Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd

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Tuning: Standard tuning. No capo. Gilmour used a Martin D12-28 12-string and Martin D-35 6-string at Abbey Road. The shimmer of the 12-string is in the recording — a 6-string works perfectly for solo performance.

🎸 Chord Shapes — Standard Tuning · Key of G / Em

intro voicing

Em7

intro · emotional center

A7sus4

intro · the lift

verse / bridge

verse

The intro riff secret: B and e strings stay at fret 3 (notes D and G) for every chord. Only the bass strings move. This creates the shimmer and continuity — lock those top two fingers down and don't lift them. Verse chords are standard open shapes.

🖐 Fingerpicking Pattern · Per Bar (4/4)

	1	&	2	&	3	&	4	&
e · ring (r)						r		r
B · mid (m)		m		m			m
G · index (i)			i			i
D/A · thumb (T)	T				T

T = Thumb (root → 5th) i = Index · G string m = Middle · B string r = Ring · e string

This is a riff, not a generic pattern. Thumb alternates bass while fingers pick the melody notes above. The key is that the top two strings (B and e) ring continuously through every chord change — only your left hand's bass fingers move.

Intro / Outro feel

At ~60 BPM, every note has room to breathe. The space between notes is as important as the notes themselves. Don't fill it. Learn the exact riff sequence from the recording — there is only one right way to play this intro.

🎻 Warm-Up: Chord Tone Arpeggios

Ascending & descending 4-note arpeggios — one chord per bar. Play slowly with even tone before each practice session.

G · B · D

Em7

E · G · B · D

A7sus4

A · D · E

C · E · G

A · C · E

D · F# · A

🗺 Song Map

Intro Riff

Em7GA7sus4Em7GA7sus4G

(fingerpick riff, long — let it breathe)

Verse

CDAmGCDAm

So, so you think you can tell…

Outro

Em7GA7sus4Em7GA7sus4G

(return to riff, extended fade)

Full Structure

Intro (riff × 4) → Verse 1 → Verse 2 → Outro (riff fades)

Other Versions

Gilmour performed an acoustic solo version at the 2005 Live 8 reunion — just him, the riff, and 250,000 people in Hyde Park going quiet. Worth watching before you play this song for the first time.

📄 Lyrics

♫ Lyrics & Song — Apple Music Web

Apple Music shows synced lyrics as the song plays. Paste the full lyrics below for offline reference while practicing — saved automatically across sessions.

Speed 1.0×

Personal lyric notes — phrasing, breath marks, delivery:

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📖 Story Behind It

Written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour as a requiem for Syd Barrett — Pink Floyd's original frontman and the visionary who started it all. By 1975, Syd had suffered a complete mental breakdown and disappeared from public life. Waters wrote the album in a state of grief for someone who was still alive but essentially gone.

During the Wish You Were Here sessions at Abbey Road, Syd Barrett walked into the studio unannounced — head shaved, eyebrows gone, bloated from medication. No one recognized him at first. When they realized who it was, Gilmour reportedly broke down. Syd listened to playbacks, said 'Sounds a bit old,' and left. It was the last time most of the band saw him. He died in 2006.

Gilmour found the intro riff while picking a newly acquired 12-string in the Abbey Road control room. He recorded the acoustic part onto 24-track tape using a Martin D12-28 and Martin D-35, layered and panned for that wide shimmer. The song is the emotional center of an album that Roger Waters called 'an attempt to convey our feelings of absence, both for Syd and for ourselves.'

Your notes — personal connection to this song:

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🎯 Performance Notes

→Lock your ring and middle fingers on B and e strings at fret 3 before you play a single note. They don't move during the intro riff — only your bass fingers do. That's the whole trick.

→Em7 (022033) is the emotional home of the song. Let it ring fully. The bass note E on the open low string gives it that hollow, searching quality.

→A7sus4 (x02033) is the turn — it creates tension that wants to resolve back to Em7 or fall to G. Feel that pull before you move.

→The verse chords (C, D, Am, G) are standard open shapes, but don't abandon the fingerpick feel. The song never strums — it breathes.

→60 BPM feels slower than you think. Put on the recording and feel the space. This song is mostly silence with notes in it.

→Watch the Gilmour Live 8 solo performance (Hyde Park, 2005). He plays the riff alone for the first minute before singing a word. 250,000 people go completely quiet. That is what this song does — don't rush it.

Practice log:

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🎛️ Looping Notes

L1L1 — Intro riff loop: Record 4 bars of the Em→G→Em→A7sus4 fingerpick riff at 60bpm. Thumb alternates bass, fingers carry the riff. This is one of the most recognized guitar figures in rock — at this slow tempo the loop needs to breathe fully before you add anything.

L2L2 — Chord body layer: A second guitar pass with the C→D→Am→C strummed chords (the 'do you think you can tell' section). Slightly fuller than the intro riff layer — adds warmth and body.

L3L3 — Vocal melody or harmonica-style single note: The opening vocal line or a melodic counter above the chord.

L4Performance: Sing both verses over loops. At 60bpm you have real time to phrase each line — lean into every space. The song is about disconnection; let the pauses breathe.

L5Arrangement arc: Intro riff loop alone (8+ bars — the full radio-intro length, let the listener recognize it) → chord layer enters → vocal begins. No hurry.

L6HeadRush — sync note: At ≈60bpm, 4 bars ≈ 4.0s. Slow and easy to manage — you have time to watch your exit point. Standard 4/4 sync.

Looper session notes:

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📁 Practice & Performance Book · Michael Carlucci Added May 2026