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DECEMBER 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

This month Leon White shares with us another “Ted Story” about his powers of memory:

It’s funny how over the years so many more anecdotes about Ted are coming forward in my memory. He had quite a memory, as has been noted many times here on this website and in the forums and blogs. “Prodigious” would be the best description. It seemed that he remembered EVERYTHING about music - literally.

Think about it for a moment. He could rattle off the details about the original recording session on “Money” along with similar information about Bach, film scores, etc. Sometimes he would suggest we play a game on this, believe it or not. He would say, “Starting with the letter A, name a British group whose name starts with each letter in the alphabet.” Really? Even when I was younger that was a reach. But I’d go along and we’d play the game. He had a “cat with the canary” smile in his eyes - he knew who would win!

Surprisingly, Ted always seemed to win :). He could even beat my wife who has a phenomenal memory for music stuff. The game often occurred in the context of discussions about improving one’s memory. He was a huge fan of mental puzzles, word problems and such, and often bought books of “Brain Teasers” and the like. He’d urge me to try these books and work on them, as he claimed doing so had improved his memory.

Sometimes Ted would bring up these kinds of word problems in a discussion:
“Harry is Julie’s oldest male relative. Todd is Julie’s offspring. Sally is Todd’s youngest living female relative. How old is Sally?” Honestly Ted?! I’d start down a certain line of thought trying to come up with an answer and he’d interject, “It doesn't say that Harry is a human. Think outside the box.” Okay, so I’d start again. Again he’d interject, “It doesn't say that Harry is alive.” I’d stop – I can’t remember why. He loved these kinds of mental puzzles.

I think he saw the real importance of memory in music for retaining musical ideas, and in so doing, internalizing them. So many of his students were always looking for the “silver bullet” solution to a musical challenge, and ever so gently Ted would keep pointing us to small incremental ideas. “Triads.” I bet he uttered that 100,000 times in response to various questions.

Well, Todd moved abroad, Julie is in a senior home, and I can’t remember what happened to Harry or Sally, but I bet triads had something to do with it! And I do remember Ted.

Wishing you all the best during this holiday season.

~ Leon and the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Bach - Minuet, 1971-06-26. [Ted’s early transcription of J.S. Bach’s Minuet. New notation included for easy reading.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-05-24.[An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #36, with Ted – 66 minutes.  On this recording Ted talks about Fender Jazzmasters (what to expect, how to buy), pedaling 3-note chords, chord scales, sequences, figured bass, and long-metered blues.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Double Pick-up Chord Waling Bass Blues, 1988-09-30.  [Another one of Ted’s great blues studies with a walking bass.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Chords for Chord-Melody Playing, (part 1), 1974.  [The first of a five part series. Organized according to the melody note. All examples are given for A. Redrawn grids for easy reading.]
* Chromatic and Semi-chromatic Harmonization and Approach Chord Studies, 1985-09-02. [Six pages]
* Systematic Inversions, 1976-05-05. [Ted’s early handout sheet on systematic inversion. At that time he was using the terms “small density”, “medium density”, and “large density” to categorize the different chord voicings groups. He later abandoned these terms when he developed his “V-System” for voicing groups. But the principles of systematic inversions still apply and this is a helpful page for learning about inversions along with some helpful exercises.]

COMPING:
* A Foggy Day - Walking Chords Comping, 1976-06-09.  [Another classic page of Ted’s walking chord comping studies. Compilation pages included that combine Ted’s grids with standard music notation, the melody, and lyrics.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Harmonic Vocabulary - Major Key (part 8),1984-09-08. [This is the last in an 8-part series. New typed text and “cleaned up” grids for easy reading.]
* Chord Substitutions (Parts 3-4),1973. [This is the second installment in a 10-part series. These pages had previously been posted, but now we’ve included better quality scans of the original pages, plus typed text and new diagrams for much easier reading.]
* 20th Century Harmonic Vocabulary, 1975. [Ted’s chart listing the general families and sub-families of commonly used chords in 20th century music.]
* Voice-Leading - Understanding Voice-Leading and Voice-Splitting. 1992-07-18. [Ted’s explanation of voice-splitting. Previously posted, this update offers a clearer scan of Ted’s original combined with new translation pages of notation and typed text for clarity.]

