Echoes (Pink Floyd Song) - Composition

Composition

Each verse of the song follows a pattern of three strophes.

The composition uses many progressive and unconventional musical effects. The ping sound heard at the beginning of the song was created as the result of an experiment at the very beginning of the Meddle sessions. It was produced through amplifying a grand piano and sending the signal through a Leslie rotating speaker. The key at the beginning is C-sharp minor with the chorus in D-flat major. At seven minutes in, a funk progression in the tonic minor begins. David Gilmour used the slide for certain sound effects on the studio recording, and for the introduction in live performances from 1971-75. A throbbing wind-like sound is created by Roger Waters vibrating the strings of his bass guitar with a steel slide and feeding the signal through a Binson Echorec. The high-pitched electronic 'screams', resembling a distorted seagull song, were discovered by Gilmour when the cables were accidentally reversed to his wah pedal. After observing the song being created, Nick Mason, noted, "The guitar sound in the middle section of 'Echoes' was created inadvertently by David plugging in a wah-wah pedal back to front. Sometimes great effects are the results of this kind of pure serendipity, and we were always prepared to see if something might work on a track. The grounding we'd received from Ron Geesin in going beyond the manual had left its mark."

The "choral"-sounding segment in the middle of the song was created by placing two tape recorders in opposite corners of a room; the main chord tapes of the song were then fed into one recorder and played back while at the same time recording. The other recorder was then also set to play what was being recorded; this created a delay between both recordings, heavily influencing the structure of the chords while at the same time giving it a very "wet" and "echoey" feel. Harmonic "whistles" can be heard produced by Richard Wright pulling certain drawbars in and out on the Hammond organ. Rooks were added to the music from a tape archive recording (as had been done for some of the band's earlier songs, including "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun"). The second half of the song where Gilmour plays muted notes on the guitar over Wright's slowly building organ solo was inspired by The Beach Boys song "Good Vibrations". The song changes to 12/8 during the riff after the chorus, while most of the song is in 4/4, 6/8 and 6/4 time. Also, the "whale" section is in free time. The song concludes with an ascending (rising) Shepard-Risset glissando.