By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: Zero To 99 I think I would have really enjoyed being able to watch Chris Slusarenko working out the Boston Spaceships songs from Robert Pollard’s boombox demos. You can tell he really put a lot of time and effort into trying to emulate Pollard’s guitar playing style, and I think […]
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Mobility
By: Ricked Wicky Appears on: I Sell The Circus On “Mobility,” Robert Pollard uses just two very common chord shapes and then moves them up and down on the guitar neck. It’s a fairly simple song, but the dynamics between verse and chorus really make it fantastic. You need to be logged in to view […]
King Arthur The Red
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: The Bears For Lunch “King Arthur The Red” is an outstanding opening track, full of energy and bottom-heavy guitar tone (not to mention fantastic vocal harmonies). To help achieve this dense, low sound, we’ll use inverted guitar chords. You need to be logged in to view the rest of […]
West Coast Company Man
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: August By Cake On this site, I talk a lot about the chord shapes that Robert Pollard uses most frequently in his songwriting. He seems to have “go-to” shapes and other techniques (such as arpeggios), but the dominant 7th chord shape used during the verses in “West Coast Company […]
I’m A Strong Lion
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: From A Compound Eye Todd Tobias added a lot of fantastic keyboard embellishments to some of Robert Pollard’s songs on From A Compound Eye. While the songs sound great for his additions, it can sometimes make the guitar parts a little tough to distinguish in the mix (in some cases, […]
Rumbling Joker
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Waved Out For “Rumbling Joker,” you’ll want to make sure you’re comfortable playing barre guitar chords, where you use your index finger to hold down multiple strings across the same fret. And if you have a spare guitar amplifier with built-in reverb laying around that you don’t care much about, […]
Perfect This Time
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Hold On Hope [single] “Perfect This Time” was written for inclusion on the Do The Collapse album, but may well have been one of the poppier tunes that was eschewed at the behest of producer Ric Ocasek in lieu of one of the album’s proggier numbers. So it was […]
Love 1
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Universal Truths And Cycles For several of the songs on Universal Truths And Cycles, including “Love 1,” Robert Pollard uses a chord shape that is very common in his arsenal of guitar tricks. It’s the basic “power chord” shape that we typically play on either the sixth and fifth […]
I Touch Down
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Mirrored Aztec When I first listened to “I Touch Down,” I heard a lot of unique chord voicings and assumed Robert Pollard must have been using a slew of unconventional chord shapes to play this song. As I started to learn how to play it on guitar, however, I […]
The Town That’s After Me
By: Boston Spaceships Appears on: The Planets Are Blasted “The Town That’s After Me” is a fairly short song even by Robert Pollard’s standards, but it has a catchy melody, a fantastic ending hook, and it’s just a lot of fun to play on guitar. We’ll just be using some basic chords for this one, […]