OTHER:
* Harmonics - Chart of Natural Harmonics, 1979-02-06. [Ted’s chart for showing the natural harmonic on the guitar neck.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Cherokee - Chord Tone Outline for SNS, 1981-06-04. [Ted’s grid diagrams of scale and arpeggios for each chord of this song’s progression. Translation page includes the lead sheet with grids placed for each measure.  This lesson replaces the previously posted page in the “Blues and Jazz” section. The new version is a better quality scan and we’ve separated it from the “All the Things You Are” lesson – which was posted last month.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2, Minor 7th Family Chords - Top 4, key of Am, 1984-10-20. [From Ted’s Personal Music Studies files, this page has some very cool systematic inversions of V-2 extended minor chords. Redrawn for easy reading by Matt Lord.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Santa Claus is Coming to Town. [Paul Vachon’s compilation page for Ted’s arrangement – including Ted’s grids, standard notation, and lyrics. Ted’s page does not include the bridge, but the melody has been provided with blanks for the chord grids, so you can finish this arrangement with your own chords.]
* Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. [Paul Vachon’s compilation page for Ted’s arrangement – including Ted’s grids, standard notation, and lyrics. This was written up years ago with just the lead sheet and Ted’s grids. It now includes the complete music notation and some corrections to incorrectly named chords.]

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NOVEMBER 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

November Greetings to all and Happy Thanksgiving to all residing in the US.
We’d like to share a few more excerpts of stories and memories of Ted from the TG Memorial Blog:

The genius and beauty of Ted Greene is huge. I feel blessed to have known him and spent time with him, albeit briefly. What Ted did for me and my family is something few individuals are capable of: he inspired thought, hard work, and passion. I’ll be forever grateful, mostly, though, for Ted coming into the life of my husband, Lenny, and re-igniting his love of music. After a earning a living playing guitar and honing his craft with practice and lessons from a variety of older professionals, Lenny diverted his musical career some years ago to be available for our children and me. It wasn’t until he started taking lessons from Ted that I saw Lenny’s passion return and blossom.

Each week, on Wednesday, I would look forward to hearing about the amazing exchange of information that had taken place and listen to the spiritual and technical insights Ted had imparted that Lenny diligently practiced. It was uplifting for me as well as my husband. Once, my college-age, trumpet-playing son went to Ted’s to keep the lesson appointment when Lenny couldn’t make it. He felt the magic. And I also had the pleasure of talking with Ted as well as watching him perform.

As a teacher, I recognized in Ted the expertise, intensity, and love of his craft that makes an amazing instructor as well as practioner. But mostly, Ted was a valued friend to those who got to know him. Ted Greene will be sorely missed but his spirit will live on in the lessons he imparted, the music he made, and the people whose lives he touched.
~~Debbi Coltun

I lived for years in the same building that Ted lived and taught. When he had a spare moment we would talk about all genres of music. What I loved most about him was his genuine kindness.
~~Jason D. Kuhar

Ted was probably the most inspiring man I have had the privilege of meeting. As an Australian resident, I managed to organize a handful of lessons during my infrequent visits to LA. It is no exaggeration to say that these meetings had a profound and lasting effect upon my life. On one occasion I inquired as to why he performed so infrequently. His response was that it was no longer a priority. When pressing him as to what WAS a priority, he replied simply: knowledge! How many people in this day and age devote their entire being to the pursuit of knowledge? He was truly a remarkable being whose teaching extended far beyond the musical arena.
~~Lucas Michailidis

I met Ted and began studying with him when I was 17 years old. I am now 36. Ted and I became friends from the first phone call. There was a waiting list at that time – remember that? Some of you out there will remember the first apartment that had 2 chairs, a music stand and an ashtray, and needless to say, a tape recorder with which he demanded that the lesson be taped. The lessons and the man were serious then, really serious. (The apartment clean to a fault) But, even as we have known him in recent years, he was very kind, understanding, and selfless then as well.

