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Pretty Bombs

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Universal Truths And Cycles “Pretty Bombs” is my favorite kind of Robert Pollard song to play on guitar. It moves around a lot from one part to another, and incorporates both strummed chords and arpeggio figures. I used to consider this to be a song that I would probably […]

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Hiking Skin

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: August By Cake On “Hiking Skin,” Robert Pollard uses some simple chord shapes and the often-employed “floating chord shapes” guitar technique of moving an open D major chord shape to different frets on the neck. You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please […]

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Aeriel

By: Robert Pollard And His Soft Rock Renegades Appears on: Choreographed Man Of War In my opinion, what sets “Aeriel” apart from most other Robert Pollard songs is its lengthy intro section; the song is 3:15 long, but the section with the vocals doesn’t even come in until after two minutes! In fact, the intro […]

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Universal Truths And Cycles

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Universal Truths And Cycles The title track from Universal Truths And Cycles features a Robert Pollard guitar technique that I call “Barre Four.” This consists of barring (pressing down multiple strings at once across the same fret) across four consecutive strings. In some cases (as with “Downer” or “My […]

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Volcano

By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Surrender Your Poppy Field Guided By Voices guitarist Doug Gillard spices up the “quiet verse/loud chorus” dynamic of “Volcano” with a few cool guitar moves. During the verses, he plays a sparse open string drone figure, leading to explosive power chord choruses. You need to be logged in to […]

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