Hey there Everyone,
Here is a transcription of David Gilmour's guitar work for the intro of this classic Pink Floyd tune Have a Cigar.
There are a lot of nuances inside of this piece of guitar playing. Rather than focus on all of the rhythms and note choices inside of the intro, I'd like to help by breaking down the arrangement. We can often be intimidated by how much ink is on the page, but it's important to remember that music is made up of patterns. If we can identify those patterns, learning and memorizing can be a much quicker process.
There are some bizarre meter changes that I'll cover at the end.
When delving into analysis, I find it very helpful to have a spare copy of the music that I can mark up as much as I'd like. I'm often highlighting or taking notes all over the page. I find that it helps me "think out loud." One of my favorite methods is color-coding ideas. We'll be using that method today.
Red - a sequence of five notes (main riff A) Orange - a sequence of six notes (main riff B)
Yellow - Blues scale lick
Green - Walk up to C
Light Blue - Walk down to E (which is the main riff)
Dark Blue - short D chord
Purple - multi-meter madness that leads to E (main riff)
All of a sudden, we have a to-do list of seven ideas instead of 16 measures. It's also a bit easier to see that nearly all the "new" ideas occur after a red. The two exceptions happen after a green. The blue is a short transition piece to purple.
The multi-meter riff is a part of prog-rock. The easiest way to play it authentically is to count each note's duration. It's slow enough that we can count the smallest subdivision with ease (1/16th notes): 123, 123, 123, 123, 12, 1234.
You can download the sheet music here.
As always, take your time, enjoy the process and keep playing.
Christopher
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