At this time he became a sort of a surrogate father to me. Many times during the lessons we wouldn't even pick up the guitar – we would just talk for 2 hours. He helped me learn how to live life. So many times he talked me through some really rough experiences. He was more a father to me than my father. Ted was not only a teacher of music for me but he taught me SO MUCH ABOUT LIVING! I could talk to him about anything. I do not know where I would be without having him in my life. And now in 2005 he is still like my father and dearest friend.

We shared quite a bit together… some very special times and conversations… Once I brought him a bunch of my Roman and Greek coins, and the next week he started up again with his own coin collection. They were all over the place! Quarters galore! He said that he LOVED the quarters! I loved sharing with him my collections of all things ancient… There were many sides to Ted, and I will cherish the memories of speaking to him so frankly on such a WIDE range of subjects! And he surprised the hell out of me with his vast knowledge and ideas about so many things.
~~Rich Glasband

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Well, that’s the first time I ever heard a reference to Ted’s “clean to a fault” apartment! Hmm…must have been the early years or a new apartment that wasn’t fully broken-in “Ted-style.”

I’ve been looking over some of the older newsletters here and recalling some conversations I had with Barbara Franklin. At the time when this site went up she wanted to be very conservative about posting Ted’s lesson pages. She said that Ted always tried to hand out lessons only as much as the student could handle or had the time to put in practicing them. He didn’t want to overwhelm a student with an avalanche of material, and so Barb wanted to do the same for the website – just a few of lessons or so per month.

As time went on she began to see that visitors to the site have a wide range of musical tastes, needs, skill levels, knowledge and experience. So in an attempt to provide something for everyone she agreed to begin posting many more lessons each month. Even then she would still ask me, “Do you think it’s too much? I mean, no one can practice all that, plus there’s already a lot in the Lessons section and other stuff scattered throughout the Forums.”

I bring this up because we’ve been making an earnest effort to post a variety and an abundance of lesson sheets each month. Our goal? Well, we’d like to share as much as humanly possible of the massive material in the “Ted Greene Teachings Archive” as well as useful selections from his “Personal Music Studies” files. Please let us know via the Forums if there is any area(s) you’d like us to make more of his pages available.

In addition, you may have noticed that we’re attempting to include “translation” pages for those lesson sheets that need it – usually for ones that are too difficult to read because of the density of writing on the page, hastily scribbled handwriting, or the musical examples should have notation and/or redrawn grids to clarify what Ted was illustrating.

We’ll also be looking through some of the pages that have already been posted in the Lessons section and we’ll be re-posting better scanned/cleaned-up versions of them (some now with translation pages). If you notice any page(s) that you find difficult to read, crooked, or need help, please post a message in the Forums we’ll attend to it.

The main point is that despite the enormous amount of lesson material that we have here (and are building up), you shouldn’t in any way feel overwhelmed by it. You don’t have to do it all. Ted frequently advised students to be selective and set musical priorities for yourself, and then go after just those areas that you really love - focus on those things and forget the rest for now (or put them on the back burner for a few years). If you’ve been hanging around here for a while you’ve certainly heard this advice mentioned many, many times.

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Another special treat for this month is two videos from Tim Lerch reviewing Ted’s “All of Me” arrangement and comping page.
Tim Lerch, All of Me – Ted Greene Lesson
Tim Lerch, All of Me – Ted Greene Comping

Tim has done several of these instructional videos on Ted’s lesson sheets in recent months, and we’re very happy that he’s taken the time to make these and share his experience and insights with us. The videos very helpful in walking you though the pages and they provide a good visual and audible model which makes Ted’s material a bit more approachable.

If you like these videos and would like more,
please visit Tim’s website and leave a donation
in his “tip jar” and a send him a word of thanks.

As you watch these videos you’ll get a preview
of Ted’s guitar he named “Regina” in action.

Special thanks to William Perry. Here’s a recent photo Tim sent us:

We hope that something from this month’s offerings will be of interest to your on your musical journey. At this Thanksgiving time we’d like to gently remind you that this site exists for you for free, and that your donations help keep it running, so please remember to make a contribution.

