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Echoes (Pink Floyd song)
Encyclopedia
"Echoes" is a song by Pink Floyd
including lengthy instrumental passages, sound effects, and musical improvisation
. Written in 1970 by all four members of the group (credited as Roger Waters
, Richard Wright
, Nick Mason
, David Gilmour
on the original release), "Echoes" provides the extended finale to Pink Floyd's album Meddle
. The track has a running time of 23:31 and takes up the entire second side of the vinyl recording.
It also appears in shortened form as the fifth track on the compilation album which took its name, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
. "Echoes" is the third-longest song in Pink Floyd's catalogue, after "Atom Heart Mother
" (23:44) and the combined segments of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond
" (26:01). Unlike those pieces, it is not explicitly divided into separate parts; however, the composition was originally assembled from separate fragments, and was later split in two parts to serve as both the opening and closing numbers in the band's film Live at Pompeii
.
s.
The composition uses many progressive and unconventional musical effects. The ping sound heard at the beginning of the song was created as the result of an experiment at the very beginning of the Meddle sessions. It was produced through amplifying a grand piano and sending the signal through a Leslie rotating speaker
. The key at the beginning is C-sharp minor with the chorus in D-flat major. At six minutes in, a funk progression in the tonic minor begins. Gilmour used the slide for certain sound effects on the studio recording, and for the introduction in live performances from 1971 to 1975. A throbbing wind-like sound is created by Waters vibrating the strings of his bass guitar with a steel slide and feeding the signal through a Binson Echorec
. The high-pitched electronic 'screams', resembling a distorted seagull song, were discovered by Gilmour when the cables were accidentally reversed to his wah pedal. After observing the song being created, Nick Mason, noted, "The guitar sound in the middle section of 'Echoes' was created inadvertently by David plugging in a wah-wah pedal back to front. Sometimes great effects are the results of this kind of pure serendipity, and we were always prepared to see if something might work on a track. The grounding we'd received from Ron Geesin
in going beyond the manual had left its mark."
The "choral"-sounding segment in the middle of the song was created by placing two tape recorders in opposite corners of a room; the main chord tapes of the song were then fed into one recorder and played back while at the same time recording. The other recorder was then also set to play what was being recorded; this created a delay
between both recordings, heavily influencing the structure of the chords while at the same time giving it a very "wet" and "echoey" feel. Harmonic "whistles" can be heard produced by Wright pulling certain drawbars in and out on the Hammond organ. Rooks
were added to the music from a tape archive recording (as had been done for some of the band's earlier songs, including "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
"). The second half of the song where Gilmour plays muted notes on the guitar over Wright's slowly building organ solo was inspired by the Beach Boys song "Good Vibrations
". The song changes to 12/8 during the riff after the chorus, while most of the song is in 4/4, 6/8 and 6/4 time. Also, the "whale" section is in free time. The song concludes with a rising Shepard-Risset glissando
.
During this stage of its development, the song's first verse had yet to be finalized. It originally referred to the meeting of two celestial bodies, but perhaps because of Waters' increasing concerns that Pink Floyd was being pigeon-holed as a space rock
band, the lyrics were rewritten to use underwater imagery instead.
The title "Echoes" was also subjected to significant revisions before and after the release of Meddle: Waters, a devoted football fan, proposed that the band call its new piece "We Won the Double" in celebration of Arsenal
's 1971 victory, and during a 1972 tour of Germany he jovially introduced it on two consecutive nights as "Looking Through the Knothole in Granny's Wooden Leg" (a reference to The Goon Show
; the phrase appeared in an episode titled "The £50 Cure") and "The March of the Dam Busters
", respectively.
version was split in two halves. The 1974 and 1975 performances featured backing vocals by Vanetta Fields and Carlena Williams and saxophone solos by Dick Parry
instead of the guitar solos in the 1971–73 performances (apart from the first show of the US 1975 tour where Gilmour does the first middle solo then gives way to Parry's sax).
It was performed eleven times on the band's 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason
world tour but now the vocal harmonies were swapped to have Wright singing Gilmour's original lower part and Gilmour singing Wright's original high parts. The band dropped it after eleven shows as they were not happy with the performances. Also of note, Wright used synthesizers instead of the Farfisa
organ.
