By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Mirrored Aztec Mirrored Aztec opening track “I Think I Had It. I Think I Have It Again” starts off with a guitar riff built on open string drones. From there, Robert Pollard uses some floating chord shapes in the chorus, with an open D note droning throughout. You need […]
Tag: Floating Chord Shapes
Zoom (It Happens All Over The World)
You need to be logged in to view this content. Please Log In. Not a Member? Join Us
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 […]
Coming Back From Now On
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof “Coming Back From Now On” is based on a guitar riff that would sound right at home on any live arena rock album. Actually, this might account for the audience samples that were used on this track, not to mention the inclusion of the traditional song […]
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 […]
Man Called Blunder
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Surrender Your Poppy Field “Man Called Blunder” is one of my favorite songs from Surrender Your Poppy Field to play on guitar. There are a lot of changes from one section to another, as well as a few fun riffs using open string drones. A favored Robert Pollard guitar […]
Airs
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Honey Locust Honky Tonk For the verses in “Airs,” you’ll just alternate strumming between the G5 and Csus2 chords. In the chorus, however, Pollard uses a two-note chord shape on the second and first strings with an open G note on the third string and moves this shape to various […]
Tractor Rape Chain
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Bee Thousand One of the Robert Pollard guitar techniques I mention frequently on this site is one that I call “Floating Chord Shapes.” This involves taking an open position chord shape and playing it elsewhere on the guitar neck. In the case of “Tractor Rape Chain,” Pollard crafts a […]
Cut-Out Witch
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Under The Bushes Under The Stars Long-time Guided By Voices guitarist Doug Gillard has mentioned that Robert Pollard gives the band a fair amount of freedom with his songs so that they can incorporate their own ideas. In this way, some songs have evolved a bit from their original […]
Boxing About
By: Robert Pollard Appears on: Normal Happiness I’ve mentioned before on this site that it’s always easier for me to learn Robert Pollard’s songs when I can listen to either a recording of him playing it alone, usually either as a Suitcase track or a demo, or a live version. In attempting to transcribe “Boxing […]
