Help learning intro to 'The Boxer' Paul Simon

Hi All

Can anyone point me in the direction of a tutorial that shows how Paul Simon actually plays the intro to 'The Boxer'.

I know there are several tutorials on Youtube and elsewhere there are tabs, which show some rather awkward stretches that I doubt are correct. One tutorial on Youtube claims, perhaps correctly, that the intro was recorded in open G, and looking online at Simon's Live performances, where he tends to omit the intro, may be clue that this in fact the case.

I guess I was wondering if anyone here had some definitive knowledge of this intro.

Thanks

[mchalebk]

I'm pretty sure it was done in a different tuning. I've worked on this from time to time and came up with some ways that "work", but I just don't think it can be reproduced faithfully in standard tuning. Since I play this in standard tuning, I've pretty much given up on the intro and just go right to the C chord.

[JonPR]

Sorry I don't have an answer, but this is an intriguing one that's got me baffled too. (I expect you've been through all the following investigation too, but just in case...)

Of course we're assuming it was all played on one guitar. If another guitar was overdubbed - or there was some kind of studio editing of takes - that answers a lot of the questions. However, mostly it sounds like one guitar - not enough evidence of two to make an overdub worthwhile.

Most of the intro is easy enough in EADGBE, in a few different ways, except for the last group of 4 8ths (C-Bb-G-C): they clearly all ring together.
The intuitive (easiest) way to play the notes of the intro (as demo'd in at least one youtube) doesn't permit all the notes to ring across each other as it sounds like they do on the original:

-3-0---0-----0-----0-------------------------
-----3---3-----3-----3---1-----1--------------------
-----------3-----0-----0---3-0--------
----------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------

Although that sits under the fingers neatly (if we're heading for the plain C shape that follows), it sounds wrong - because the notes tabbed on the same string (playable as pull-offs) are clearly on different strings on the original, because you hear them ringing together.

Suggestion 2:

 
---0---0-----0-----0-------------------------
-8-----------------------------1-------------
-----7---7-----7-----7---5---0----------------
-----------8-----5-----5---8------------------
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------

Sounds good to begin with, but the fingering switch to the 5th fret is not good, and the last part is even more impractical.

Suggestion 3:

 
---0---0-----0-----0-------------------------
-8-------3-----3-----3---1-----1------------
-----7-----3-----0-----0---3------------------
-----------------------------5---------------
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------

That's sounds good, but (I agree) that last stretch is crazy - just to preserve the sustaining notes. (Just possible, but not something Paul Simon would have chosen to play - there's no good reason for it.)

Suggestion 4:

 
----0----0-------0------0-------------------------
----------------------------------------------
-12-------------------0------0-------0--------
------12---12------12-----12---10------10-------------
--------------13------------------13------------
--------------------------------------------

Now we get all notes ringing; but now there's no way one can get from that position down to the open C, as smoothly and neatly as on the original.
That would be solved if we accept the studio recording was an editing of two takes, spliced together at that point. (Which would also explain why he left this intro out of live versions.)
But this position (a) doesn't sound quite right, due to thicker string tones, and (b) it seems a crazy choice, not intuitive at all. The original sounds like something that was quite easy to play, in whatever position and tuning he was in. Why would he play an intro that was so dificult to connect to the C vamp that it required a studio splice? It's not that special.

Open G (capo on 5) doesn't solve it, unfortunately. Again, the first part of the intro is easy enough (maybe a little easier), but again it's the last four 8ths that won't work - getting all 3 of those notes on separate strings. It can be made to work in some kind of awkward position (again), but - most importantly - the main C vamp is non-intuitive in open G. (It can be done, but why would it have been done that way?)
Moreover, the rest of the chord progression makes most sense in EADGBE: all the chords, changes and patterns are easy and intuitive. It makes no sense to me that an intro in a different tuning would have been tagged on to the front.
It's a trivial question in the end (who really cares? fake it or avoid it!), but a niggling one!

Thanks for the replies.

I'm going to digest the above information (thanks for taking the time) and see what it sounds like.

And yes I agree it's perhaps a trivial question because I have seen Paul Simon perform a few different intros that are really different from the original; clearly they were in standard.

[AirWolf]

I had to record this song a few years ago, and I played the intro the same way the first tab is written in JonPR's post (in standard tuning). It sounded fine, or so I thought.

Indeed it does sound good. Thanks again for this help it's much appreciated.

[mchalebk]

You can get very close in standard tuning, but I don't think it's possible to get it exact (and it's pretty tough for someone with short fingers like me to play it respectably in standard tuning).

I just did a little searching and the consensus seems to be that there was a second guitar tuned to open G, capo 5, that played the intro. I also read where Paul Simon does not play the studio intro when performing this live.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by mchalebk

I just did a little searching and the consensus seems to be that there was a second guitar tuned to open G, capo 5, that played the intro.

That makes sense, except that those last 4 notes still don't work in normal open G.
I'm now guessing that Simon first played the intro like that first tab I posted (and as at least one guy on youtube plays it).
But then he decided it would sound better if all the notes could ring over each other, so tuned the guitar in a way that made that possible, and overdubbed it.
That makes logical sense (to me) as a scenario.

As for those last 4 notes (C-Bb-G on different strings), it will work with the following very simple retuning: E-A-D-G-B-D. With capo on 5, you get this:

 
G-0--------------|---------------|----------------
E---0---0-----0--|--0------------|-------------------
C-----2---2-----2|----2---0-----0|---------------------
G-----------3----|0-----0---3----|------------------
D----------------|------------5--|----------------
A----------------|---------------|---------------

Notice you need the 5th string tuned normally to have that low G note within easy reach. Normal open G would put it 2 frets higher.

