David Gilmour Solo Breakdown: Pink Floyd’s “Mother”

An expanded YouTube version of the Inside the Solo: Mother lesson, with improved animations and added context — a study in David Gilmour's phrasing over a I–IV–V progression, and how to get that vocal, singing quality into your own playing.

The companion PDF is available above, along with the backing track the exercises call for, in Boss and Ditto+ formats. Silver members can read the written lesson on this page too, ending with a backing track player that holds one G major pentatonic while the chord tone targets move with the chords.

Improvising over I-IV-V progressions

Improvising on the guitar can feel intimidating at first, but an easy and productive way to get started is by focusing on chord progressions made up of just three chords: the major I, IV, and V chords. These chords form the foundation of many classic rock songs, where entire solo sections are often played over these simple but powerful progressions.

Just glancing through the songbook for my weekly acoustic jam session, I found several songs that fit this category. “Bad Moon Rising” by CCR and “Dead Flowers” by The Rolling Stones use just D, G, and A (I, IV, V in D). “Mother” by Pink Floyd uses G, C, and D (I, IV, V in G).

The aim of this lesson is to get you feeling comfortable improvising over these simple chord progressions and to help you make your solos sound more melodic and connected to the chord progression rather than just running through scale shapes.

The good news is that these chords form simple geometric patterns on the fretboard, and we can easily relate them to pentatonic rectangle and stack patterns. By using this approach, you can anchor your solos around the familiar major pentatonic scale while easily locating chord tone targets for each chord.

I’ll limit this discussion to the major pentatonic scale for simplicity. This technique can be extended to use the minor pentatonic scale for a bluesier sound, but that adds some complexity that I’ll save for another lesson.

Nashville notation

In Nashville notation, we use the symbols I, IV, and V to refer to the triads built on the first, fourth, and fifth notes of a major scale. In a major key, these are all major chords, so they’re notated with uppercase Roman numerals. If we extended this to include other chords from the key, the triads based on the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th scale degrees are minor, so they appear in lowercase as ii, iii, and vi. The triad built on the 7th scale degree is diminished, so it gets a diminished symbol after it: vii°.

So, for example, if you’re in the key of C major, the I chord would be C, the IV chord would be F (because F is the fourth note of the C major scale), and the V chord would be G (because G is the fifth note). As mentioned, when based on the major scale, the I, IV, and V chords are always major triads.

It’s straightforward to extend this to all twelve major keys, as shown in the following table. In practice, you’ll only need to find the root of the I chord to improvise using this approach, so there’s no need to memorize the table except perhaps to please your music theory teacher.

I, IV, and V chords in all 12 keys

Finding roots on the fretboard

The roots of the I, IV, and V chords form simple geometric patterns on the fretboard, making them easy to find. These relationships are most useful for helping you find chord voicings for your rhythm parts.

The three root locations from a simple L shape on any two adjacent strings.

The only place this shape looks different is when it straddles the “warp.”

Similarly, the roots of the IV and V can be found on the string just below the root.

We can also think of these shapes as connecting together to form a bigger pattern.

With this pattern, notice that the IV is always on the same fret one string above the I, and the V is always one string below.

In everyday use, we will always reference everything relative to the root, and that will be the only note you’ll need to be able to find by name. So, if the song you’re playing is in the key of D, you’ll need to be able to find D notes all over the fretboard quickly.

When we fill in the locations of the IV and V roots, all of the patterns we just discussed are present. It’s worth spending a little bit of time studying this pattern to make sure you understand it, but there’s no need to memorize it.

Visualizing chord tone targets with the major pentatonic rectangle and stack

The rectangle and stack method represents the pentatonic scale as two simple geometric patterns that repeat across the fretboard. The major pentatonic scale consists of the root, major 2nd, major 3rd, perfect 5th, and major 6th (R-2-3-5-6).

The stack contains all five of these notes and is made up of three whole-step (2-fret) intervals on adjacent strings. The 2nd scale degree occurs twice—in the lower nut-side and upper bridge-side corners.

The rectangle contains four of the five notes from the major pentatonic scale and is made up of two minor third (3-fret) intervals on adjacent strings. The 2nd scale degree is missing, but it can be reached by bending the root in the upper bridge-side corner up a whole step.

Now, let’s consider the three chords of interest—I, IV, and V—and see how they relate to the rectangle and stack.

