Us And Them Guitar Lesson – Pink Floyd


Pink Floyd's legendary Dark Side of the Moon album gave us so many incredible musical moments that it would be impossible to list them all here. However, one of my personal favorites is the beautiful guitar intro for Us And Them.

In this Us And Them guitar lesson series we will take a note-for-note look and this mesmerizing guitar riff in all it's languid glory and tackle the rest of the song as well!

In the first lesson, I will show you the chord shapes that make up the entire riff. After we are done with that I will then break down the picking pattern which is actually quite simple and repetitive.

For any of you who visit GuitarLessons365 often, you undoubtedly know how much I love the playing of David Gilmour. Even though the music for Us And Them was written by the great Richard Wright, David Gilmour's treatment of this very unique chord progression really gives this track it's "trippy" feel.

On a technical level there isn't much to worry about with this Us And Them guitar riff. A couple of small barre chords is just about the only thing to worry about it. I think any upper beginner player and above could easily try to learn this riff lesson.

Try to learn it like I teach it in the video lesson. That is, by learning the individual chords first. Make sure you memorize those since they aren't very common and probably won't be chord forms you have played before.

After that, memorizing the picking patterns will become much easier since the notes will already be underneath your fingers. The riff is played throughout all the verses and most of the solos. David Gilmour simply continues to vary his picking now and then, but sticks with the same chords. I suggest not getting bogged down trying to play all those variations note-for-note. Just stick with those four chords and randomly come up with your own variations and it will sound great. That is what David Gilmour does anyway. He never plays it the same way twice!

In this second video lesson, I will demonstrate how to play chords in the chorus. Because there are so many guitar overdubs in this section, playing the chord voicings that make this part sound good on one guitar can be a bit of a challenge. There is one chord especially, a D/G that requires a very large stretch and barre with your little finger. But, it sounds great and is worth putting in the practice effort to get it down.

Also, in the second lesson I do a guitar arrangement and note-for-note breakdown of the saxophone solo played in the intro. It is such a cool and melodic solo, I thought it would be fun to play it on the guitar. I hope you agree!

If you guys want to learn the main sax solo that happens a little bit later in the song, just let me know. I would be willing to transcribe that one as well. 🙂

OK that is about it. I hope you enjoy relaxing to this amazing song.

Carl...

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Us And Them Guitar Lesson - Intro

Us And Them Guitar Lesson Pt.2 - Chords & First Sax Solo

5 Comments

  1. GEORG on January 11, 2015 at 6:52 pm

    Carl, I think it is wonderful that you are converting other instruments into guitar versions. That way you can more of a song on guitar and it also sounds more interesting. Imagine creating the Peanuts theme song (piano) on guitar. Also, Eddie van Halen is known as a great guitarist, but the songs I like most of from Van Halen have mostly keyboard sections in them. It would be nice to play these songs (Dreams, Jump, Right now and so on) on guitar.

    • Carl Brown on January 12, 2015 at 11:09 am

      I have done that for “Jump” before. If enough people want to learn that kind of stuff I will definitely put some on the site. 🙂

  2. Pedro de Azevedo on March 30, 2019 at 7:57 am

    Carl, do the main sax solo, PLEASE!

  3. John Goldsmith on October 14, 2019 at 8:56 am

    Hello Carl, please transpose the remainder of saxophone and if possible the piano part to guitar for Us and Them. This is reason I became a member. Thanks

  4. George kerr on November 15, 2021 at 4:43 pm

    Please finish the song

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