David Gilmour is named to be a part of one of the most iconic rock band and most well known guitarist. He is very highly recognized for his unique and relaxed guitar style and doing one of the best acoustic solos.David is a very achieved musician.
He joined the band, Pink Floyd, in 1967 and helped them accomplish their best albums, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. The thing that made David so special wasn’t that he discovered crazy new guitar tricks or industrialized any new styles but rather that he was the opposite. Gilmour preferred using the guitar in its most natural form. He most times played intuitively. He talked to Guitar world about his strengths in guitar saying, ” Oh, I’d say my sense of melody.
My sense of going for the unusual at times.” David says his style has a lot of blues and he gets most of his inspiration from Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, two legendary guitarists. For a long time, he talked about trying to emulate his guitar heroes but eventually came to love his own unique sound. David has talked about enjoying Eddie Van Halen but not having the fingers to do the stuff he does on his guitar. He has said he enjoys the sound of the combo of the wang-bar on the whole chords while he is fading with a stereo volume pedal at the same time. In regards to vibrato, he likes to keep all of that refined.
So when in vibrato, he either uses the wang-bar or just his fingers. Gilmour gets a lot of his sound from just using his fingers. He has never been a big practicer.
He says in an interview with Guitar World, ” I don’t have a very disciplined approach to practicing or anything, but I do tend to have a guitar around most of the time, which I strum on most of the day. But generally, I’m not too ambitious about that sort of thing. I just tend to strap on the guitar in the studio and do something crazy.” Later on in the interview, he talks about on a rare occasion, he will go through the pentatonic scales and review.
Gilmour talks about how he can’t play very fast. In my opinion, it makes the chords sound more jazzy and sound better with his technique. In regards to David’s guitars, he had a lot of variety and liked to switch them out often. He was played with more than 30 guitars rotating between acoustic and electric, soloy depending on the sound he wanted to achieve on his performance. Mostly, he played with Fender Stratocasters and owned more than 9 of them. His most prized possesion is his Stratocaster that has the serial number of 0001.
One of the most iconic acoustic rock solos was in Wish You Were Here and Gilmour used a ’80 Gibson J-200 Celebrity and now it is his main acoustic guitar to use for live performances. Once David’s career with Pink Floyd had run its course, it didn’t stop him from continuing his guitar career. He decided to take on a solo career. Going Solo for artists after being in a band can be very challenged to be even half as successful as you were but David definitely did very well for himself as a soloist.
In 2006, his album On An Island went platinum, was number 1 in UK charts and was in the top ten of many other countries. David currently isn’t on any new tours and doing very many live performances anymore but still continues to stay most of his days.Overall, David Gilmour is one of the most iconic guitarists of all time. His relaxed and jazzy style along with his unmeasurable talent with the guitar is what has made his so well renounced even years after his time.
