The iconic Pink Floyd guitar sound that was created by accident in 1969: “Waste not, want not”
Like them or not, Pink Floyd were true innovators when it came to establishing a sound that would go on to define progressive and psychedelic rock for decades to come.
Even from the early days of the band, a time when they were led by the mercurial, yet unpredictable Syd Barrett, they were experimenting with sounds that felt alien and far more advanced than everything their contemporaries were offering, even if people weren’t fully on board with their adventurousness. Standalone singles showcased a flair for pop songwriting with a whimsical touch, while their two studio albums released in this period were far more freakish in their presentation.
Of course, after his departure, Roger Waters and David Gilmour would go on to write the vast majority of the band’s work, with their concoctions being a lot more defined and representative of a band with a singular vision.
Sprawling multi-part song structures and albums that flow together as one continuous piece were backed by blissed-out space rock, and this would become the modus operandi for the band throughout most of the 1970s as they rose in stature and became one of the most highly respected bands of the period. Although using the term ‘space rock’ isn’t exactly a categorisation the band themselves were always on board with, it did a better job of summing them up than most other descriptors.
This feeling of floating in the ether was frequently applied to their sound and was a defining characteristic of their work, especially on albums such as Meddle and The Dark Side of the Moon.
Richard Wright’s embrace of different synthesisers certainly helped, but it was the sounds that Gilmour used for his guitars that were perhaps the signature that made them, and Gilmour especially, so easily identifiable during the 1970s. However, when it came to the invention of such sounds, Gilmour admits that it was far from his intention to produce a signature sound, and that shortly after he had joined the band, a mistake led to him discovering that the wah pedal sound was the perfect fit.
Heard throughout their 1971 epic ‘Echoes’, which takes up the entirety of the second side of Meddle, this sound was discovered through “a serendipitous accident that happened in about 1969 or 1970,” Gilmour would later explain during a 2024 interview with Guitar Player.
“A roadie had plugged the wah in the wrong way, and I stomped into it and got this incredible screaming noise,” Gilmour recalled of the fortunate mistake. “You know what they say – waste not, want not.”
It was immediately evident that something had fallen into place, and while ‘Echoes’ may be the first true example of it appearing on record, their expansive live performances in the couple of years prior were awash with this newly coined sound.
He may not have known that was what they needed, but it’s exactly what they got when he realised this mistake was potentially going to drive them in a direction that could change their sound and their career fortunes, forever.
