Motion Sickness

As a guitar teacher, I’m fortunate to be in front of some really cool, music obsessed young people on a daily basis. My student Hannah tips me off to new music all the time, and routinely discovers artists years before they go mainstream.

A great case in point is Phoebe Bridgers, who’s breaking mainstream consciousness right now. Hannah and her friends have been obsessing over Motion Sickness for a few years now. I’ve taught the song several times, and Motion Sickness has now become one of my favorite songs. I just had to get an arrangement done for fingerstyle guitar.

One of the many cool things about Phoebe Bridgers is that she is totally avantgarde when it comes to her guitar playing. It’s seems as though she’s routinely playing in alternate tunings — even using a baritone Danelectro guitar. She has a music shorthand unto herself.

My arrangement of Motion Sickness developed into an instrumental Americana-folk guitar piece. I love the way this turned out, and I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I do.

Check out this short interview with Phoebe Bridgers. She’s seems to be an incredibly endearing person.

Here’s a live performance of Motion Sickness to give you an idea of the avantgarde instrumentation.

You might also like to play…

Jason Isbell: Cover Me Up | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

Taylor Swift: Cardigan | fingertsyle guitar + TAB

Anne With an E | fingertsyle guitar + TAB

How to play Motion Sickness | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab for Motion Sickness is beautifully written across 3 pages. Although, I make my arrangements as easy to play as possible, I recommend this piece for intermediate guitar players and up.

Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:

The song structure looks like this, in accordance with the guitar tab:

Verse #1, Verse #2, Chorus

Verse #2, Chorus (2x), Bridge

Chorus, Outro

**Phoebe Bridgers: Motion Sickness | fingerstyle guitar

This piece is in a subtle trick tuning. You’ll tune your guitar down one 1/2 step — except for the low E string. Your tuning will look like this (from low to high): E G# C# F#A#D#. Depending on your tuner, it might look like this: E Ab DB Gb Bb Eb. You’ll then put a capo on the 2nd fret.

You’ll notice my capo is on the 4th fret, but I keep this guitar tuned (down) a whole step all the time. You could even take the capo off for a different tonality.