~ Paul and the magical musical men on the TedGreene.com team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* All of Me, 1984-10-07 [Ted’s “Harmonized Melody” arrangement in the key of C. Please watch Tim Lerch’s YouTube video review of this arrangement.
Tim Lerch, All of Me – Ted Greene Lesson

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-03-22. [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 64 minutes. During this lesson the go through exercises for modulating to every key using various devices (this has great insights into Ted's thinking for modulating); Sub-dominant modulators; a harmonic survey of the ii minor chord.]

BAROQUE:
* Catalogue of Common Baroque Harmonies and Their Progressions, 1975-04-06 [Ted’s charts for usable chords for tonics, subdominants, and dominants. Translation pages included for easier reading.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Systematic Inversion Families, 1973-12-18. [Ted’s early pages for understanding systematic inversions. At this time Ted was categorizing chords based on their “density.” He later abandoned this system as he developed his “V-System” for 4-note chord voicing groups. This page is still instructional in that it shows the process of systematic inversions. Notation and new grid diagrams added for easy reading.]

COMPING:
* All of Me, Comping on High Strings, 1984-10-07. [Ted’s comping study for the top 4 strings. Compilation pages includes Ted’s grid diagrams with notation, lead sheet, basic changes, and lyrics. Also please see Tim Lerch’s YouTube video review of this lesson page. Tim Lerch, All of Me – Ted Greene Comping
* A Foggy Day –V-2 Comping on Middle Strings, Key of Eb, 1985-08-02. [Ted’s comping study for the middle 4 strings. Compilation pages includes Ted’s grid diagrams with notation, lead sheet, basic changes, and lyrics.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Secondary Subdominants plus Catalogue of Cycle 4th Patterns, 1975. [Two of Ted’s pages combined. Transcribed for easy reading.]
* Harmonic Vocabulary - Major Key (part 7),1984-09-08. [This is the seventh in an 8-part series. New typed text and “cleaned up” grids for easy reading.]
* Chord Substitutions (Parts 1-2),1973. [This is the first 2 parts in a 10-part series. These pages had previously been posted, but now we’re included better quality scans of the original pages, plus typed text and new diagrams for much easier reading.]

OTHER:
* Harp Harmonics - Ascending Harmonic Chords Derived from Scales, 1978. [Ted’s chord grids for various harp-harmonic scales. Translation pages including notation and new girds added for easy reading.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* All the Things You Are - Chord Tone Outline for SNS, 1981-06-04. [Ted’s grid diagrams of scale and arpeggios for each chord of this progression. Translation page includes the lead sheet with grids placed for each measure.] This lesson replaces the previously posted page in the “Blues and Jazz” section. The new version is a better quality scan and we’ve separated the “Cherokee” lesson – to be posted next month.

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2, Major Extensions by Cumulative Processes, 1984-10-29. [Taken from Ted’s Private Music Studies files, this page explores 15 different V-2 major-type chords with extension using systematic inversions. Thanks to Matt Lord for providing new, easy-to-read chord diagrams for this page.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Progression #8 – from A Session with the Stars.  [Written up by Matt Lord with standard notation, TAB, and Ted’s grids. This corresponds to Ted’s “A Session with the Stars” video on YouTube: Ted Greene – A Session with the Stars and go to time 39:16 to see and hear Ted demonstrate this progression. This is a great exercise to learn and Matt wrote me, “To me it’s the most useful Ted exercise I’ve learnt yet. It really moved my playing forward a tremendous amount.” So give it a try.]

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OCTOBER 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Happy October, or for us folks in the US, “Happy Halloween” – a time to celebrate “All Saints’ Day” – which has become a festival for jack-o-lanterns, haunted houses, witches, ghosts, and monsters, and kids dressing up in scary costumes trick-or-treating for candy at every neighbor’s door. I wanted to re-post Barbara Franklin’s blog about Halloween with Ted:

No, Ted and I did not participate in any Halloween activities for the length of our time together (July ’92 to July ’05). On a whim, I picked out these wax-candy lips at the supermarket, since I knew Lori would be visiting us that particular evening. What a surprise it was that Ted consented to put them on! We all remembered having these when we were children and how much fun it was chewing the lips into a large waxy ball. Well, that was never to be again.

