PLAY LIKE...DAVID GILMOUR

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon, Jamie Humphries analyses the playing of David Gilmour, with five stylistic mini pieces.

- Jamie Humphries

Like Brian May and Eric Clapton, David Gilmour is one of those guitarists that appeals to players and non-players alike. Guitarists love his touch, feel, melodies, string bending and tone, while non-guitar players appreciate that Comfortably Numb is one of the greatest solos ever put to tape.

Following time abroad busking and performing, Gilmour was invited by his friends to join Pink Floyd, covering for founder member Syd Barrett, who was becoming increasingly unpredictable and unreliable. Barrett would eventually exit the group,with Gilmour cementing a band line-up that would go on to become one of the greatest in music history.

The pairing of Roger Waters and David Gilmour would propel Pink Floyd from psychedelic pop band to stadium-filling progressive rock pioneers. The band has written and recorded some of the most important music in history, from heartfelt acoustic ballads, to multi-section prog-rock concept pieces, and powerful anthemic stadium-rock masterpieces. With such an incredibly rich, diverse and iconic recorded catalogue, including The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and Waters’s conceptual masterpiece, The Wall, Pink Floyd is cited as perhaps the greatest progressive rock band of all time.