In the mid 1970s, music changed forever with the outbreak of Pink Floyd’s innovative and completely unprecedented Dark Side of the Moon. For nearly 10 years the band would continue their evolutionary musical direction and sound. It’s almost impossible to imagine what any of it would be like without David Gilmour on guitar.
Renowned music producer Bob Ezrin said that you could give David Gilmour a ukulele and he’d make it sound like a Stradivarius. Gilmour is the first to admit that his strength is not in his speed, but in his “feel”. The clean execution and emotive bending vibratos are enough to make any student of guitar hate him out of jealousy.
His creation of tone using both equipment and playing style is integral to Pink Floyd’s sound, along with his fantastic phrasing employed in both solos and whole song compositions.
The first song below, “Money”, was one of the first songs I tried to learn on the guitar (just the bass line intro, not the solo!) It’s a great example of David Gilmour’s blues roots and phrasing abilities.
The second song, “Comfortably Numb”, includes two fantastic solos, one in an “upbeat” major key, and a second “darker” minor key solo, which the readers of Guitar World magazine voted the #4 best guitar solo of all time.
The last song, “Wish You Were Here”, showcases more of the subtle tones Gilmour can create on acoustic guitars and electric guitar with a clean output.
“Money”
“Comfortably Numb”
“Wish You Were Here”