Unfortunately, the lips didn’t taste nearly as good as we recalled, in less than a minute we spit them into the trash. But we had a good laugh.

I am glad we took the photos. As you can see, Ted could be very silly and playful at times. Being silly and playful on occasion is highly recommended.

As an adult Ted was very uncomfortable with the concept of Halloween. Ted believed that there were “spirits” good and evil pervading the earth. He felt that light (a physical light source), kept the bad spirits at bay, as well as did positive thoughts and actions. One day my mother asked us if we wanted her old Ouija board (just for fun). Ted was adamant about refusing it. He claimed it was dangerous, as it could harbor bad spirits. Regardless of belief, it was most evident that Ted never magnetized anything but goodness.

And of course there was Quincy to consider – our beautiful black cat. Ted was very protective about him (understandably) during the Halloween period and insisted on keeping Quincy indoors for the entire week, much to Quincy’s dismay!
~ Barbara

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In keeping with the Halloween spirit this month we’re featuring Ted’s two arrangements of “The Munster’s Theme.” You’ll find them in our Arrangements section, plus we have a short audio clip of Ted playing it, excerpted from a lesson with Nick Stasinos.

Hey, we recently discovered that Herman Munster took some private lessons with Ted back in the early 70’s. As you can see, here he is displaying a newly learned A7b5 chord. Looks like he was also working on his harp-harmonics – using a real harp…

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Also this month is the eagerly awaited second and concluding part of Ted’s “Messin’ Around at Home (I)” recording. See last month’s Newsletter for more details. Unfortunately the final piece ends abruptly. Apparently the cassette recorder was turned off or it ran out of tape. Here’s the song listing for this 11-minute file:

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And a final surprise that showed up on our radar recently: Several recordings of Ted jamming with Emily Remler featured on her website, AllThingsEmily.com in the Emily’s Music/Emily Jams.
Here’s a link: www.allthingsemily.com/jams

Wow… pretty amazing playing there… and a lot of fun! You can understand why Ted so admired Emily and they had such a great relationship. These recordings were provided by Sunny Paul (who also gave us the 1978 GIT seminar recordings of Ted and Cathy Segal-Garcia). According to Emily’s site, “…with more to come,” so keep an eye on that and send a thank you to Sunny.

Well, that’s enough new material to keep you out of trouble for a little while at least, so enjoy and have a great month!

~ Paul and the friendly folk at TedGreene.com

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Munster’s Theme, 1967. [Ted’s early arrangement in standard notation, suggested chord grid diagrams added. Be sure to visit our Audio section to listen to a short clip of Ted playing this piece. It’s located in Lessons with Nick Stasinos section.]
* Munster’s Theme, 1998-10-15. [Ted’s later (incomplete) arrangement written using chord grids only. This is a slightly different rendering of the piece, with the bridge and ending is missing. He may have intended the 1967 version bridge to be used here. Standard notation added.]

AUDIO:
* “Messin’ Around at Home (I)” (part 2) – 1997. [An informal recording made of Ted playing his 1960’s D’Angelico copy guitar “Carmelita” (unplugged) for Barbara. Presented here is the second part of the recording on one mp3 file. See the September Newsletter for more details about this recording.]
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-01-20. [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 64 minutes. They discuss harmonizing melodies with several different types of progressions (ascending/descending) – similar to Ted’s Modern Chord Progressions –Ted reviews Marks assignment worksheet dated 1992-12-28 worksheet (see the "From Students" section under Mark Levy). Also talk about 11b9 chords; and review different types of rhythms in popular music.]
* Munster’s Theme. [A short audio clip of Ted playing this TV series theme song. Excerpted from a lesson with Nick Stasinos, and located in the Lessons with Nick Stasinos section. Be sure to see the notation and grid diagrams for this in our “Arrangements” section.]
* Moonglow. [A wonderful, but very short audio clip of Ted playing this jazz standard. Excerpted from a lesson with Nick Stasinos, and located in the Lessons with Nick Stasinos section. This is a spontaneous performance and is different from Ted’s two written arrangements that can be found in our “Arrangements” section.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Blues Progressions, 1976-06-07. [Blues progressions in the keys of Bb and G. From simple to medium level playing. ]

