How he thinks

Gilmour composes solos the way a singer writes a melody — he famously sings phrases before he plays them. If you can hum it, it belongs. If you can’t, it goes.

He targets chord tones on the strong beats, approaches them with bends rather than runs, and treats the space between phrases as part of the line. Count the rests in the Time solo — there are more rests than notes in the first eight bars.

This chapter walks you through his three thinking habits: sing first, bend into the target, and let it breathe.