David Gilmour would resurrect the song on his 2006 On an Island
tour with Gilmour and Wright singing the low parts and Jon Carin
singing the higher parts. Wright would bring the Farfisa out of retirement just for this song for the tour. These performances appear on Gilmour's Remember That Night
DVD and Live in Gdańsk
album.
effect, some listeners suggested that "Echoes" synchronizes with Stanley Kubrick
's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey
when played concurrently with the final segment (titled "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite").
"Echoes" was released three years after the film's production and is 23 minutes and 31 seconds in length, quite similar to the "Infinite" segment. Sound effects in the middle section of the song suggest to some listeners the feeling of travelling through, or flying over, an alien world. The drone vocalizations heard in the final scenes of 2001 seem to match with the discordant bass vibrations in the middle of "Echoes" as well as the choral glissandos of its finale. Some argue that there are moments when the song and film soundtrack are nearly indistinguishable. Another notable link occurs during a change in scene at precisely the moment when guitar and keyboards crescendo as the lyrics re-enter for the final verse. The early lyrics contain references to planets, which seems entirely suitable for the film's depiction of Jupiter and its moons. Adrian Maben re-created this marriage of music and image in his director's cut of Live at Pompeii
using CGI
.
The members of the band always denied that the synchronization was intentional. Furthermore, the technology to play back film in a recording studio circa 1971 would have been expensive and difficult for the band to acquire. However, the band had experience with creating film soundtracks by that point, having created the soundtrack to the French art house film More in 1969. Roger Waters is sometimes quoted as saying that the band's failure to contribute music to 2001s official score was his "greatest regret".
The 1973 George Greenough
film Crystal Voyager concludes with a 23-minute segment in which the full version of "Echoes" accompanies a montage of images shot by Greenough from a camera mounted on his back while surfing on his kneeboard.
, Waters claimed that Andrew Lloyd Webber
had plagiarized the refrain ("riff") from Echoes for sections of the musical
The Phantom of the Opera
; nevertheless, he decided not to file a lawsuit regarding the matter.
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
including lengthy instrumental passages, sound effects, and musical improvisation
Musical improvisation
Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians...
. Written in 1970 by all four members of the group (credited as Roger Waters
Roger Waters
George Roger Waters is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter...
, Richard Wright
Richard Wright (musician)
Richard William Wright was an English pianist, keyboardist and songwriter, best known for his career with Pink Floyd. Wright's richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd's sound...
, Nick Mason
Nick Mason
Nicholas Berkeley "Nick" Mason is an English drummer and songwriter, best known for his work with Pink Floyd. He was the only constant member of the band since its formation in 1965...
, David Gilmour
David Gilmour
David Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...
on the original release), "Echoes" provides the extended finale to Pink Floyd's album Meddle
Meddle
Meddle is the sixth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. It was released in October 1971.The album was recorded at a series of locations around London, including Abbey Road Studios...
. The track has a running time of 23:31 and takes up the entire second side of the vinyl recording.
It also appears in shortened form as the fifth track on the compilation album which took its name, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd is a compilation album by Pink Floyd. It was released by EMI Records in the United Kingdom on 5 November 2001 and the following day in the United States through Capitol Records. It debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart on 24 November 2001, with sales...
. "Echoes" is the third-longest song in Pink Floyd's catalogue, after "Atom Heart Mother
Atom Heart Mother (suite)
"Atom Heart Mother" is a six-part suite by progressive rock band Pink Floyd, composed by all members of the band and Ron Geesin. It appeared on the Atom Heart Mother album in 1970, taking up the whole first side of the original vinyl record...
" (23:44) and the combined segments of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition written by Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour. The song is a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett, although it was not originally explicitly written with him in mind. It was first performed on their 1974 French...
" (26:01). Unlike those pieces, it is not explicitly divided into separate parts; however, the composition was originally assembled from separate fragments, and was later split in two parts to serve as both the opening and closing numbers in the band's film Live at Pompeii
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii is a 1972 film featuring Pink Floyd performing six songs in the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Pompeii, Italy. It was directed by Adrian Maben and recorded in the month of October using studio-quality 24-track recorders without a live audience.The performances of...