COMPING:
* A Foggy Day – High Register Piano Voicing Comping, 1990-04-29. [Ted’s advanced comping study using a lot of chords above the 12th fret. Compilation pages includes Ted’s grid diagrams with notation, lead sheet, basic changes, and lyrics.]
* Moonglow – Middle 4 Strings, Key Eb, 1977-04-30. [Ted’s comping study using mostly V-2 chord forms. Notation and lead sheet combined with Ted’s grids.]
* Moonglow – Top and Middle Strings, Key Eb, 1977-04-30. [Similar voicings for the lesson on the middle strings, but utilizing the top 4 strings as well. Notation and lead sheet combined with Ted’s grids.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Secondary Dominants in Common Progressions, 1990-01-20  [Ted demonstrates some progressions using secondary dominants. Transcribed for easy reading.]
* Normal 18th and 19th Century Harmonic Vocabulary, 1975-02-22. [Ted’s list of chord types used on every degree of major and minor keys in 18th and 19th century music. Transcription pages included for easy reference.]

OTHER:
* Harp-Harmonics – Chord Progressions for Harmonics, 1979-02-17 & 18. [Ted’s chord grids for various progressions with harp-harmonics. Translation pages included for easier reading.]
* Inner Hearing – The Visual Fingerboard, 1983-09-28. [Some interval and arpeggio exercises to be visualized on the fretboard and also to “hear” them mentally while doing so.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-1, More Exercises to Learn V-1 m7 3rd Stack Types, 1987-08-05  
* V-2, Diagonal String Crossing Major 6 and Major Extensions, 1984-09-16.
* ii7-V7-I Studies Mixing V-1 and V-2, 1987-08-29. In the Combined Groups folder. [Excellent and unusual ii7-V7-I progressions]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Ted Greene Guitar Lesson, 1992-12-28, I-VI7-ii-V7, Mark Levy’s Worksheet. [This is 5 pages written up by Mark Levy on 1992-12-28 as an assignment on ascending and descending progressions. (Reviewed by Ted during Mark’s 1993-01-20 audio lesson with Ted. See the Audio Section). Ted very much liked these chord voicings and praised Mark for the great work he did. Read and listen to follow along with the recording.]

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SEPTEMBER 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

We wanted to share this recent letter from Joe Maisel, a former student of Ted:

I studied regularly with Ted from about 1993 to 1997, and then sporadically here and there until his death. I actually only found out around 2006 that he’d passed when I tried to call him and discovered that his phone was disconnected. I could write many pages about all that Ted meant to me. My ex-wife (a classical violinist) also studied with him; he helped her learn to play jazz. She’d played since she was 3 and had grown up surrounded by incredible musicians, but she felt as I did; that Ted was singular in both his talents and his spirit.

I don’t play for a living anymore. I don’t practice for hours and hours every day, but the time I had with Ted was incredibly influential in my playing and in the broader scope of life. I’m writing this from a dorm room in the University of Kentucky at Louisville while I attend Jamey Abersold’s “jazz camp”. It is my first venture back to formal music education in many years, and so of course I’ve been reflecting on and remembering Ted with great longing, affection, and sadness. I miss him terribly and think of him often. I was trying to describe Ted to a friend of mine who I’m rooming with here, so we watched some YouTube videos of Ted and I kinda lost it. I don’t tear up easily, but the combination of being here and remembering the best teacher and one of the best humans I’ll ever meet got to me.

Ted loaned me an amp when I didn’t have one. Not just any amp, a silver face Princeton Reverb that I’ve never found an equal to. At the time it was the amp he was using in his salon. He loaned it to me for months and never once asked for it back or anything. I was studying baroque harmony with him, and that amp sounded gorgeous with his Tele; it had the most amazing hum-free reverb.

