Context : Red giants are evolved stars which exhibit solar-like oscillations .
Although a multitude of stars have been observed with space telescopes , only a handful of red-giant stars were targets of spectroscopic asteroseismic observing projects .

Aims : We search for solar-like oscillations in the two bright red-giant stars \gamma Psc and \theta ^ { 1 } Tau from time series of ground-based spectroscopy and determine the frequency of the excess of oscillation power \nu _ { \mathrm { max } } and the mean large frequency separation \Delta \nu for both stars .
Seismic constraints on the stellar mass and radius will provide robust input for stellar modelling .

Methods : The radial velocities of \gamma Psc and \theta ^ { 1 } Tau were monitored for 120 and 190 days , respectively .
Nearly 9000 spectra were obtained .
To reach the accurate radial velocities , we used simultaneous thorium-argon and iodine-cell calibration of our optical spectra .
In addition to the spectroscopy , we acquired VLTI observations of \gamma Psc for an independent estimate of the radius .
Also 22 days of observations of \theta ^ { 1 } Tau with the MOST-satellite were analysed .

Results : The frequency analysis of the radial velocity data of \gamma Psc revealed an excess of oscillation power around 32 \mu Hz and a large frequency separation of 4.1 \pm 0.1 \mu Hz . \theta ^ { 1 } Tau exhibits oscillation power around 90 \mu Hz , with a large frequency separation of 6.9 \pm 0.2 \mu Hz .
Scaling relations indicate that \gamma Psc is a star of about 1 M _ { \odot } and 10 R _ { \odot } . \theta ^ { 1 } Tau appears to be a massive star of about 2.7 M _ { \odot } and 10 R _ { \odot } .
The radial velocities of both stars were found to be modulated on time scales much longer than the oscillation periods .

Conclusions : The estimated radii from seismology are in agreement with interferometric observations and also with estimates based on photometric data .
While the mass of \theta ^ { 1 } Tau is in agreement with results from dynamical parallaxes , we find a lower mass for \gamma Psc than what is given in the literature .
The long periodic variability agrees with the expected time scales of rotational modulation .