.
Composition
Each verse of the song follows a pattern of three stropheStrophe
A strophe forms the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. In its original Greek setting, "strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind of stanza framed only for the music," as John Milton wrote in the preface to Samson Agonistes, with the strophe...
s.
The composition uses many progressive and unconventional musical effects. The ping sound heard at the beginning of the song was created as the result of an experiment at the very beginning of the Meddle sessions. It was produced through amplifying a grand piano and sending the signal through a Leslie rotating speaker
Leslie speaker
The Leslie speaker is a specially constructed amplifier/loudspeaker used to create special audio effects using the Doppler effect. Named after its inventor, Donald Leslie, it is particularly associated with the Hammond organ but is used with a variety of instruments as well as vocals. The...
. The key at the beginning is C-sharp minor with the chorus in D-flat major. At six minutes in, a funk progression in the tonic minor begins. Gilmour used the slide for certain sound effects on the studio recording, and for the introduction in live performances from 1971 to 1975. A throbbing wind-like sound is created by Waters vibrating the strings of his bass guitar with a steel slide and feeding the signal through a Binson Echorec
Binson
Binson was an early manufacturer of echo machines. Unlike most other analog echo machines, they used an analog magnetic drum recorder instead of a tape loop. Their most famous product was the Binson Echorec....
. The high-pitched electronic 'screams', resembling a distorted seagull song, were discovered by Gilmour when the cables were accidentally reversed to his wah pedal. After observing the song being created, Nick Mason, noted, "The guitar sound in the middle section of 'Echoes' was created inadvertently by David plugging in a wah-wah pedal back to front. Sometimes great effects are the results of this kind of pure serendipity, and we were always prepared to see if something might work on a track. The grounding we'd received from Ron Geesin
Ron Geesin
Ronald 'Ron' Geesin is a British musician and composer, noted for his quirky creations and novel applications of sound. He is probably best known as the orchestrator and organizer of Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" in 1970, after the band found themselves hopelessly deadlocked over how to...
in going beyond the manual had left its mark."
Delay (audio effect)
Delay is an audio effect which records an input signal to an audio storage medium, and then plays it back after a period of time. The delayed signal may either be played back multiple times, or played back into the recording again, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo.-Early delay...
between both recordings, heavily influencing the structure of the chords while at the same time giving it a very "wet" and "echoey" feel. Harmonic "whistles" can be heard produced by Wright pulling certain drawbars in and out on the Hammond organ. Rooks
Rook (bird)
The Rook is a member of the Corvidae family in the passerine order of birds. Named by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, the species name frugilegus is Latin for "food-gathering"....
were added to the music from a tape archive recording (as had been done for some of the band's earlier songs, including "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
"Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" is a song by British rock band Pink Floyd and is featured on their second album A Saucerful of Secrets . It was written by Roger Waters and features a drum part by Nick Mason played with timpani mallets...
"). The second half of the song where Gilmour plays muted notes on the guitar over Wright's slowly building organ solo was inspired by the Beach Boys song "Good Vibrations
Good Vibrations
"Good Vibrations" is a song by American rock band The Beach Boys. Composed and produced by Brian Wilson, the song's lyrics were written by Wilson and Mike Love....
". The song changes to 12/8 during the riff after the chorus, while most of the song is in 4/4, 6/8 and 6/4 time. Also, the "whale" section is in free time. The song concludes with a rising Shepard-Risset glissando
Shepard tone
A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upward or downward, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually...
.
Early versions
The piece had its genesis in a collection of musical experiments written separately by each band member, referred to as "Nothing, Parts 1–24". Subsequent tapes of work in progress were labelled "The Son of Nothing" and "The Return of the Son of Nothing"; the latter title was eventually used to introduce the as-yet unreleased work during its first live performances in early 1971.During this stage of its development, the song's first verse had yet to be finalized. It originally referred to the meeting of two celestial bodies, but perhaps because of Waters' increasing concerns that Pink Floyd was being pigeon-holed as a space rock
Space rock
Space rock is a subgenre of rock music; the term originally referred to a group of early, mostly British, 1970s progressive and psychedelic rock bands such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, characterised by slow, lengthy instrumental passages dominated by electric organs, synthesizers, experimental...
band, the lyrics were rewritten to use underwater imagery instead.
