David Gilmour recently noted how not being “gifted” with the ability to play fast contributed to developing his signature style. He also noted how he sometimes thinks he may be “going on for too long” when playing a guitar solo.
In rock and blues circles, David Gilmour’s playing is frequently celebrated for its soulful intonation. The licks he created continue to captivate new generations of fans and musicians. While Gilmour’s signature style may seem like a unique alchemy known only to him, he insists that it is entirely rooted in his intuition.
Asked in a new interview with Rick Beato to comment on “the Gilmour effect” (an elusive quality of his sound that doesn’t seem to stem from any gear the British prog icon might be using), Gilmour said that some of his style actually stemmed from his limitations as a player:
“I wasn’t gifted with enormous speed on the guitar… There were years when I was younger when I thought I could get that if I practiced enough, but it wasn’t ever really going to happen. Some of the influences on me, like The Shadows, were just playing a tune.”
“I think I come from there: I’m just playing a tune. But obviously, when you’re whacked up to 150 dBs and you’re leaning against that wall of sound onstage, the tunes change a bit.”
Similarly, his use of bending and vibrato were a “a natural thing that’s developed over a long career” to complement his style of playing. He added:
“There are moments when you get right up here somewhere [up the fretboard], and you’ve got a note, and [I’m] quite fussy about over-eager vibrato from the guitar, and sometimes I just think a little thing [a bit of vibrato] just gives it a little bit of tone. And I hesitate to use the word, refinement.”
Talking about his iconic solos, Gilmour said with tongue in cheek that he believes they can sometimes get a bit too long:
“I’m just going on for too long. Time to stop. I just play until I think, ‘Oh, maybe we’ll end now.’ A lot of them have a musical cue. There’s one in ‘Comfortably Numb,’ and they [the band] all know the next one’s gonna be the end one.”
