Xardie Wrote:

mabewa Wrote:After so many years of being a Floyd fan, I don't find too much stuff that I don't know anymore. But, a couple of tidbits from this article: according to Rick, Echoes was primarily his composition musically. Also, according to Peter Jenner, Rick "sorted out the harmonies and told everyone what to sing" on Piper. Both of these things make perfect sense, but it's the first time I've personally heard either one. [/align]

Personally I'm skeptical about Echoes part - I doubt he ment that literally. I mean large parts of Echoes doesn't sound at all Rick's style but very Gilmourish.

I guess he ment the "main" part, aka the verses and music in them.

Well, he specifically said "the whole piano thing at the beginning and the chord structure for the song is mine, so I had a large part in writing that."

I think what he means is that he composed the main structure of the song. Roger, of course, wrote the lyrics, and there are obviously sections that were taken from band jams, hence Dave and Nick get credit too. For example, the wind/seagull part in the middle was Roger's bass and David's guitar, so that part was probably written by Dave and Roger. The funky breakdown part really sounds like a band jam that all 4 members likely worked up together (this may well be where Nick's credit comes from). However, the chord progressions that underlie the bulk of the song are very Rick-ish, so I find it quite plausible that much of what you hear is the band's creative arrangement of music that Rick originally came up with. The melody also sounds more in Rick's style than Dave's to me.

That's one of the tricky things about composing credits: songs are very rarely written equally by more than one person: quite often, one person composed much of the piece, and others added some parts here and there. (for example, I have a feeling that Sheep was composed in this way: primarily Roger's composition, with some additions from Rick and perhaps Dave, particularly during the instrumental parts, but by that point Roger had gotten more stingy with songwriting credits!)

In other cases, one person wrote the music and another wrote lyrics: obviously, we have many examples of PF songs like CN, Us and Them, Wish You Were Here and Stay that were written in this way.

I get the feeling that if Echoes had been done as a shorter piece without all the jams, it would be credited to Wright/Waters, but by adding the jams and extending it to 23 minutes, it made room for Dave and Nick to contribute.

mabewa Wrote:

Xardie Wrote:

mabewa Wrote:After so many years of being a Floyd fan, I don't find too much stuff that I don't know anymore. But, a couple of tidbits from this article: according to Rick, Echoes was primarily his composition musically. Also, according to Peter Jenner, Rick "sorted out the harmonies and told everyone what to sing" on Piper. Both of these things make perfect sense, but it's the first time I've personally heard either one. [/align]

Personally I'm skeptical about Echoes part - I doubt he ment that literally. I mean large parts of Echoes doesn't sound at all Rick's style but very Gilmourish.

I guess he ment the "main" part, aka the verses and music in them.

Well, he specifically said "the whole piano thing at the beginning and the chord structure for the song is mine, so I had a large part in writing that."

I think what he means is that he composed the main structure of the song. Roger, of course, wrote the lyrics, and there are obviously sections that were taken from band jams, hence Dave and Nick get credit too. For example, the wind/seagull part in the middle was Roger's bass and David's guitar, so that part was probably written by Dave and Roger. The funky breakdown part really sounds like a band jam that all 4 members likely worked up together (this may well be where Nick's credit comes from). However, the chord progressions that underlie the bulk of the song are very Rick-ish, so I find it quite plausible that much of what you hear is the band's creative arrangement of music that Rick originally came up with. The melody also sounds more in Rick's style than Dave's to me.

That's one of the tricky things about composing credits: songs are very rarely written equally by more than one person: quite often, one person composed much of the piece, and others added some parts here and there. (for example, I have a feeling that Sheep was composed in this way: primarily Roger's composition, with some additions from Rick and perhaps Dave, particularly during the instrumental parts, but by that point Roger had gotten more stingy with songwriting credits!)

In other cases, one person wrote the music and another wrote lyrics: obviously, we have many examples of PF songs like CN, Us and Them, Wish You Were Here and Stay that were written in this way.

I get the feeling that if Echoes had been done as a shorter piece without all the jams, it would be credited to Wright/Waters, but by adding the jams and extending it to 23 minutes, it made room for Dave and Nick to contribute.

Musically Waters only had to do with "scary sounds" part of the song.

The band "jam" part is all David; it's his riff and the "solos" over it are totally structured and by David and Rick respectively. It isn't jam at all.

Then there's the buildup lick (which David "took" from Good Vibrations in fact!), the blistering riff following it (another David composition, reminiscent to other of his riffs such as Syd's Theme from SOYCD) etc.

Besides, the main "structure" thing doesn't make any sense as it was made up from many individual bits and ideas by band. Only structure I can come up with is the chord structure during the verses because it's only repeating motif on the whole thing