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Guitar Songs, Tabs & Lessons

Phil Collins

2 guitar songs · Tabs, Lessons & Tone Guide Rock

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Artist Overview

History and Guitar Legacy

Phil Collins rose to fame as Genesis frontman and drummer after Peter Gabriel's departure, then launched a massively successful solo career starting with his 1981 debut 'Face Value'. Though not a guitarist himself, Collins' work featured world-class guitar players including Daryl Stuermer, his long-time studio and live guitarist, and Mike Rutherford on earlier Genesis records. His catalog demonstrates how tasteful, atmospheric guitar work serves the song perfectly.

Playing Style and Techniques

Daryl Stuermer brought a jazz-fusion background to Collins' pop arena material, featuring precise, warm playing with sophisticated chord voicings. His approach incorporates added 9ths, sus4 chords, and smooth voice leading beyond basic open and barre shapes. The guitar parts emphasize dynamics, space, and tone through clean, shimmering tones rather than distortion or technical display. Reverb and chorus serve as compositional tools that support enormous vocal melodies while maintaining emotional weight.

Why Guitarists Study Phil Collins

Collins' music is essential for guitarists seeking to develop restraint and feel. Songs like 'In The Air Tonight' and 'Against All Odds' are minimalist exercises where every note counts. Learning these pieces teaches you how to breathe space into arrangements, support strong vocal melodies, and use effects as compositional elements. These skills separate good guitarists from great ones in any band context, emphasizing serving the song over technical showmanship.

Difficulty and Learning Path

Collins' songs sit at beginner-to-intermediate difficulty in terms of raw technical technique, making them accessible for developing players. However, the real challenge lies in nailing the feel, timing, and dynamics of each part. For intermediate guitarists, mastering this catalog builds the ability to play tastefully in band settings. This underrated goldmine develops your musicality and understanding of how to contribute meaningfully to an arrangement rather than dominate it.

What Makes Phil Collins Essential for Guitar Players

  • Clean tone mastery is central to Phil Collins' guitar parts. Songs like 'In The Air Tonight' feature spacious, reverb-drenched clean guitar lines that demand precise picking control and an understanding of how to let notes ring without muddying the mix.
  • Arpeggiated chord work is a defining feature, 'Against All Odds' uses flowing, fingerpicked-style arpeggios with open-string voicings that create a lush, piano-like harmonic bed. Practicing this teaches you smooth right-hand coordination and legato transitions between chords.
  • Daryl Stuermer's use of chorus and delay effects is integral to the signature Phil Collins guitar sound. Learning to dial in modulation effects at subtle, musical levels, rather than drenching everything, is a key takeaway for any guitarist studying these tracks.
  • Dynamic control and palm-muting precision are essential for Collins' music. Many parts transition from whisper-quiet arpeggios to fuller strummed sections, requiring you to master volume swells, pick attack variation, and smooth dynamic shifts within a single song.
  • Extended chord voicings appear frequently, sus2, sus4, add9, and major 7th shapes give the guitar parts their sophisticated pop-jazz flavor. Learning these songs will expand your chord vocabulary well beyond basic open and barre chord shapes.

Did You Know?

Daryl Stuermer, Collins' primary guitarist, was recruited from jazz-fusion legend Jean-Luc Ponty's band, which explains why his chord voicings and phrasing on pop songs sound so harmonically rich and sophisticated compared to typical '80s pop guitar.

'In The Air Tonight' was largely built around a Roland CR-78 drum machine and atmospheric keyboards, with the guitar part being intentionally sparse. The famous gated reverb drum fill gets all the attention, but the guitar's restraint is what makes the song's tension work.

On the 'Face Value' sessions, multiple guitarists contributed including Eric Clapton, who played on 'If Leaving Me Is Easy.' Clapton's clean Fender Stratocaster tone on that track is one of his most understated and beautiful recorded performances.

Daryl Stuermer primarily used a Gibson ES-335 and Roland guitar synthesizers live with Collins, blending traditional warm humbucker tones with cutting-edge MIDI guitar technology, making him one of the earliest adopters of guitar synth in a mainstream touring context.

The guitar part in 'Against All Odds' sits so perfectly behind the vocal that many listeners don't consciously notice it, yet removing it collapses the entire arrangement. It's a textbook example of 'invisible' guitar playing that's actually doing enormous harmonic and rhythmic work.

'No Jacket Required' (1985) was one of the best-selling albums of the decade, yet the guitar parts were deliberately kept minimal, proving that knowing when NOT to play is just as important as technical ability.

Mike Rutherford, who played guitar in Genesis alongside Collins, used a distinctive double-neck setup (a Shergold Custom) live, handling both bass and 12-string guitar duties, one of the more unusual rigs in classic rock history.

