By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Crystal Nuns Cathedral “Excited Ones” is a pretty repetitive song; there are a few main guitar parts driving the song forward, but it’s mostly the same main riff/chord progression throughout. Doug Gillard included a lot of variations on these main parts to keep it interesting, so this transcription focuses […]
Category: tab

Even Next
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof So many of Robert Pollard’s songs include a sampling of guitar arpeggio here or there, but there are some occasions where the arpeggio style comprises nearly the entire song. In “Even Next,” the majority of the guitar work is arpeggio, with some light chord strumming right […]

I’ve Owned You For Centuries
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Not In My Airforce “I’ve Owned You For Centuries” is deceivingly easy to play on guitar. There are a few spots where the guitar part sounds more complex than it really is, but this is due to either the bass guitar or Robert Pollard’s vocal melody adding different notes at […]

My Dog Surprise
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof As the legend goes, Robert Pollard conjured the song title “My Dog Surprise” after mishearing a lyric in Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love” (“I’ll soon be with you, my love/give you my dawn surprise“). I can’t help but wonder, then, if this is the reason for […]

Town Of Mirrors
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Kid Marine I wish more songs had been recorded like “Town Of Mirrors.” There’s a guitar hard-panned to the right channel, another hard-panned to the left channel, and vocals dead center. It just makes it so much easier to isolate the separate guitar parts for transcribing purposes. So in this […]

Too Strong For No One To See You
By: Ricked Wicky Appears on: King Heavy Metal The Ricked Wicky project delivered a slew of high octane rock, but at times it also offered up some tender moments, such as King Heavy Metal track “Too Strong For No One To See You.” This song features a gentle acoustic arpeggio during the verses, lightly strummed […]

I Wanna Be Your Man In The Moon
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Space City Kicks The main guitar riff of “I Wanna Be Your Man In The Moon” uses one of Robert Pollard’s most frequently used chord shapes along with a droning open string note. This riff is played throughout the song’s verses, and for the choruses, there’s some simple power chord […]

Slow Hamilton
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Coast To Coast Carpet Of Love When it comes to songwriting, Robert Pollard fears not running the gamut. He’s had a go at rock, pop, psych, punk, and just about everything in-between, including ballads. Today we’ll take a look at the guitar tablature for one of his truly beautiful compositions, […]

Lithuanian Bombshells
By: ESP Ohio Appears on: Starting Point Of The Royal Cyclopean “Lithuanian Bombshells” is definitely a top track from Starting Point Of The Royal Cyclopean for me, but it’s tough to not say that about most of the songs on this album. Robert Pollard’s songwriting is excellent throughout, and the playing by Doug Gillard, Mark […]

Moses On A Snail
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Moses On A Snail For the guitar parts in this transcription of “Moses On A Snail,” there is really only chord strumming. There are a couple of parts that you could maybe call “riffs,” but even those are chord-based. There is some lead guitar work going on during the Todd […]