The Gilmour Touch - What we can learn from it

On my return flight last week to Denver from London. I got a chance to watch David Gilmour’s concert Live at Pompeii. I had the option to connect to the in-flight WiFi and listen to some playlist on Spotify with my noise-cancelling headphones but I chose to escape Spotify's algorithm fatigue.

This blog assumes you are familiar with the music of Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. For those who don’t know him, I recommend listening to Pink Floyd’s album, “The Wall” or “Dark Side of the Moon” in one sitting ;)

For those who know David Gilmour’s music, read on.

Embrace your limitation

Gilmour is an interesting guitarist because speedy guitar riffs are not his forte. I once watched an interview of his where he says he practiced quite hard to attain speed as the guitar shredders of his day. He failed and gave up to embrace his limitations. For those of us who had discovered the music of Pink Floyd from friends in college, mostly through our seniors. We are familiar with that unmistakable Gilmour guitar sound. I honestly think the world would have missed out on that sound if Gilmour had become yet another Van Halen or a Satrianti.

Open this world to your interpretation

Artists and creative people come in three flavors.

The Composer, a creator of beautiful things.

The Virtuoso, perfectionists who offer this world a performance par excellence.

The improviser, interpreter of an art form whose beauty lies in the style.

While I think Gilmour exhibits all three flavors. His strength is in being an interpreter.

His unique style of rendering melodious guitar solos, soulfully packed with feeling.

A solo that you can hum along or scream along, depending on how close you want to mimic his sound ??.

Our experience of this world is almost always mediated by human interpretation, this often makes some of the aspects of our insufferable existence palatable.

Use your 1% inspiration to perspire 99%

Pink Floyd and David Gilmour release epic albums. They are often spaced out.

For Gilmour to come out with a studio album it appears to take years sometimes even close to a decade. Unlike the pop artists of the world who can chum out albums every year.

Gilmour seems to wait his time to make it epic. This would seem like he may be hibernating when he is not making Studio albums. However, in an interview, I found out that this is not the case at all. Gilmour is constantly making music even when he does not have a guitar. In one interview, he talks about having a voice recorder (his phone) and recording into it all the time. He is either singing a short melodic phrase into the recorder or he just records a tune or a melody that he hears in random places.

Apparently he does repurpose these in his jam sessions at his barn. Most of them go unpublished. Although, I have viewed some of these on his youtube channel.

As I continue to listen to Gilmour's music and his touch. His bends, the licks, the slide and the vibrato with that tremolo arm on his Strat.

He hasn't sounded any better.

This is the beauty of his uniqueness and interpretation of the instrument. As I wrap up this blog, that solo from Comfortably Numb is burning through my musical soul. Its melancholy, grand, and extravagant sound. Its absolutely glorious redemption tearing through.

Always a reminder and a call back to that cosmic and majestic Gilmour touch.

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