Orphan Girl - Gillian Welch cover
 

A woman I’d met at an open mic a couple years ago did this song and just recently I was able to talk her in to letting me play along virtually. Here’s a socially, internet-distanced collaboration.

I really enjoyed that Keith - I have fond memories of that song when it first came out and loving both Gillian's voice and the playing of David Rawlings.

You guys really do it justice and your friend has a lovely voice.

Thank you!

Yes, I (too) have become a fan of theirs after discovering them somewhat late - wasn't playing (again) yet in the O Brother timeframe where she seemed to have gotten visibility, so it's been exposure in the past few years as others like Jane have done the songs at open mics.

David Rawlings playing really interests me - If we get to do another of their songs I'm going to try and learn a bit more of what he's doing.

I love this! Thank you so much for sharing. I actually first heard this song on Emmylou Harris' "Wrecking Ball" album (which is phenomenal, by the way).

Thanks! This is just a great song.... (I'm a big Emmylou fan, too! I wore out the Roses in the Snow LP.)

That was very well done Keith!

The song was well done! I also like the video effects you used at the beginning and end as well as the effects you used on the titles.

It's not easy playing guitar with someone else remotely and singing harmony is not easy, either. It came out sounding very clean and uncluttered; everything sounded good.

She is using a very nice Neumann vocal stage mic (it looks like a KMS 105)! It sounds great on her voice.

Thanks for that!

- Glenn

Thank you, Glenn.

I really struggled with doing the harmony on this because 1) I'm not a harmony singer unless I'm in a group with sheet music, and so I had to pick chord notes out and really work on trying to remember the part, and 2) her delivery was not always the same, which is normal, of course, but not being in the same room was maddening. In the end I actually watched her video while playing and singing, and that helped nudge the vocals a lot closer together.

She is using a 2i2 interface that she told me she had bought earlier in the year to learn GarageBand, and she had a PG48 and was going to plug in the guitar. I loaned her a couple mics (it's a 104 and ATM450 on her Collings - thought she deserved a little better :)). We "met" at opposite ends of her porch where I dropped a sanitized bag with the mics, cable and an old stand! She wants to buy them, so they will probably stay with her now. She did record in GarageBand, but sent me a WAV bounce with the two tracks panned far right/left and no FX, so I could mix the vox & guitar independently.

I tinkered with the titles and silhouette idea in a previous video so was lucky to be able to just copy/paste the words and then create new images. The Zoom-like frames and stuff (PNGs I just drop on top) are something I made up a while back when I was experimenting with that look.

Thank you for sharing this song! I really liked the way the two of you do it.

That was so good. She has a great voice, and your playing and harmonies completed this. The synch work must have been off the charts. Well done, sir.

Thanks! We never did it together before this, so it was a learning experience.

Thanks so much. I really tried to just complement her performance.

She sent me audio and video that she'd recorded while playing along to a simple rhythm track I sent her. Then I set up an audio project with that mix, bounced it and sync'd that with her video in a video project. I practiced my part to what she'd sent, then recorded the audio and video (of me) together. Dropped the audio into the audio project and slid it around until it fit, put that into the video project, matching her video (and replacing previous audio), then added my video and slid it around until it sync'd (eyeball only) to the mixed audio. Not too bad with 2 people. 4 takes more time, and I've never wanted to try more :).