Pink Floyd, as we will see, are fond of preceding the new key of a song or section thereof with its dominant (or chord V). Unlikely as it may seem, this means of gravitiating to a new ‘place’ is already in evidence as the opening ‘B’ drone happens to be the dominant of the next keychord we hear…

BREATHE

E minor - A7 C - B minor - F - G - D7#9 - B/D#

Suffice to say, that opening sequence - E minor to A7 - is the true ‘daddy’ of sequences on Dark Side Of The Moon. It’s the album’s motif, as we’ll see. After being gloriously repeated more times than I’m willing to count, the hypnotic oscillation of E minor to A7 is only relieved by the second sequence ie. C - B minor - F - G - D7#9 - B/D#, which in contrast wanders unpredictably through a series of secondary dominants before resolving back on E minor. There’s another blissful repeat of the whole thing then the arrival of E minor for the last time marks the beginning of the next track….

ON THE RUN

Pink Floyd’s clear purpose here is to clear the palette, abandon convention and explore another mode of expression using non-pitch oriented sounds. Harmony is not an issue here. Tension and release is brought about by all manner of effects and events which clash and conflict with each other within the sound collage. And to resolve that …what else? But an explosion. Out of which, as the dust settles, we hear….

TIME

Introduction: E - F# minor
Gilmour’s verse: F# minor - A - E - F# minor
Wright’s verse: D - A - D - A - D - C# minor - B minor - E7
Wright’s verse (last time): D - A - D -A - D - C# minor - B minor - F/B

Tickety-tock-a, tickety-tock… CLANG, BANG, etc… After the last several minutes of non-pitch oriented music our ears have been well and truly diverted from any sense of keynote left dormant from earlier. What brings us back to the path? A single, bold E… And so, we take up from where we left off at the end of “Breathe”. Except things are certainly about to take a different turn.