High and Dry

A cover of Radiohead's H&D on resonator guitar in open G, for the minor/major challenge. I originally intended this to be a shitkicking country stomper but it turned into something quite different.

Since it's a three chord song this was fairly trivial to alter, but what's interesting is how much of the feel remains.

Recorded on my iPad in one take apart from the BVs, as you can tell by the fluffed chord at the end. I was going to put pump organ on it but after I'd done the guitar I discovered the organ was a bit flat.

• play
• pause
• stop
• min volume
• max volume

posted by unSane (13 comments total)

Incidentally, multitracking on the iPad is very interesting, both good and bad. Good because it is SO MUCH FASTER with a tactile interface to do things like mute and arm tracks and generally manipulate stuff. Bad because the software's a bit undercooked and some things aren't implemented well. I did it in Multitrack DAW because I sort of loathe Garageband and also because it allows you to record lots of tracks simultaneously and works seamlessly with my Tascam US800 via the camera connection kit.
posted by unSane at 10:33 AM on February 23

that resonator sounds grrrrrreeeeaat.
posted by dubold at 12:39 PM on February 23

Thanks. It's one of my favourite instruments to play. And SO easy to record, just point a mic at the resonator and be there. The only thing is they're a pain in the ass to get set up so you can actually play them fingerstyle. It generally involves some kind of shop work. Mine is a cheap-as-shit version... I'm really interested to hear what a decent one would sound like. It's also a nice contrast with a regular acoustic if you want two parts.
posted by unSane at 5:11 PM on February 23

Here's a guy from one of the acoustic forums playing a metal National fingerstyle, sounds absolutely fantastic to me.
posted by unSane at 5:21 PM on February 23

This is just really sweet and wonderful. I think the choice of using open tuning made it much more tonally ambiguous than the original. I would have loved to hear that pump organ too.
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:10 PM on February 23

Yeah, what happened is the capo threw the guitar tuning off. I might have another crack at it... The pump organ gives it extra oomph at the end.
posted by unSane at 4:46 AM on February 24

I smiled so wide when the backing harmonies came in on the later chorus. Well done.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:31 PM on February 24

Yeah lovely harmonies! And really nice stripped-back arrangement. This song has sucked so hard whenever I've heard it covered at open mics and the like. You'd knock em dead with this version :)
posted by greenish at 4:08 AM on February 25

It's very pretty and all but unless I'm missing something... have you actually reversed the key?
posted by grog at 3:33 PM on February 25

Well, the original is ii IV I and this is IV V I more or less so I guess not thinking about it. It didn't occur to me that it didn't start on the tonic, so I just shoved the ii up to IV and went from there.
posted by unSane at 3:43 PM on February 25

Ah yes of course, I'd say that counts!
posted by grog at 6:40 PM on February 25

I had a funny experience with this yesterday. We have a little songwriters' circle once a month where we each play a song in progress (and we have a challenge thing like MeFi music too). I played my song (which was an Open G pop thing) but then because I had an Open G guitar right there I told them about the challenge and played them a bit of this, up to the first chorus. I went through the verse to somewhat bemused looks, but then when I went to the chorus everyone burst out laughing. Which is weird because I don't think I alter the chorus melody at all... I guess it was the little diatonic run up and the fact that it's IV V... anyway, it was a good moment. I've sort of decided that this is the way I'm going to play this song from now on, as I like it better.
posted by unSane at 7:04 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]

Absolutely lovely (says this hardcore Radiohead fan). Bravo!
posted by dbiedny at 5:55 AM on March 2