, see this:

And here’s my play-along cover of the entire song:

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Lyrics with chords

Capo 2nd fret. 184 bpm.

See my sheet sheet music for all of the lyrics, with chords shown at the same time.

Chords needed

E ––––0–––0–––3–––0–––0–––––––0–––2–––2–––0–––0––––
B ––––0–––3–––0–––0–––1–––0–––1–––3–––1–––2–––2––––
G ––––1–––1–––0–––0–––0–––0–––2–––2–––2–––2–––0––––
D ––––2–––2–––0–––2–––2–––0–––2–––0–––0–––2–––2––––
A ––––2–––2–––2–––2–––3–––2–––0–––––––––––0–––0––––
E ––––0–––0–––3–––0––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
      E   E7  G   Em  C  G/B  Am  D   D7  A   A7

Chord progressions

See my sheet music for the chord progression diagram.

Strumming pattern

There’s some flexibility with how you strum, though I think the most important thing is to accent the 2nd (and possibly 4th) beat of every four-beat measure. You might start with practicing down-strums only, on the 2nd and 4th beats:

See my sheet music for the strumming diagram.

Once you have that, you can add to it by adding some additional strums (played not quite as loud) on these other beats. Again, make sure the 2nd and 4th beats are where most of your accent is.

See my sheet music for the strumming diagram.

Intro and fill riff

Repeat this as desired (usually two or four times is what I do). If you prefer, you can strum the E-chord for the full duration of this 8-count section, while accenting the bass-line melody notes. Or you can play a straight E chord and ignore the melody notes – it’s up to you.

See my sheet music for the guitar tab.

Other riffs and fills

Verse melody

If you want to emulate the vocal melody with your guitar while staying in the open E and open A positions, focus on these notes. You can strum along if you’re able to do so (though that’s a bit trickier).

See my sheet music for the guitar tab.

Verse walkdown

See my sheet music for the guitar tab.

Chrous walkdowns

See my sheet music for the guitar tab.

Thanks for reading!

I hope this was helpful! Please don’t hesitate to hit me up with any questions you have. And as always, please let me know what other songs from Simon and Garfunkel you might want to hear lessons for. Have a great day!

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