A session musician for the greats has revealed that the iconic clock sounds on Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ were actually made on a bass guitar.
Guy Pratt is a bassist who has played with some of the greatest bands and artists of all time. On his recent appearance on the ‘Scott’s Bass Lessons’ podcast, he unveiled a well-kept secret of Roger Walter’s bass playing.
During the interview, he casually mutes the bass guitar with one hand and plucks the bottom two strings with the other, creating the unforgettable ‘tick tock tick tock’ sound from the track ‘Time’ on Pink Floyd’s album ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’
“That’s why Roger was brilliant, for coming up with things that a bass player wouldn’t do, using the instrument not necessarily just in a technical way,” Pratt told hosts Scott Devine and Ian Martin Alliso.
Pratt also reveals the unusual method he undertook to get the timing of the notes right.
“With Floyd, I had to do it in time with this giant cartoon of a spinning clock and you have to be in time with the clock.”
‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year - the fact that we are still discovering tidbits and secrets about its songs illustrates how timeless the project is (and makes me wonder what else we don’t know about it!).
Guy Pratt joined Pink Floyd once Waters left in 1984. During live shows he would play bass and perform some of the vocals on songs like ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2', ‘Us and Them’, and ‘Comfortably Numb’. He also married Gaia Wright, the daughter of the band’s keyboardist Richard Wright.
As mentioned before, Pratt has plucked the bass guitar for many of the greatest musicians of all time. His CV includes playing alongside Michael Jackson, The Smiths, Iggy Pop, Roxy Music, Madonna, and more.