Essential Albums for Guitarists

Face Value album cover
Face Value 1981

This debut solo album features 'In The Air Tonight', a must-learn for understanding atmospheric clean guitar playing, dynamics, and the power of space. Eric Clapton guests on 'If Leaving Me Is Easy' with a gorgeous clean Strat tone, and the album overall teaches you how to craft guitar parts that enhance rather than compete with a song's mood.

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No Jacket Required album cover
No Jacket Required 1985

The commercial peak of Collins' career features polished, tight guitar work throughout. 'One More Night' is excellent for practicing clean arpeggios with chorus effects, while 'Sussudio' has a funky rhythmic guitar part that teaches you about locking in with a drum-machine-driven groove. Great for developing your studio-ready, less-is-more approach.

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...But Seriously album cover
...But Seriously 1989

Home to 'Another Day in Paradise,' which features Daryl Stuermer's signature clean tone and tasteful fills. The album balances pop accessibility with slightly more complex arrangements, making it ideal for intermediate players looking to work on smooth chord transitions, subtle lead embellishments, and rhythm guitar work that sits perfectly in a dense pop mix.

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Tone & Gear

Guitar

Daryl Stuermer, Collins' primary guitarist, is most associated with the Gibson ES-335 for its warm, full-bodied clean tones and versatile semi-hollow resonance. He also used Fender Stratocasters for brighter, single-coil textures and was an early adopter of Roland guitar synthesizer controllers. Eric Clapton's guest appearance on 'Face Value' featured his signature Fender Stratocaster 'Blackie.' For home players learning these songs, any quality semi-hollow or Strat-style guitar will get you in the ballpark.

Amp

The Collins guitar sound lives in clean headroom territory, think Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus for that pristine, shimmering clean tone with built-in stereo chorus, or a Fender Twin Reverb set clean with the volume around 4-5. The goal is zero breakup: crystal-clear cleans where every note articulates perfectly. Stuermer used various clean-channel amp setups live, always prioritizing clarity and dynamic response over any kind of overdrive.

Pickups

The ES-335's stock PAF-style humbuckers (moderate output, around 7-8k ohms) deliver warmth without muddiness, perfect for the round, bell-like clean tones in 'In The Air Tonight.' When Strat-style single-coils are used, the neck and middle pickup positions dominate for their glassy, scooped tone. Lower-output pickups are key here, high-output humbuckers would compress the dynamics that make these parts sing.

Effects & Chain

Chorus is the signature effect, a Boss CE-2 or the built-in chorus on a Roland JC-120 adds that '80s shimmer without overwhelming the signal. Long, lush reverb (hall or plate settings) creates the atmospheric depth heard on 'In The Air Tonight.' A subtle stereo delay (300-400ms, low mix) adds dimension. Compression helps even out fingerpicked arpeggios. The chain is simple: Guitar → Compressor → Chorus → Delay → Reverb → Clean Amp. No distortion, no overdrive, the tone is all about pristine clarity and space.

Recommended Gear

Fender Stratocaster
Guitar

Fender Stratocaster

Daryl Stuermer used Strats for their bright, glassy single-coil tones on Genesis records, especially in neck and middle positions for scooped, articulate cleans. The Strat's dynamic response pairs perfectly with Collins' need for crystal-clear note definition without any breakup.

Gibson ES-335
Guitar

Gibson ES-335

The ES-335's warm, bell-like semi-hollow tone defines Collins' signature sound, heard throughout 'In The Air Tonight.' Its moderate-output PAF-style humbuckers deliver round, full-bodied cleans that sit perfectly in a mix without muddiness.

Fender Twin Reverb
Amp

Fender Twin Reverb

Set clean around volume 4-5, the Twin Reverb provides the headroom and pristine clarity essential to Collins' tone, with its legendary plate reverb adding the lush, atmospheric depth that became his trademark '80s sound.

Boss CE-2 Chorus
Pedal

Boss CE-2 Chorus

The CE-2's warm, dimensional chorus creates the signature '80s shimmer heard throughout Genesis tracks, adding the precise amount of movement to clean tones without overwhelming Stuermer's articulate playing.

How to Practice Phil Collins on GuitarZone

Every Phil Collins song page on GuitarZone includes a built-in Practice Toolbar. No app to download, no account needed. Open any song, then use the toolbar to slow the video to 0.5× speed, set an A/B loop around the exact riff you're working on, and jump between song sections instantly.

The toolbar appears automatically on every guitar tab, lesson, and cover page. Pick a song below, hit play, and start practicing at your own pace.

Practice In The Air Tonight - Guitar LessonPractice Against All Odds - Guitar Lesson