The title "Echoes" was also subjected to significant revisions before and after the release of Meddle: Waters, a devoted football fan, proposed that the band call its new piece "We Won the Double" in celebration of Arsenal
Arsenal F.C.
Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...
's 1971 victory, and during a 1972 tour of Germany he jovially introduced it on two consecutive nights as "Looking Through the Knothole in Granny's Wooden Leg" (a reference to The Goon Show
The Goon Show
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
; the phrase appeared in an episode titled "The £50 Cure") and "The March of the Dam Busters
The Dam Busters (film)
The Dam Busters is a 1955 British Second World War war film starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd and directed by Michael Anderson. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany with Wallis's...
", respectively.
Live performances
The song was a concert staple for the band between 1971 and 1975. The Live at PompeiiPink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii is a 1972 film featuring Pink Floyd performing six songs in the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Pompeii, Italy. It was directed by Adrian Maben and recorded in the month of October using studio-quality 24-track recorders without a live audience.The performances of...
version was split in two halves. The 1974 and 1975 performances featured backing vocals by Vanetta Fields and Carlena Williams and saxophone solos by Dick Parry
Dick Parry
Richard 'Dick' Parry is an English saxophonist. He has appeared as a session musician on various albums by modern bands and artists, and is probably best known for his solo parts on the Pink Floyd songs "Money", "Us and Them", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and "Wearing the Inside Out"...
instead of the guitar solos in the 1971–73 performances (apart from the first show of the US 1975 tour where Gilmour does the first middle solo then gives way to Parry's sax).
It was performed eleven times on the band's 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason
A Momentary Lapse of Reason
A Momentary Lapse of Reason is the thirteenth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. It was released in the UK and US in September 1987. In 1985 guitarist David Gilmour began to assemble a group of musicians to work on his third solo album...
world tour but now the vocal harmonies were swapped to have Wright singing Gilmour's original lower part and Gilmour singing Wright's original high parts. The band dropped it after eleven shows as they were not happy with the performances. Also of note, Wright used synthesizers instead of the Farfisa
Farfisa
Farfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy.The Farfisa brand name is commonly associated with a series of compact electronic organs, and later, a series of multi-timbral synthesizers. At the height of its production, Farfisa operated three factories to produce instruments, in...
organ.
David Gilmour would resurrect the song on his 2006 On an Island
On an Island
On an Island is the third solo album by David Gilmour, best known as vocalist and lead guitarist for Pink Floyd. It was released in the UK on 6 March 2006, Gilmour's 60th birthday, and in the United States the following day. It was Gilmour's first new solo album in 22 years...
tour with Gilmour and Wright singing the low parts and Jon Carin
Jon Carin
Jon Carin is a producer, artist and musician best known for his association with Pink Floyd, and more specifically its guitarist David Gilmour and former member Roger Waters over the last twenty five years. In the early eighties, he gained fame as the front-man for the band Industry...
singing the higher parts. Wright would bring the Farfisa out of retirement just for this song for the tour. These performances appear on Gilmour's Remember That Night
Remember That Night
Remember That Night is a live concert recording of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour's solo concerts at the Royal Albert Hall on 29, 30 & 31 May 2006 as part of his On an Island tour. The title is taken from a line in the song "On an Island". It has been released on both DVD and Blu-ray formats...
DVD and Live in Gdańsk
Live in Gdansk
Live in Gdańsk is a live album by David Gilmour. It is a part of his On an Island project which includes an album, tour, DVD, and live album. It was released on 22 September 2008...
album.
Echoes and 2001: A Space Odyssey synchronization rumours
Similar to the Dark Side of the RainbowDark Side of the Rainbow
Dark Side of the Rainbow – also known as Dark Side of Oz or The Wizard of Floyd – refers to the pairing of the 1973 Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon with the visual portion of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. This produces moments where the film and the album appear to...
effect, some listeners suggested that "Echoes" synchronizes with Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
when played concurrently with the final segment (titled "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite").
