By: Ricked Wicky Appears on: I Sell The Circus With its gentle acoustic guitar pluckings and lyrics referencing the moon, stars, and a pillow, you might consider “Cow Headed Moon” to be Robert Pollard’s version of a lullaby; then again, it’s hard to imagine anyone falling asleep to this beautiful piece of music. You need […]
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A Real Stab
By: Ricked Wicky Appears on: I Sell The Circus “A Real Stab” features some really fun guitar work. For the verses, Robert Pollard and guitarist Nick Mitchell combine palm-muted notes and staccato chord phrasing for a “stabbing” effect. The verse chords themselves should feel familiar if you’ve learned some of the other songs on this […]
Everything’s Thrilling
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Zeppelin Over China On “Everything’s Thrilling,” Robert Pollard is once again up to his old tricks. This song is based on an open D note drone and a lot of the same chords he typically uses with this drone technique: D, G/D, and Cadd2. When you consider how many […]
Why Did You Land?
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: The Official Ironmen Rally Song One of Robert Pollard’s most often used songwriting guitar techniques involves fretting a note on one string and allowing an open string either above or below it to ring out with it. For example, in “Why Did You Land?” he uses this technique with […]
Tourist UFO
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard When Robert Pollard prepared his demos for the Boston Spaceships album Let It Beard, he recorded his vocals and guitar on his boombox, then spliced sections of songs together to form a full composition. With this method in mind, I’m wondering if he ever had to actually learn […]
Dancing Girls And Dancing Men
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: From a Compound Eye Learning how to play “Dancing Girls And Dancing Men” on guitar had me pretty stumped for a while; with the prominent (and very bouncy) bassline, drums, and keyboards, it doesn’t seem like a particularly guitar-driven song. Especially with the Todd Tobias-produced Robert Pollard songs, I often […]
Far-Out Crops
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Kid Marine On “Far-Out Crops” from Kid Marine, Robert Pollard uses a songwriting technique of repeating the same guitar riff while changing the chords that are played along with it. You’ll see this happen on two different riffs in this song. The riffs will appear in the guitar tab, and […]
Sleep Over Jack
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Half Smiles of the Decomposed I’ve mentioned at least a few times on this website that I’d love to be able to hear all of Robert Pollard’s demos, and “Sleep Over Jack” is one in particular that I always thought would be interesting to hear. As I learned how to […]
Thimble Society
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof “Thimble Society” from the 2019 Guided By Voices album Warp And Woof is rock the way GBV does best: short, riff-driven, and with a catchy melody. In this post, we’ll take a look at the guitar tab and chords for this magnificent composition. You need to be logged in […]
Earmarked For Collision
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Let It Beard “Earmarked For Collision,” from the Boston Spaceships masterpiece of a double album, Let It Beard, is all about nuance. Robert Pollard uses a couple of his trusty guitar techniques to craft a song with many parts that are very similar to one another, but with subtle differences. For […]
