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. […]
Tag: Guided By Voices
Wings Of Thorn
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Universal Truths And Cycles Most of “Wings Of Thorn” is based around the same chord shape. You’ll get your fingers into position for an E major open chord shape and then move that around to different frets on the guitar neck for the majority of the song. The chord changes […]
Blue Jay House
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof A few chords and a few riffs are all it takes to play “Blue Jay House” from Warp And Woof, although you could really do it justice by throwing in an organ, too. For one of the figures in this post, I’ve split the tablature into two […]
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 […]
More Reduction Linda
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof The songs on Warp And Woof are all pretty brief, with only two of them passing the two-minute mark. And yet, as always, Robert Pollard manages to stuff more hooks into each tune than imaginable. On “More Reduction Linda,” he includes a killer riff during the verses […]
My Angel
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Warp And Woof “My Angel” from Warp And Woof is a fairly simple Guided By Voices song to play on guitar; Robert Pollard wrote it using standard chord shapes and then crafted a beautiful melody on top. Doug Gillard adds some guitar flourishes, of course, but in this post I’m […]
Hotel X (Big Soap)
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Please Be Honest “Hotel X (Big Soap)” is another great Guided By Voices song wherein Robert Pollard eschewed standard song structure in favor of a collage style. There is a bit of the intro that makes an appearance again later in the song, but for the most part, there […]
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 […]
Everything’s Thrilling
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Zeppelin Over China On “Everything’s Thrilling,” Robert Pollard is once again up to his old tricks. This song is based on an open D note drone and a lot of the same chords he typically uses with this drone technique: D, G/D, and Cadd2. When you consider how many […]
Why Did You Land?
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: The Official Ironmen Rally Song One of Robert Pollard’s most often used songwriting guitar techniques involves fretting a note on one string and allowing an open string either above or below it to ring out with it. For example, in “Why Did You Land?” he uses this technique with […]
