Pink Floyd - Run Like Hell - Guitar Cover

The Wall

1979 4:23

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About Run Like Hell

The driving force of "Run Like Hell" is David Gilmour's heavily flanged, rhythmic guitar figure in D minor, built on a repeating sixteenth-note pattern that locks tightly with the kick drum at 120 BPM. Getting that groove right is the real challenge here: the picking hand has to stay absolutely mechanical and even, while the fretting hand mutes and releases with surgical precision to give the riff its characteristic choppy pulse. In E Standard tuning the shapes are not complex on paper, but sustaining that locked-in feel for the full length of the track is surprisingly taxing. The flanger effect is thick and central to the tone, so if you are woodshedding the riff dry it will feel quite different from the record. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop the main riff slowed down until the muting and the picking rhythm are genuinely automatic before bringing it back up to tempo. Pink Floyd built this track as a crowd-participation centrepiece of The Wall live show, and that relentless, hypnotic quality is exactly what you are aiming to capture in a Progressive Rock context.

• The signature riff relies on tight palm-muting and steady sixteenth-note alternate picking in D minor, so right-hand consistency is the primary thing to drill.
• A flanger effect is essential to the song's guitar tone, sitting thick across the repeated rhythmic figure throughout the track.
• At 120 BPM the riff feels moderate, but maintaining even pick attack and clean muting across a full-length run demands real stamina and focus.