By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof “Dead Liquor Store” features two main guitar parts throughout most of the song: a rhythm guitar to strum the chords and a lead guitar to play the open string drone riffs. These riffs involve a fretted note on the second string with the open first string ringing […]
Tag: Open String Drone
Weakened By A Logical Mind
By: ESP Ohio Appears on: Starting Point Of The Royal Cyclopean “Weakened By A Logical Mind” was one of the first tracks from the lone ESP Ohio album, Starting Point Of The Royal Cyclopean, to really grab my attention, and still remains one of my all-time favorite Robert Pollard tunes. The chorus is so syrupy […]
Gold Star For Robot Boy
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Bee Thousand Yep, this one is a classic Guided By Voices tune. I only recently realized, however, that it was written in a classic Robert Pollard style as well. Instead of playing this song with traditional, conventional chords, Pollard uses his patented open string drone chords for the rhythm […]
Tom Tom Small And Wonderful
By: ESP Ohio Appears on: Starting Point Of The Royal Cyclopean A guitar technique Robert Pollard often uses in his compositions is one that I refer to on this site as Open String Drone. It’s a combination of a fretted note (or notes) on one or more strings and an adjacent string played open (without […]
Miss Hospital ’93
By: ESP Ohio Appears on: Starting Point Of The Royal Cyclopean For “Miss Hospital ’93,” Robert Pollard uses a combination of strummed chords, an arpeggio riff, and some open string drone rhythm fills to craft yet another perfect pop song. In this post, we’ll take a look at the guitar tablature for this tune. You […]
My Kind Of Soldier
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Earthquake Glue “My Kind Of Soldier” features two guitars playing different melodies using an open string drone technique; the G note on the open third string will ring throughout much of the song for both guitars. There are times when one guitar strums chords, so I’ll include those in […]
My Future In Barcelona
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Zeppelin Over China Robert Pollard stated in a recent interview that one of his favorite tracks from Zeppelin Over China is “My Future In Barcelona,” which is an opinion that’s easy to share. There’s a solid structure to the song, an extremely catchy chorus, and a majestic, triumphant ending. […]
Aim Correctly
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Guided By Voices/Cobra Verde (Split Single) It’s baffling how Robert Pollard can write such tremendous hit songs and then tuck them away into some obscure release where casual listeners might never even discover them. In 1997, Guided By Voices released a split single with Cobra Verde, and the tracks […]
Your Lights Are Out
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Zeppelin Over China On “Your Lights Are Out” from Zeppelin Over China, Robert Pollard uses a variety of guitar riffs, all based around open note drones (for the most part, the B on the open second string and the G on the open third string), along with some open […]
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 […]
