By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Welshpool Frillies Floating chord shapes is the preferred guitar technique Robert Pollard used in composing “Romeo Surgeon,” with the open position D and E chord shapes being played in various positions on the fretboard. Other than that, there are just a few power chords, so it’s pretty easy and […]
Tag: Guided By Voices
Chain Dance
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Welshpool Frillies It’s always fun when Guided By Voices includes a couple of Robert Pollard’s boombox demos alongside the more polished tracks on an album. On Welshpool Frillies, we get “Chain Dance” and “Mother Mirth,” the former of which we’ll look at in this post. You need to be […]
Drinker’s Peace
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Same Place The Fly Got Smashed Robert Pollard doesn’t “do” alternate guitar tunings; is this true or false? I can’t imagine a scenario in which he’s sitting around tuning his guitar to DADGAD, open G, or another non-standard tuning such as that, so in that sense I’d say the statement […]
Space Gun
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Space Gun The Space Gun album was a pretty big deal when it came out, if you recall. The band decided it would be their only album released that year (2018), which is not saying much for most bands, but of course Guided By Voices typically releases two or […]
Seedling
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Welshpool Frillies In “Seedling,” Robert Pollard uses an open drone string guitar technique during the verses, alternating between fretted notes on the third string and the B note on the open second string. The rest of the rhythm guitar part is just strumming of some simple chord shapes, but […]
June Salutes You!
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: The Official Ironman Rally Song “June Salutes You!” is not only a stand-out track on The Official Ironman Rally Song EP, but it also deserves a mention for having certain rare qualities as far as Guided By Voices songs go. The first being that it features a 12-string electric […]
Optical Hopscotch
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Do The Collapse “Optical Hopscotch” contains some great Robert Pollard weirdness, both in lyrics and musical composition. He uses some oddball chord shapes, as well as some chord progressions that I probably never would have considered. Doug Gillard’s lead contributions are the icing on the cake, perfectly complementing Pollard’s […]
A Life In Finer Clothing
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Plantations Of Pale Pink “A Life In Finer Clothing” has always been one of my favorite Guided By Voices songs, though I’ve never been able to pin down the exact reason. It has some quality that I love, whether it be Robert Pollard’s vocal melody, the chord progression, or […]
Running Off With The Fun City Girls
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Mag Earwhig! (Bonus Track) Robert Pollard has a tendency to write perfect pop gems and then hide them away where casual fans might easily miss them. “Running Off With The Fun City Girls” was included as a bonus track on the Japanese CD version of Mag Earwhig! but you […]
Twilight Campfighter
By: Guided By Voices Appears on: Isolation Drills “Twilight Campfighter” includes a lot of guitar chord strumming but also some arpeggio work, as well as a few lead fills thrown in here and there. All in all, it’s a lot of fun to play on guitar, and not too difficult if you can handle the […]
