Wish You Were Here Guitar Lesson Videos – Pink Floyd

By Carl Brown | September 23, 2013 |


In this Wish You Were Here guitar lesson we are gonna break down all of the classic guitar parts performed by David Gilmour on this classic Pink Floyd song.

Wish You Were Here is widely considered one of the greatest acoustic classic rock songs of all time and with good reason. It starts off with an instantly identifiable guitar riff originally played on a 12-string acoustic guitar recorded to sound like it is being played through a cheap car stereo.

From there Wish You Were Here develops into a song containing arpeggiated picking, chord strums, and a bunch of acoustic guitar soloing.

In this Wish You Were Here guitar lesson I will show you not only the intro solo, but also the pedal steel guitar solo heard later in the tune. However, I will arrange this solo so you can play it just fine on a standard tuned acoustic guitar.

I will also tackle all the soloing David Gilmour does towards the end of the song while he is scat singing.

Overall, I think learning this classic Pink Floyd song will really help develop those acoustic soloing chops. It will certainly gets those calluses in shape.

Have fun guys! Carl..

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Wish You Were Here Guitar Lesson - Intro & Chords

Wish You Were Here Guitar Lesson - Intro Solo

Wish You Were Here Guitar Lesson - Main Solo

Wish You Were Here Guitar Lesson - Outro Solo

Posted in Intermediate Guitar Lessons, Song Lessons and tagged , , , ,

25 Comments

  1. tweedguitar on September 29, 2013 at 10:32 pm

    Thanks Carl,
    It’s great to learn this song properly…
    Love David Gilmour…thankyou

  2. Agustín on October 10, 2013 at 7:04 am

    Thanks Carl, awesome your classes. I been try to play the main solo, but it’s to difficult to me. Can you do it?
    Thanks a lot.

    • Carl Brown on October 12, 2013 at 1:54 pm

      Hey Agustin, sorry for the delay in posting the main solo and outro solo. Videos for both of those solos will go live probably tomorrow and Monday. 🙂

      Carl…

  3. Mark Werheim on October 13, 2013 at 6:08 pm

    Carl.
    I play this song on my new Martin. It sounds beautiful. Thanks for the great instruction.
    Your humble student,
    Mark

  4. jayant on December 2, 2013 at 9:06 pm

    your tut very helpful…thnks and ur Weekly Guitar Technique help me lot to improve my gears thnk thnk thnks lot ….

  5. Ahnika on December 4, 2013 at 5:07 pm

    Whats the strumming pattern for the first video?

  6. EpicNirvana on May 28, 2014 at 8:33 pm

    Help! In the beginning, the strumming of the first 4 strings, what is the pattern? Super confused…

  7. Joel on June 20, 2014 at 11:20 am

    Thank you! I love your lessons! I was wondering though, could you do a lesson for an acoustic version of “A letter to Elise” by the Cure? Thanks!

    • Carl Brown on June 20, 2014 at 5:11 pm

      Hmmm, haven’t heard that one. I will definitely check it out though. 🙂

      Carl..

  8. B on June 20, 2014 at 10:08 pm

    awesome video. Do you have tabs written for what you have in your videos?

    • Carl Brown on June 22, 2014 at 5:45 pm

      Sorry but I can’t provide TAB for most songs due to copyright restrictions.:(

      Carl.

  9. Michael on October 10, 2014 at 11:21 pm

    Carl could you please make a video fir the live suicide solution solo randy rhoads played?

    • Carl Brown on October 12, 2014 at 9:42 am

      I have been thinking of doing that one for a while. I will see if I can get it under my fingers again. 🙂

  10. Jim Normandin on January 25, 2015 at 9:33 pm

    awesome. just learned the first solo. great instruction. great song.

  11. Pushrod Jones on February 5, 2015 at 11:40 am

    Thanks Carl for your lessons..You have been a big help..I was missing parts of this song and you showed me here what I was doing wrong..thanks again

  12. Daniel Packman on March 28, 2015 at 8:10 pm

    I really appreciate all the work you put into these song and guitar lessons. I have only been playing for a little over a year and a three quarters, so this song is giving me good practice in soloing. There is a song by Bob Dylan called “In My Time Of Dying”, could you add this to you’re to do list?

  13. David Wright on April 28, 2015 at 12:55 pm

    Carl, your lessons are terrific. THANK YOU!

    I’ve been working my way through the Wish You Were Here set, and it’s incredibly helpful, and for the most part dead-on accurate. Having said that, I’ve been trying to play along with the acoustic concert version that David Gilmour recorded from the Royal Festival Theatre, and there are some differences in the main lead section and also in the outro. Any chance that you could post an update on these sections?

    BTW, your comments about “saying good-bye to your callouses” is right on! My fingers are killing me! But it is definitely worth it.

    • Carl Brown on April 29, 2015 at 10:04 am

      Haha, I know your pain David! Literally!

      Yeah, this lesson is for the original studio version. I don’t really do transcriptions of live versions of songs since they will usually do something different every single show and it would just confuse people.

      Try to play along with the original studio recording instead and it should be pretty accurate. 🙂

      • David Wright on April 29, 2015 at 4:50 pm

        Ok Carl. I understand. I’ll continue working with the studio version. I had a chance last night to play the intro & the verses on a very nice 12 string. I gotta get me one of those babies!

  14. Frederick Newman on May 6, 2015 at 7:11 am

    Hi,

    is it possible to have the strumming pattern for the chords ? Thank’s for this great lesson!

  15. Linda Fogarty on July 21, 2015 at 4:19 am

    Hi. I’m new and thank-you so much btw! I understand the strumming in the beginning but when the verse starts I am confused on the strumming pattern. I was wondering if you could list that? Also, I’ve seen this played with the D and the DSus chord ya know like a pull off then hammer on twice in the phrase, along with the Am alternating to the (can’t think of the name of the chord ) but you play it with the C note pull off hammer on twice as well. So sorry if I totally confused you. Just trying to get the lingo down and some of the chord names memorized. Thanks so much for everything. Linda

  16. Alex Richards on June 2, 2017 at 6:51 am

    Carl, I would like to see you do a lesson on Shine on you Crazy Diamond from Pink Floyd, the parts would be much appreciated.

    • Carl Brown on June 2, 2017 at 5:21 pm

      I have been thinking that would be one of my big projects for the month of June. Let’s hope it goes well. 🙂

  17. Rados on January 31, 2024 at 5:38 pm

    Hi Carl,

    These tutorials are awesome. Keep up with good work.

    Is there a chance of posting a tutorial for America’s “Ventura Highway” some time soon?

    Thanks

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