Is There Anybody Out There? - Music

Music

The first half of the piece has the same concept of "Hey You", being a distress call from Pink. The second half is instrumental. An interesting part of the song is the classical guitar solo, as it is not widely known who played it. In several interviews, David Gilmour said that he tried to perform it, and was not satisfied with the final result ("I could play it with a leather pick but couldn't play it properly fingerstyle"). Accordingly, session musician Ron Di Blasi was brought in by Michael Kamen to play with the rest of the orchestra. Gilmour also says that the song was composed by Bob Ezrin, with the understanding that Roger Waters would receive credit. The shrill siren-like sound effect used during this song is also used in an earlier Pink Floyd work, "Echoes". The noise was originally used as a sort of whale call for the deep-water-based "Echoes", and is created by Gilmour using a wah-wah pedal with the guitar's output going into the pedal. The guitarist in the song, Joe DiBlasi, is often referred to as "Ron DiBlasi" because Roger Waters only remembered that it was a three-letter name; Ron was the closest name he could remember to Joe when creating the record.