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Guitar Songs, Tabs & Lessons

Pink Floyd

56 guitar songs · Tabs, Lessons & Tone Guide Progressive Rock

Choose a Pink Floyd Song to Play

Comfortably Numb - Guitar Tab Guitar Tab

Comfortably Numb - Guitar Tab

YouTube Stats: 4M · 51K

Mr. Tabs Guitar Tab
Have A Cigar - Guitar Tab Guitar Tab

Have A Cigar - Guitar Tab

YouTube Stats: 2.3K · 122

StephLeGratteux Guitar Tab
Wish You Were Here Pt.1 - Intro & Chords - Guitar Lesson Guitar Lesson

Wish You Were Here Pt.1 - Intro & Chords - Guitar Lesson

YouTube Stats: 1.9M · 13K

GuitarLessons365SongLessons Guitar Lesson
Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Guitar Cover Guitar Cover

Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Guitar Cover

YouTube Stats: 924K · 21K

Kfir Ochaion Guitar Cover

Band Overview

History and Guitar Legacy

Pink Floyd formed in London in 1965 and became one of rock's most influential bands across four decades. David Gilmour took over lead guitar from Syd Barrett in 1968, developing a style prioritizing melody, dynamics, and emotional weight. His landmark work on 'The Dark Side of the Moon', 'Wish You Were Here', and 'The Wall' defined expressive electric guitar playing. Gilmour's soaring bends, singing vibrato, and vocal-like phrasing influenced guitarists from Mark Knopfler to John Mayer.

Playing Style and Techniques

Gilmour's approach emphasizes restraint and tone control, making few notes carry immense weight. His solos use pentatonic and blues-based vocabulary with impeccable timing and feel, particularly heard on 'Comfortably Numb'. Rhythm work showcases clean arpeggios on tracks like 'Breathe' and 'Hey You', demonstrating how acoustic and electric layering creates massive soundscapes. Syd Barrett's unorthodox slide work and dissonant chord voicings on the debut album established Pink Floyd's experimental foundation and deserve study.

Why Guitarists Study Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd teaches essential skills beyond shredding: restraint, tone control, and emotional expression through note selection. Gilmour's solos are regularly cited as the greatest guitar solos ever recorded, while his rhythm work demonstrates advanced layering techniques. The band's catalog provides masterclass examples of how to play with genuine feeling and musical maturity. Studying Pink Floyd develops your ear, bending accuracy, and ability to convey emotion through the instrument.

Difficulty and Learning Path

The note choices are often intermediate level: pentatonic scales, open chords, barre chords, and fingerpicking patterns. However, capturing the feel requires advanced musical maturity beyond fretboard mechanics. Gilmour's wide, controlled bends (a tone and a half or more), deliberate vibrato, and sense of space demand precision and emotional understanding. Pink Floyd provides the ideal platform for developing your ear, bending accuracy, and ability to play with authentic emotion and restraint.

What Makes Pink Floyd Essential for Guitar Players

  • David Gilmour's bending technique is a cornerstone of his sound. He frequently uses full-step and one-and-a-half-step bends on the B and G strings, holding them at pitch with wide, slow vibrato. Practicing the 'Comfortably Numb' solos will develop your bending accuracy like nothing else.
  • Gilmour's vibrato is distinct, it's wide, even, and comes from the wrist rather than the fingers. Unlike fast rock vibrato, his oscillates slowly and symmetrically around the target pitch, giving his sustained notes that signature singing quality.
  • Pink Floyd's rhythm guitar parts rely heavily on clean arpeggiated chords and open-string voicings. Tracks like 'Breathe' and 'Hey You' use fingerpicking and hybrid picking over jazz-influenced chord shapes (like Emin7 and A7sus4), teaching you to think beyond basic barre chords.
  • Effects are integral to the Pink Floyd guitar experience. Gilmour's use of delay (particularly rhythmic repeats timed to the song's tempo) and modulation creates depth that's as much a part of the composition as the notes themselves. Learning to play with delay rather than against it is a critical skill these songs develop.
  • The acoustic guitar work across Pink Floyd's catalog, from 'Goodbye Blue Sky' to 'Is There Anybody Out There', showcases classical fingerpicking techniques and nylon-string passages that challenge electric players to develop right-hand independence and dynamic control.

