The Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel

Overview

Key: C♭ major · Chords used: 6 · Sections: 6

Form: Intro → Verse → Verse ×4

Where these chords come from: an expert transcription of the original recording made for the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). This page shows that transcription as-is: the analysis below is generated directly from it by code, not written by AI. Consecutive repeats of a chord are shown once, and the piano voicings are our playable arrangement of each chord symbol, not a note-for-note transcription.

Section by section

Intro

• E♭sus2
  IIIsus2

Verse 1

• D♭add9 – E♭madd9
  IIadd9 – iiiadd9
• C♭ – G♭ (×3)
  I – V
• E♭m – G♭ – D♭add9 – E♭madd9
  iii – V – IIadd9 – iiiadd9

Verse 2

Same chords as Verse 1.

Verse 3

Same chords as Verse 1.

Verse 4

Same chords as Verse 1.

Verse 5

Same chords as Verse 1.

Chord vocabulary

Chord	Roman numeral	Role	Heard in
E♭sus2	IIIsus2	Outside the key (chromatic)	Intro
D♭add9	IIadd9	Outside the key (chromatic)	Verse
E♭madd9	iiiadd9	Outside the key (chromatic)	Verse
C♭	I	Home chord (tonic)	Verse
G♭	V	In the key	Verse
E♭m	iii	In the key	Verse

Sources & accuracy

• Chords and sections: the McGill Billboard Project (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011). Expert transcription by trained musicians (song 1153, CC0), via ChoCo.
• Cross-check: the Rock Corpus RS 200 (de Clercq & Temperley, 2011), analysis by Trevor de Clercq. Expert by-ear harmonic analysis of the original recording, shown on this page. Independently transcribed; it matches this page's chords closely (similarity 90%).
• Verified: two independent expert transcriptions agree on this song's harmony.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.