  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. 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
$\nu_{max}$ and the mean large frequency separation $\Delta\nu$ for both stars.
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. 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 $\sim$1 M$_\odot$ and $\sim$10 R$_\odot$. $\theta^1$ Tau appears to be a
massive star of about $\sim$2.7 M$_\odot$ and $\sim$11 R$_\odot$. The radial
velocities of both stars were found to be modulated on time scales much longer
than the oscillation periods. 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.

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics