Understanding Pink Floyd's "Money"

On the riff, some people are commenting that there's no A before the D, so I figured I should clarify: I'm fairly certain there is, but the MIDI example does overemphasize it. It's a ghost note, created through a muted pull-off from the B to an open-string A, and it fluctuates in presence so it's not always there, but I'd say most statements of the riff include it to some degree, and to my ears it feels incomplete without it. (If you're curious what it sounds like, I isolated an example of it over on twitter: twitter.com/12tonevideos/status/109283367019963187… ) It's hard to do really subtle notes in MIDI, though, so the version I played makes it sound like a full note and that's not entirely accurate either. Sorry about that!

First song I learned to play on the cash register

One of these days Ima gonna undersrand what you are sayin

Love this. The only song that both my mom and my kid said to me, 30 years apart, at the beginning with the cash register and coins "Turn down that noise!" :)

"I'M ALRIGHT JACK KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY STACK!!!"

Holy crap that six beat version of the bass line just made me SO UNCOMFORTABLE. I feel like I need to go take a prog shower.

Understanding Pink Floyd's "Echoes" ? ^^

(edit, when I posted this, I got the order of things slightly backwards, the first part is double tracked and the third part is ADTd.) Another interesting detail about the solo: The first section uses an auto-doubling effect to make it sound like the guitar was double tracked, which contributes to it sounding so big, and also gives a mono-recorded guitar a stereo sound. The auto-doubling is taken away during the second section, making the guitar sound small, and more notably, you only hear it coming from the left speaker. Then, for the third part of the solo, instead of bringing back the auto-doubling, the guitar is actually double tracked for real. So, it goes back to being in stereo, but now there's tiny discrepancies between the two performances. So even though the dynamic is loud-quiet-loud, there's still a different feel to the first and third sections of the solo.

My favorite song by this band, and I've got a theory on the placement of the "turnaround." As you mentioned the bassline is in constant falling motion, but it also RISES as you go up to the F# (and walk/fall back down) and up to the E (and walk/fall back down) so it almost gives a feeling like Sisyphus, rolling the boulder up the hill over and over again only to have it fall back down every time. At the very highest point (the measure of E toward the end) they walk alllll the wayyyyy back down. That makes the last 2 measures of B feel almost like a pickup into the next section (and if you listen to the drums they do a huge extended fill over these 2 measures back into the "crashy" section). To me it feels like we're seeing someone progress through futile attempts at chasing money, you can get close, even achieve the apex, but it all comes falling back down and you get ready to start the humble blues progression all over again.

One thing you didn't mention is that the use of 7/4 is kinda feels like a reference to how weeks have 7 days, and for someone who is working relentlessly, that... never really feels long enough.

Another tide bit about the money loop in the beginning. Roger Waters created the tape loop for the intro in his wife’s pottery studio using a Revox A77 Tape Recorder. He recorded various samples, including coins clinking, paper tearing and a ringing cash register, then cut up the tape into seven sections of equal length. By hand cutting and splicing these pieces together then wrapping the loop around the room, Waters created the infamous metronomic sequence that introduces the track and is known as one of the most innovative uses of tape loops.

I listen to this song on repeat in the car some days.

Since I haven't seen anyone else mention it.......... The earliest example of what I think fits your criteria for an organic loop has got to be Manfred Mann's song "Machines" from 1966. It's structured much like Money, with industrial sounds being looped in a rhythm before a bassline (and bit of organ) come in to match that rhythm, though it's in 4/4. It's really quite a brilliant song and way ahead of its time in that regard.

The internet has the ability to bring to the surface some great teachers... Thanks for the lesson.

Sick video. This is the first one I've seen, and it's always been a favorite of mine, as a bass player and a Floyd head. Keep up the great work, it is great for people like me just coming into proper 'music theory' to get cool little lessons like this and see how everything fits together after I've just been playing by ear for two decades

I can't the only one who thinks this is one of the greatest songs of all time, its so badass

I got a record player for christmas and pilfered my dad’s copy of Dark Side. Can I just say, holy f**k! Money is one of the first Floyd songs I remember hearing. I love your videos, please don’t ever stop making them.

This is the one I've been waiting for since finding your channel. THANK YOU!

that format is amazingly entertaining an informing. i'm happy to have found you

"I'M ALRIGHT JACK KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY STACK!!!" Love to see you analyzing a song built around the bassline for a change.