Did You Know?

The iconic outro solo on 'Comfortably Numb' was recorded in just a few takes, with Gilmour choosing between several versions. He used a 1955 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop through a Hiwatt amp and a rotating Leslie speaker cabinet to get that swirling, three-dimensional tone.

For the clean arpeggiated intro of 'Hey You,' Gilmour used a fretless Fender Precision bass technique concept applied to guitar, sliding into notes without frets to create fluid, almost vocal-like transitions on certain overdubs.

David Gilmour's pedalboard on 'The Wall' tour was one of the most complex of its era, featuring a custom switching system designed by Pete Cornish that allowed seamless transitions between multiple delay, modulation, and overdrive settings.

The reverse-echo effect heard at the start of several Pink Floyd tracks was achieved by flipping the tape, recording the echo, and then flipping it back, a studio trick that predated digital reverse delay pedals by decades and directly inspired their creation.

Gilmour's 'Black Strat', a 1969 Fender Stratocaster with a black refinish and modified pickups, is arguably the most famous Stratocaster in rock history. It was used on 'The Dark Side of the Moon,' 'Wish You Were Here,' 'Animals,' and 'The Wall.'

The sliding harmonics and whale-like guitar sounds in 'Echoes' were discovered accidentally when Gilmour plugged his wah pedal in backwards, creating an unusual resonant feedback loop that became one of Pink Floyd's most recognizable sonic textures.

Syd Barrett's original guitar approach included detuning his Telecaster mid-song, using a Zippo lighter as a slide, and raking the strings with coins, techniques that were genuinely avant-garde in 1967 and influenced noise and shoegaze guitarists for decades.

Essential Albums for Guitarists

The Wall album cover
The Wall 1979

This is the definitive album for learning Gilmour's full range. 'Comfortably Numb' teaches bending, vibrato, and phrasing at the highest level across both the main and outro solos. 'Another Brick in the Wall Part 2' introduces tight rhythm playing and iconic melodic soloing, while 'Hey You' develops fingerpicking, arpeggiation, and acoustic-to-electric transitions.

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The Dark Side of the Moon album cover
The Dark Side of the Moon 1973

'Money' is essential for learning odd-time riff playing (7/4 time) with blues-rock soloing over the top. 'Breathe' teaches atmospheric clean tone chord work with subtle bends and slides, and 'Brain Damage' offers a lesson in understated rhythm guitar that serves the song. The album as a whole is a clinic in how guitar fits into a larger sonic picture.

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Wish You Were Here album cover
Wish You Were Here 1975

The title track is one of the most requested acoustic guitar pieces ever, its 12-string intro and Em–G–A progressions are perfect for intermediate players. 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' features some of Gilmour's most lyrical and emotionally devastating lead work, with long sustained bends and Uni-Vibe-drenched clean tones that teach patience and dynamic control.

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The Division Bell album cover
The Division Bell 1994

'High Hopes' features Gilmour's lap steel and standard guitar layering, plus one of his most underrated solos with soaring bends and a talk-box-like sustain. The album showcases his later, more refined tone, bigger cleans, smoother overdrive, and is excellent for learning how modern production techniques can enhance guitar-driven arrangements.

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Tone & Gear

Guitar

David Gilmour's primary guitar is his 1969 Fender Stratocaster (the 'Black Strat'), refinished in black with a maple neck, originally fitted with a standard tremolo bridge. Over the years it received various pickup swaps and a shortened tremolo arm. He also used a 1955 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (notably on the 'Comfortably Numb' outro solo), a 1959 Fender Telecaster, various Ovation and Martin acoustics, and a Bill Lewis 24-fret custom guitar. Syd Barrett played a mirrored-disc Fender Esquire and a Telecaster during his tenure.

