My cover of "Turn! Turn! Turn!"

[Grinch89]

I never post here, but I read this specific forum all the time because it's the only Byrds chat around. I love the Byrds, and for the holidays I decided to do a quick cover of this today.

I mainly wanted to see if I could pull off the harmonies, which are a full three-part in some places. Really amazing arrangement by Crosby.

The left channel guitar is just my arrangement of the song with a single 6-string, and the right channel guitar is Crosby's part with drop D tuning. Both played on my Gibson ES-335 (sorry, no Rick available!)

If anyone wants to know what the harmonies are, just ask! Have a listen:

http://www.boinkwithme.com/nick/music/N ... rnTurn.mp3

[kvalois]

Nick:

Not bad!!!! How did you do the harmonies???

[cjj]

Welcome to the forum! Sounds great!

[jimk]

Welcome to the forum. I'm really impressed with your vocal arrangement. You have that part really well done.

If I may suggest a little something: if you really want to nail McGuinn's guitar solo down, get a copy of The 12 String Guitar of Roger McGuinn. On this DVD he takes you through lick by lick the complete arrangement of TTT.

I learned it from the DVD myself. It isn't hard at all, but it is fast.

Again, great work on the recording, and welcome to the forum.
JimK

[Grinch89]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it the kind words!

I actually think I've seen the TTT segment from that DVD...yeah, I have, it's on YouTube. It was quite good but I noticed Roger has changed a fair amount of things over the years...what he plays isn't the same as the original recording. This one, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAejkh4rTjs

I really liked the way he plays it now, but I sort of missed the constant open high E string that rings throughout the D, G, G/F#, A progression. It's like McGuinn is playing the two highest notes of a Dsus2 throughout the whole progression, if you listen closely. I think it adds to the jangle!

As for the harmonies, the "Byrds" sound is really a combination of two things...recording methods and the harmonies themselves. Considering the original vocal track on the record has at minimum 3 people singing at all times, you're going to need to do some overdubs to make it sound full enough. McGuinn's main vocal is doubled, as is Crosby's high harmony. You can even double Clark's low harmony during the end of each bridge.

As far as the actually notes go, it's a fairly distinct Crosby arrangement (note: Clark probably doubles McGuinn here):

Code: Select all

         "...turn, turn, turn."
Crosby:      D     A     A
McGuinn:     G     F#    E

         "...and a  time to eve-ry pur-pose, un-der heav-en."
Crosby:      D   D  D    C# C#  B  B   A     A  G   G    F#
McGuinn:     B   B  B    A  A   G  G   E     F# E   E    D

The three part actually comes in at the end of every bridge:

Code: Select all

         "...a  time of peace___, I swear it's not too late___."
Crosby:      F# E    D  F#   E    D D     C#   C#  B   B   A
McGuinn:     F# E    D  D    C#   B B     A    A   G   G   F#
Clark:       F# E    D  B    A    G G     F#   F#  E   E   D

I think that notation is mostly correct. Other than that, I don't know what else you could do to add authenticity. I'm a 20 year old from LA, so maybe that helps!