By: Guided By Voices Appears on: La La Land “Cousin Jackie” is one of Robert Pollard’s great “collage style” musical compositions, made up of different sections with various tempos that don’t sound like they should be able to form a cohesive whole. And yet, time and time again, this formula continues to work for him. […]
Tag: Guided By Voices
Released Into Dementia
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: La La Land To play “Released Into Dementia,” you pretty much only need one chord shape, and you’ll move it up and down on the guitar neck, leaving the open strings ringing out. This is a very common Robert Pollard guitar technique, and it never fails to result in […]
The Unsinkable Fats Domino
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Let’s Go Eat The Factory “The Unsinkable Fats Domino” hits hard with a simple yet killer riff during the verses—using a Robert Pollard guitar technique I call “dropping the bass”—and another Pollard signature technique I call “floating chord shapes” during the chorus. You need to be logged in to […]
The Ids Are Alright
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Universal Truths And Cycles “The Ids Are Alright” is a short acoustic ditty with some of Robert Pollard’s floated chord shapes and a simple but excellent riff in the intro. It’s almost a shame it’s not longer because it’s so fun to strum along to, but its length of […]
Run Wild
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Isolation Drills “Run Wild” features several key Robert Pollard guitar techniques. The verses use an arpeggio guitar phrase as the main riff, along with an open string drone note figure. In the choruses, Pollard uses floating chord shapes, which involve moving an open position chord shape to a different […]
Not Behind The Fighter Jet
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Mag Earwhig! “Not Behind The Fighter Jet” features a driving arpeggio guitar riff during the verses and some of Robert Pollard’s “floating chord shapes” in the choruses. With its verse-chorus-verse song structure and vocal harmonies, this is pure pop perfection. You need to be logged in to view the […]
Excited Ones
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Haircut Sphinx
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Mirrored Aztec “Haircut Sphinx” is a pretty simple song to play on guitar, as there are no unconventional chord shapes; we just have power chords using the root-fifth-root octave shape. After the tablature for the main parts of the song, I’ve also included Doug Gillard’s lead fills, so you’ll […]
