butterflies

I just came up with this and recorded it on the H2 (I upped the volume a bit in Audition afterward). I'm pretty bad at finger picking and this owes a lot to John Fahey and Roy Harper. Not that they're bad at finger picking.... There's a faster and shorter version as well, but I liked the drone of this one more.

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posted by sleepy pete (9 comments total)

Very pleasant, and the quality of the recording is good. Are you using the H2 without any external microphone? I'm considering buying t, but am wondering if I could get good recordings like this using just the device itself or if I'd need anything extra. I'm actually even more interested in using it as a "field recorder."

I think what I like about this tune is that it seems to wander or travel... could be in physical terms or maybe in the sense of a mind going from thought A to B to C and back to A or B again.
posted by edlundart at 11:41 PM on July 21

That's nice. I agree about the wandering, and actually I think it would make a good soundtrack to travel, possibly by train.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:44 AM on July 22

I love drony acoustic guitar like this.
posted by dobie at 11:00 AM on July 22

I also like this. It has a kind of sinister sitar quality, I agree it would work well in a film.
posted by arcanecrowbar at 2:41 PM on July 22

Yea, SP, the drone hits me in just the right spot. It's neither hurried nor lazy. Wow, this is really sweet.
posted by snsranch at 3:40 PM on July 22

I'm a sucker for this kind of jangly guitar. Gets me every time!
posted by ORthey at 6:07 PM on July 24

Wow, sleepy pete, this one really resonates with me. This is the kind of stuff I gravitate towards playing when I'm 'in the zone,' as it were -- playing while thinking about something else, only half-listening, letting my fingers do what they will. I'm a fingerpicker at heart. You say you're bad at it, but if so it didn't come across in the recording...and the drone really works, too. Great stuff.
posted by danb at 9:06 PM on July 24

Yeah, Roy Harper and John Fahey is exactly what I hear, that eastern drone also reminded me of Jimmy Page. I can't pick for crap, myself, so, yeah, what danb said.
posted by not_on_display at 6:59 PM on August 4

Yep. I was going to say that there is some Led Zeppelin in there too. Black Mountainside is a distant cousin, and John Fahey is in there too. I love fingerpicking in drone-y alternate tunings--especially when it's not prissily precise.

I don't know what you're talking about when you say that you're bad at fingerpicking. This is great.
posted by umbú at 5:40 PM on August 5