Once during a lesson in which I spent several weeks preparing Ted’s harmony exercises, I began playing them for him. I made a mistake, apologized, and went to start again. What followed was one of the most profound moments of my life: Ted asked me to play it again with the mistake, and to let the accidental chord ring. And as I obliged he closed his eyes, and said, “You know, if you just hear it as a ‘happy accident’, it’s quite beautiful.” He then proceeded to explore where the “mistake” led him, and of course it was stunning! I remember the adrenalin rush that followed. I immediately got it! One of the most profound life lessons I’ve ever had.

That lesson completely changed my life. It informed and influenced everything that followed. It made me a far better guitarist and musician. It removed a large measure of the burden of self-judgment that I’d carried from a very abusive childhood. That one exchange – less than a minute of time – helped heal a deep wound in my soul. I cannot tell that story without crying, and as I said, I don't cry easily. It was an immense gift which literally changed my life and my perception of everything.

I want to thank you for keeping Ted’s spirit alive. He was singular – like if Mozart and Ghandi had a kid :). Thank you for your excellent work.

We sure like letters like that. It’s a good reminder of how much Ted touched people (and still does) not only with his music but with his perspective on life.

This month we have another wonderful gift to share with you all: a March 23, 1997 cassette recording that Barbara Franklin had in which she titled, “Messin’ Around at Home.” It’s an informal recording of Ted playing his 1960s D’Angelico copy he named “Carmelita” (unplugged) for Barbara. Presented here is the first part of the recording on a single mp3 file. We didn’t separate the recording into smaller tracks because Ted plays continuously, segueing one song into the next. Barb asked that this be left as one file, not chopped up. It is highly improvised and spontaneous, with plenty of mistakes that Ted admits. Barbara was reluctant to send this CD out to everyone because she felt people might not understand that it was made one evening when she and Ted were relaxing together and having a couple glasses of wine. So Ted was not at his best performance level, and Barb hoped that the recording didn’t misrepresent his abilities. I think you’ll find it interesting and refreshing – a different side of Ted.

Here is the song list for this 33 minute mp3 file:
* (If anyone can confirm the title to song #13, please post the correct titles in our Forums.) Next month we’ll post the final segment.

Another special treat for this final month of summer is two YouTube videos from Tim Lerch playing Ted’s 1985 “Moonglow” arrangement:
YouTube.com/Tim Lerch - Ted Greene Lesson - Moonglow Solo Guitar
and Ted’s 1977 “Moonglow” comping page:
YouTube.com/Tim Lerch - Ted Greene Lesson - Moonglow Comping

Highly recommended! These videos are very helpful and insightful and should be used with the lesson sheets we’re posting this month. Check ‘em out and send Tim a word of thanks… We hope we’ll see more of these in the future. Thanks Tim!

~ Paul and the magnificent musical minions of the TedGreene.com team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Moonglow, 1985-04-20. [Ted’s arrangement in the key of D. The original sheet is included with a compilation write-up which combines Ted’s grids with standard notation and lyrics. Also see Tim Lerch’s YouTube instructional video which reviews this arrangement.]

AUDIO:
* Messin’ Around at Home (I), 1997. [See message in the Newsletter message above. Next month we’ll post the final segment.] 
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993. [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 90 minutes. Ted talks about good contemporary guitarists, review of “Angel Eyes”; quick amp review, Ted’s early impressions of music. From a lesson in 1993, although the exact date is unknown.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Blues with a Walking Bass (Approach Chords), 1987-05-23. [Blues in E. Approach chords used to harmonize a riff. Notation and translation added with Ted’s grids.]

COMPING:
* A Foggy Day - V-2 Chords, Top 4 Strings (Key of F), 1985-08-02. [Ted’s comping study for this jazz standard. Compilation file includes Ted’s grids, notation, lead sheet with melody, basic changes, and lyrics.]
* Moonglow - Comping on Top and Middle 4 Strings (key of G), 1977-04-30. [Ted’s comping study. Compilation file includes Ted’s grids, new notation, lead sheet with basic changes, and lyrics.]
* Moonglow - Comping on Middle 4 Strings (key of G), 1977-04-30. [Ted’s comping study. Compilation file includes Ted’s grids, new notation, lead sheet with basic changes, and lyrics.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Harmonic Vocabulary - Major Key (part 5),1984-07-18. [This is the fifth in an 8-part series. New typed text and “cleaned up” grids for easy reading.]
* 20th Century Harmonic Vocabulary and Progressions, 1976-01-21. [Translation pages included.]
* Secondary Dominants - 1989-1990. [Three pages written by Ted on 1989-12-30 and 1990-01-01. Various progressions in chord grids demonstrating the principle of secondary dominants.]