"Echoes" was released three years after the film's production and is 23 minutes and 31 seconds in length, quite similar to the "Infinite" segment. Sound effects in the middle section of the song suggest to some listeners the feeling of travelling through, or flying over, an alien world. The drone vocalizations heard in the final scenes of 2001 seem to match with the discordant bass vibrations in the middle of "Echoes" as well as the choral glissandos of its finale. Some argue that there are moments when the song and film soundtrack are nearly indistinguishable. Another notable link occurs during a change in scene at precisely the moment when guitar and keyboards crescendo as the lyrics re-enter for the final verse. The early lyrics contain references to planets, which seems entirely suitable for the film's depiction of Jupiter and its moons. Adrian Maben re-created this marriage of music and image in his director's cut of Live at Pompeii
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii is a 1972 film featuring Pink Floyd performing six songs in the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Pompeii, Italy. It was directed by Adrian Maben and recorded in the month of October using studio-quality 24-track recorders without a live audience.The performances of...
using CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
.
The members of the band always denied that the synchronization was intentional. Furthermore, the technology to play back film in a recording studio circa 1971 would have been expensive and difficult for the band to acquire. However, the band had experience with creating film soundtracks by that point, having created the soundtrack to the French art house film More in 1969. Roger Waters is sometimes quoted as saying that the band's failure to contribute music to 2001s official score was his "greatest regret".
The 1973 George Greenough
George Greenough
George Greenough is an innovative surfer and cinematographer from Santa Barbara, California who now resides in Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia. He was born to a wealthy family but despised its trappings and spent most of his time in the ocean. Greenough is best known for creating the modern...
film Crystal Voyager concludes with a 23-minute segment in which the full version of "Echoes" accompanies a montage of images shot by Greenough from a camera mounted on his back while surfing on his kneeboard.
Alleged plagiarism
In interviews promoting Amused to DeathAmused to Death
Amused to Death is a concept album, and the third studio album by former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters. It was released in 1992.The album title was attached to material that Waters began working on during the Radio KAOS tour...
, Waters claimed that Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
had plagiarized the refrain ("riff") from Echoes for sections of the musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
; nevertheless, he decided not to file a lawsuit regarding the matter.
"Yeah, the beginning of that bloody Phantom songThe Phantom of the Opera (song)"The Phantom of the Opera" is a song from the stage musical of the same name, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, sung by Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford, lyrics written by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, and additional lyrics by Mike Batt...
is from Echoes. *DAAAA-da-da-da-da-da*. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. It's the same time signatureTime signatureThe time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
—-it's 12/8—-and it's the same structure and it's the same notes and it's the same everything. Bastard. It probably is actionable. It really is! But I think that life's too long to bother with suing Andrew fucking Lloyd Webber."
Personnel
- David GilmourDavid GilmourDavid Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...
– vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s, sound effectSound effectFor the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...
s - Richard WrightRichard Wright (musician)Richard William Wright was an English pianist, keyboardist and songwriter, best known for his career with Pink Floyd. Wright's richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd's sound...
– vocals, Hammond M-102 organ, Farfisa Combo Compact Duo organFarfisaFarfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy.The Farfisa brand name is commonly associated with a series of compact electronic organs, and later, a series of multi-timbral synthesizers. At the height of its production, Farfisa operated three factories to produce instruments, in...
, grand piano (through Leslie 145 speakerLeslie speakerThe Leslie speaker is a specially constructed amplifier/loudspeaker used to create special audio effects using the Doppler effect. Named after its inventor, Donald Leslie, it is particularly associated with the Hammond organ but is used with a variety of instruments as well as vocals. The...
), sound effects - Roger WatersRoger WatersGeorge Roger Waters is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter...
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, sound effects - Nick MasonNick MasonNicholas Berkeley "Nick" Mason is an English drummer and songwriter, best known for his work with Pink Floyd. He was the only constant member of the band since its formation in 1965...
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, sound effects