Or maybe this:

 
G-0--------------|---------------|----------------
E---0---0-----0--|--0------------|-------------------
C-----2---2-----2|----2---0-----0|---------------------
G-----------3----|----------3----|------------------
D----------------|5-----5-----5--|----------------
A----------------|---------------|---------------

- that requires no change in left hand position (middle on 4th string all the way, pinky on 5th), just lifting the index off 3rd string at the end.

It's also possible to get very close to it in EADGBE with capo on 5th, by playing 7th fret on 3rd string for the first note - but that's a little trickier, and as this is such an easy retuning to get the full effect, my money's on this one.

He could even have played the whole song thing (say, in a first attempt) in G with capo on 5! (EADGBE) The chords are all easy enough in that key. He could then have played the intro as just described. But then - presumably - he decided he preferred the shapes of the main sequence in C in open position (giving him lower G and F notes). So kept the intro, but transposed all the rest of it. (Still requiring the two takes spliced together of course.)
Equally - if not more - believable!

[Howard Emerson]

In the magazine Fretboard Journal[1] Fred Carter, Jr. recounts:

"I had a baby Martin, which is a 000-18, and when we started the record in New York with Roy Halee, the engineer, and Paul [Simon] was playin' his Martin — I think it's a D-18 and he was tuned regular — he didn't have the song totally written lyrically, but he had most of the melody. And so all I was hearin' was bits and pieces while he was doing' his fingerpicking . . . I think he was fingerpicking in an open C. I tried two or three things and then picked up the baby Martin, which was about a third above his guitar, soundwise.

"And I turned down the first string to a D, and tuned up the bass string to a G, which made it an open-G tuning, except for the fifth string, which was standard. Did some counter fingerpicking with him, just did a little backward roll, and Iucked into a lick. And that turned into that little roll, and we cut it, just Paul and I, two guitars. Then we started to experiment with some other ideas and so forth. At the end of the day, we were still on the song. Garfunkel was amblin’ around the studio, hummin’ and havin’ input at various times. They were real scientists. They’d get on a part, and it might be there [unfinished] six weeks later.

HE

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Howard Emerson

In the magazine Fretboard Journal[1] Fred Carter, Jr. recounts:

"I had a baby Martin, which is a 000-18, and when we started the record in New York with Roy Halee, the engineer, and Paul [Simon] was playin' his Martin — I think it's a D-18 and he was tuned regular — he didn't have the song totally written lyrically, but he had most of the melody. And so all I was hearin' was bits and pieces while he was doing' his fingerpicking . . . I think he was fingerpicking in an open C. I tried two or three things and then picked up the baby Martin, which was about a third above his guitar, soundwise.

"And I turned down the first string to a D, and tuned up the bass string to a G, which made it an open-G tuning, except for the fifth string, which was standard. Did some counter fingerpicking with him, just did a little backward roll, and Iucked into a lick. And that turned into that little roll, and we cut it, just Paul and I, two guitars. Then we started to experiment with some other ideas and so forth. At the end of the day, we were still on the song. Garfunkel was amblin’ around the studio, hummin’ and havin’ input at various times. They were real scientists. They’d get on a part, and it might be there [unfinished] six weeks later.

HE

Great, thanks! (Confirms my guess about the tuning - although obviously not my theory about Paul Simon's thinking process! )

Just to clarify -
Although Carter talks of "G tuning", that's what it would have been on a standard 6-string; on his baby Martin it was equivalent to a standard guitar at 5th fret. Actual tuning C-D-G-C-E-G (Assuming he's right about tuning that 6th string up, which is not relevant to the intro as it's not used there.)
But also Simon's guitar was tuned down from concert - a little less than a half-step. Carter's would then have been a 4th (5 frets) higher than Simon's - not a "3rd" - although it does equate to roughly a major 3rd higher than concert. IOW, they were playing a little sharp of concert B major.

Anyway, either of my tabs could be what he played, but I think the 2nd is more likely.
And of course this doesn't help anyone playing it in C in standard tuning!

[jseth]

Simon has used Fred Carter, Jr. on a number of songs, and all the songs have this 'illusion" that it's just one guitar, cruising along... UNTIL you try to "play it like they do"...

Paul Simon doesn't get all the credit he deserves for the way in which he puts recordings together, in my opinion... much of what he has done is sublime!

I tried to play "Mrs. Robinson" for a while, last year... I figured, "Heck! I've been playing for a LONG time, I should be able to cop a decent groove with that tune...", but it continually confounded me; WHATEVER those guitarists are doing, you can't get there with one guitar!

I did, however, come up with a great rhythmic motif for a new original song, so it wasn't time wasted...

play on.....................................

John

[AirWolf]

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[mchalebk]

This sounds pretty darn close to me...

http://youtu.be/AJXtw4_qVJ4

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by mchalebk

This sounds pretty darn close to me...

http://youtu.be/AJXtw4_qVJ4

Yep, pretty darn close - but not 100%, because (a) open G won't do it, and (b) Fred Carter (see Howard's quote) was quite clear it wasn't open G: the 5th string was tuned as normal, not down. (That guy doesn't get the end of the pattern right, simply because he has the wrong tuning.)

My tab (post #8, not the earlier one) is 100%. It's totally consistent with Carter's memory, and works perfectly.
Take your pick which one you prefer, they both work - but IMO the second is more intuitive, as it needs almost no left hand movement.

Of course, you'd be quite right to say that "pretty darn close" is good enough . Exactly copying an original is rather a dry academic exercise. But the solution is there if anyone wants it.

Great information everyone and I'm glad I started the thread. Of course, now I won't feel so bad about faking it a little.

Many thanks