The I chord

The major pentatonic stack contains all three notes of the I chord, i.e., the major triad built on the first scale degree.

The note in the upper bridge-side corner can be bent up a full step to reach the major third one octave above the one in the lower bridge-side corner. This is one of the most common bends used when playing the major pentatonic scale because the third of the I chord is such a juicy target.

The major pentatonic rectangle also contains all three notes of the I chord.

The IV chord

Next, let’s look at the IV chord.

The third and fifth of the IV chord are in the major pentatonic scale, but the root (i.e., the fourth scale degree of the major scale) is not. However, it’s easy to find nearby, next to the lower bridge-side corner of the stack.

The root of the IV chord is found inside the major pentatonic rectangle, and it’s also worth noting that the third can also be reached by bending the note in the lower bridge-side corner. This is a great-sounding bend to use over the IV chord.

The V chord

The third of the V chord falls just outside the major pentatonic stack, and it can also be reached by bending the upper note on the middle string.

The third is found inside the major pentatonic rectangle, and although the fifth isn’t directly under your fingers, you can reach it by bending the note in the upper bridge-side corner.

How to put this into practice

If you’re just getting started improvising, you’ll need to keep things simple and build up complexity over time. So read through these guidelines, but don’t worry about doing everything all at once. For purposes of this lesson, we’re always going to play the major pentatonic scale that matches the key of the song, and we’ll only be considering chord progressions made entirely of I, IV, and V chords.

1. Know the chord progression inside and out. This is essential. Memorize the sequence of chords to the point where you can listen along to the recording or a backing track and always know where you are in the progression. To make use of the Nashville number system, you’ll need to know the key and which function each chord is playing: I, IV, or V.
2. Practice crafting phrases that start and end on chord tones. The most melodic solos emphasize chord tones. Emphasized notes are typically played longer than other notes, and the ones that stick most with the listener are the first and last notes emphasized in a phrase. Practice making short phrases that span two chords of the chord progression. Start with a chord tone from the first chord, make a phrase using the major pentatonic scale, and end on a chord tone from the second chord. You won’t want to do this all the time, but you should be able to do it on demand.
3. Limit yourself to a small neck region, like just one stack shape. Practice with a stack in one area of the neck until you feel like you can hit I, IV, and V chord tones on demand without thinking about it. Then switch to a different stack location. When that’s easy, try doing it with a rectangle. Only when individual rectangles and stacks are easy for you is it time to combine them into bigger patterns.
4. Roots are relatively boring targets, so use them sparingly. Your mileage may vary here, so experiment with this.
5. The thirds of chords determine the chord quality (major vs. minor), so emphasizing them emphasizes the harmony, which is usually a good thing. Practice targeting 3rds on every chord. Then practice targeting 5ths. When it comes time to improvise a full solo, mix things up.
6. Pay special attention to which new notes are introduced when the chord changes. This is challenging, but it’s worthwhile. It can be a nice effect to dwell on a note that’s shared between two sequential chords, but emphasizing the unique notes of each chord, especially the ones that fall outside of the pentatonic scale, is a great way to demonstrate to the listener that you really know the harmony.

Exercises: Pink Floyd’s “Mother”

The solo section of “Mother” by Pink Floyd is in the key of G and uses G, C, and D chords, corresponding to the I, IV, and V. To play rhythm guitar, you’ll want to memorize the sequence of chord names:

To improvise, you’ll also want to memorize the sequence of chord functions:

To improvise in the key of G, you’ll need to be able to find G notes on the fretboard:

Exercise 1: Pick one G major pentatonic stack location, and along with a backing track, practice playing only chord tones from each chord, using your knowledge of how they overlay on the stack.

Exercise 2: Do this again with another stack location.

Exercise 3: Again restricting yourself to one stack, practice making two-bar phrases that start from a chord tone of the I chord, move around the pentatonic scale, and end on a chord tone from the IV chord. This chord progression gives you three attempts at this before the V chord arrives.

Exercise 4: When you’re comfortable playing two-bar phrases that target chord tones, trying playing through the whole chord progression, making phrases of varying lengths and targeting a chord tone on each bar.

Exercise 5: Redo exercises 1-4 with rectangles in different locations on the fretboard. Don’t forget to practice the location where it straddles the “warp!”

Exercise 6: Practice creating phrases that go beyond one rectangle or stack. Connect them vertically to create the traditional five pentatonic forms, or move horizontally around the neck. The world’s your oyster!