Amp

Gilmour's core amp sound comes from Hiwatt DR103 Custom 100 heads paired with WEM 4x12 cabinets loaded with Fane Crescendo speakers. The Hiwatts are known for exceptional clean headroom and a tight, articulate overdrive when pushed, they don't break up as easily as Marshalls, which is why Gilmour drives them with overdrive and fuzz pedals to control saturation levels precisely. He also used Fender Twin Reverbs for cleaner passages and occasionally a rotating Leslie speaker cabinet for swirling modulation effects, most famously on the 'Comfortably Numb' outro.

Pickups

The Black Strat went through numerous pickup changes over the decades. During 'The Wall' era, it featured a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 in the neck, a custom-wound middle pickup, and a DiMarzio FS-1 in the bridge, giving it a hotter bridge output than a stock Strat while retaining the glassy single-coil character in the neck position. Gilmour heavily favors the neck pickup for solos, which produces a warm, rounded tone with less high-end bite, allowing his bends and vibrato to sing without harshness. The Les Paul Goldtop's original P-90 single-coil pickups contributed a thicker, grittier midrange on key solos.

Effects & Chain

Effects are absolutely central to Gilmour's sound. His chain typically runs: guitar → Dunlop Cry Baby wah → Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi (for the thick, sustaining lead tone) → BK Butler Tube Driver (for smoother overdrive) → Boss CS-2 compressor → Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress flanger → MXR Phase 90 phaser → Uni-Vibe (for the rotating speaker effect) → multiple delay units including a Binson Echorec (tape delay, crucial to early Floyd sounds) and later TC Electronic 2290 digital delays set to rhythmic subdivisions. The delays are often the most important element, they fill the space between notes and create the ambient, three-dimensional quality that defines Pink Floyd's guitar sound. Pete Cornish custom-built his pedalboard switching systems for seamless preset changes live.

Recommended Gear

Fender Stratocaster
Guitar

Fender Stratocaster

Gilmour's 1969 Black Strat is his primary instrument, offering glassy neck pickup tones perfect for his singing bends and the warm, rounded character that defines Pink Floyd's melodic solos without harsh brightness.

Fender Telecaster
Guitar

Fender Telecaster

This workhorse guitar provided Gilmour with a brighter, more cutting tone for rhythm work and alternative textures, offering the snap and clarity needed for Pink Floyd's diverse sonic palette across studio and live performances.

Gibson Les Paul Standard
Guitar

Gibson Les Paul Standard

Gilmour's 1955 Les Paul Goldtop, fitted with original P-90 pickups, delivers the thick, gritty midrange essential for iconic solos like Comfortably Numb's outro, providing tonal weight and sustain that Strats cannot match.

Gibson Les Paul Custom
Guitar

Gibson Les Paul Custom

Though less documented than the Goldtop, this model would offer similar thick, sustained tones with enhanced versatility through multiple pickup switching, supporting Gilmour's need for varied textures within complex Pink Floyd arrangements.

Fender Twin Reverb
Amp

Fender Twin Reverb

Gilmour used Twin Reverbs for their exceptional clean headroom and built-in reverb, creating spacious, shimmering textures that complement his delay-heavy effects chain and define Pink Floyd's atmospheric, three-dimensional soundscapes.

Dunlop Cry Baby Wah
Pedal

Dunlop Cry Baby Wah

The Cry Baby opens Gilmour's effects chain, allowing expressive vocal-like phrasing on solos, integral to Pink Floyd's emotional delivery and creating dynamic dynamic tonal sweeps that enhance the band's psychedelic and progressive character.

How to Practice Pink Floyd on GuitarZone

Every Pink Floyd song page on GuitarZone includes a built-in Practice Toolbar. No app to download, no account needed. Open any song, then use the toolbar to slow the video to 0.5× speed, set an A/B loop around the exact riff you're working on, and jump between song sections instantly.

The toolbar appears automatically on every guitar tab, lesson, and cover page. Pick a song below, hit play, and start practicing at your own pace.

Practice Comfortably Numb - Guitar TabPractice Time - Guitar TabPractice Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Guitar Cover