Ted’s Arrangement, with compilation pages by Paul Vachon

Ted's Original Lesson sheets
GirlWithTheFlaxenHair_TedGreene_Arrangement_p1_1997-09-07.pdf
GirlWithTheFlaxenHair_TedGreene_Arrangement_p2_1997-09-07.pdf

My compilation pages, changes and comparisons
GirlWithTheFlaxenHair_TedGreene_Arr_grids_with_notation_p1.pdf
GirlWithTheFlaxenHair_TedGreene_Arr_grids_with_notation_p2.pdf
GirlWithTheFlaxenHair_TedGreene_Arr_grids_with_notation_p3.pdf
GirlWithTheFlaxenHair_TedGreene_Arr_grids_with_notation_p4.pdf
GirlWithTheFlaxenHair_TedGreene_Arr_grids_with_notation_p5.pdf
GirlWithTheFlaxenHair_TedGreene_Arr_grids_with_notation_p6.pdf

Attached is a compilation of Ted's "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair" arrangement with the Debussy piano score.

This tune was originally composed in Gb for piano. (Listen to Ted playing it on 3/4/89 in the “Joey Backenstoe Wedding” DVD – it’s the first piece he plays for the entrance music, with lots of enhancements, harmonics, repetitions, etc. It’s a very beautiful version. It doesn’t correspond exactly to the score or to his written arrangement, but it's helpful to listen to it to get a flavor of the piece the way he played it.)

Ted transposed it down a step to E for the guitar. On 9/7/97 he started committing the arrangement to paper using his chord grid boxes. He completed up to bar 14, then continued again on 2/13/99 and went as far as bar 25. Apparently he didn’t finish writing it out.

For this “compilation” version I generated a piano score in the key of E and combined it with Ted’s chord grid boxes. The chord names below the grids correspond to what Barbara Franklin wrote on the original piano score (transposed, of course, for the key of E). Barbara wrote: "This piano version of "Girl w/t Flaxen Hair" is not Ted's, it's mine, with my notations for playing on piano & my chord names. Most likely Ted agreed or he would have changed the names."

I attached both the original arrangement pages and the analysis score...even though they are posted elsewhere in these Forums and in the Lessons/Tunes sections of this website.

I've included more comments about specific passages on page 6 of the compilation.

Ted stopped his arrangement at the beginning of bar 26. This left basically 11 unaccounted-for measures. In order to complete the arrangement, I wrote up what I believe Ted would have done, based on the piano score and Ted’s treatment of the previous bars. A lot of those remaining 11 bars are just repeated sections from bars 1, 2 and 14, in which I was able to duplicate the same grid boxes. I watched the “Backenstoe Wedding” video and noticed how Ted played those last few bars. I believe my diagrams are fairly accurate and faithful to his arrangement. If anyone has other suggestions of voicings or fingerings, I would love to see them posted on the Forums.

This is a beautiful piece, and not too difficult to execute. I think you'll enjoy playing it, and I hope these pages makes it easier to learn.

ENJOY!

-- Paul