By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Nowhere To Go But Up I talk a lot on this site about Robert Pollard’s compositions that use non-standard chord voicings. Typically these are made up of common chord shapes being taken from their usual frets on the guitar neck and transposed to different strings or fret positions. But […]
Tag: Guided By Voices
The Race Is On, The King Is Dead
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Nowhere To Go But Up In my opinion, there was no better choice to open the Nowhere To Go But Up album than the song “The Race Is On, The King Is Dead.” From the opening guitar riff that repeats throughout the song to its majestic descending chord ending, […]
We’re Going The Wrong Way In
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Nowhere To Go But Up To play “We’re Going The Wrong Way In” on guitar, we’ll use a combination of arpeggios and chord strumming, with some of the chords being Robert Pollard’s typical floated D shapes. You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. […]
Stabbing At Fractions
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Nowhere To Go But Up “Stabbing At Fractions” is a pretty straightforward rock song that uses mostly strummed power chords for the guitar parts, though Robert Pollard also incorporates one of his favorite guitar techniques that I call “dropping the bass.” This move consists of removing the fretting finger […]
Don’t Blow Your Dream Job
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Welshpool Frillies I often tend to think that “Don’t Blow Your Dream Job” is longer than it actually is; at just over three and a half minutes, it’s the third longest on Welshpool Frillies, beaten out by “Rust Belt Boogie” and (just barely) by album opener “Meet The Star.” […]
White Flag
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: The Bears For Lunch Even as short as it is, the majority of “White Flag” is instrumental, with vocals taking up only about thirty seconds’ worth of the song’s total running time of two minutes and fifteen seconds. Robert Pollard’s rolling guitar arpeggios and Greg Demos’ high-register bass guitar […]
Black And White Eyes In A Prism
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: It’s Not Them. It Couldn’t Be Them. It Is Them! With all the albums the current (as of this writing) lineup of Guided By Voices has been releasing, it can sometimes be easy to overlook stand-out tracks such as “Black And White Eyes In A Prism.” If you’ve forgotten […]
Knock ‘Em Flyin’
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Mag Earwhig!, Tonics & Twisted Chasers “Knock ‘Em Flyin’” was one of the Mag Earwhig! tunes that was recorded prior to the Cobra Verde lineup joining forces with Guided By Voices (and also previously recorded for the Tonics & Twisted Chasers album). In fact, Robert Pollard is credited as […]
Males Of Wormwood Mars
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Cool Planet “Males Of Wormwood Mars” incorporates a “quiet verse/loud chorus” dynamic (although I’m not sure if the loud part is technically the “chorus”) with a very Robert Pollard riff in the verses. There are some other sections that I’m also not sure how to label…multiple bridges, maybe? You […]
Dusted
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Vampire On Titus, Fast Japanese Spin Cycle “Dusted” is played using a few simple guitar chord shapes that contain fretted notes on the lowest three strings, but the addition of the open third and second strings make for some unique chord voicings. This transcription is for the version heard […]