OTHER:
* Harp-Harmonics – Scalular Runs with Chimes and Regular Notes, 1979-08-22. [Ted’s instructions for achieving scale runs or “rippling arpeggios” with harmonics and regular notes (ala Lenny Breau and Chet Atkins). New notation and translation pages included for easy reading.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Dominant 7th – Cumulative Single-Line Resources, 1983-12-13. [Ted’s breakdown of dominant scale fingerings by way of arpeggio and scale fragments. New notation, typed text and cleaned up diagrams, courtesy of Matt Lord.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-1, Minor 7 Chord Studies, 1987-08-05 and 10.
* V-2 Minor 9 Chords in Melodic Pattern, 1985-07-24.
* V-2 Major 6ths Exercises, 1984-07-20. [Two pages: bottom 4 & middle 4 strings, and exercises using all 3 string sets.]

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AUGUST 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

This month we’d like to share a story that recently came to us from John Kally about Ted and his guitar he named “Bettina.”

Back in the late 1980s into the early 1990s I was consigning a number of guitars to sell through Chris’ Guitars on Lankershim in North Hollywood (the store is long gone and Chris now works at another music store in San Fernando, CA, last I heard). One time when I was driving with a few guitars from Phoenix to the store in San Fernando, and was running late, I called Chris to let him know I’d be arriving after the regular store hours. He told me not to worry as he had a customer that would be coming by after he was closed anyway, so he’d be there. When I finally showed up, the customer turned out to be Ted Greene! He had a Telecaster plugged in to try out and was playing some pretty amazing baroque-flavored lines with counterpoint when I came in.

I had a copy of his Solo Guitar LP, and also his Chord Chemistry book, so I knew who he was but had never seen him playing before this. We talked for awhile about amps and guitars, and he was very pleasant to converse with. When I told him I was from Phoenix he mentioned that he had a student that was flying in for lessons. He also mentioned that he was looking for a Guild Duane Eddy model guitar, which unfortunately I didn’t have. However, I told him about an older electric, three-pickup blond 1954 Guild X375 that I had at home. Ted asked me to bring it to Chris’ store the next time I came through, which I did. I later heard from Chris that Ted bought it sometime after I left. I never thought much about it since then until I happened to see him playing that guitar on YouTube, a video filmed in 1997. YouTube.com/TedGreeneGuitarTalk

There are a couple of things that I noticed about the guitar which I recalled from when I owned it. For one thing, the tailpiece is a newer Guild replacement, as when I owned it there was an aftermarket Bigsby tailpiece there. Also I think I had replaced the bridge since it had a metal one, and possibly tuners were replaced also. Knobs are the “stove” type and replaced also, as the stock ones were clear. The stove knobs were used on some later models but the best I could come up with at the time. I think the peghead was refinished (Ted mentions this in the video), and also there had been some binding work done. I used to have a picture of this guitar someplace back when I owned it, but can’t seem to find that. I believe these early Guilds had a slightly longer scale than the later ones and Ted also mentions that in the video.

Ted with “Bettina”

As a side note, when I came back to Phoenix a few days later I mentioned my meeting with Ted to Al Casey, the well-known LA studio guitarist. I was taking lessons from Al at the time, as he had retired to Phoenix from LA. He was teaching at Ziggie’s Music (he was living next door to the store in an apartment that was attached to the building, so he could walk over for lessons). Al recalled having a conversation with Ted and said that they talked about studio work. Ted told Al (and mind you, this is coming not only second-hand but years after it happened) that a problem Ted had with doing session work was that he was always wanting to suggest how to improve things, and that didn’t go over well with session producers!

Related to this guitar, but not to Ted, is the back-story of how I got this guitar in the first place and why I wanted to sell it. I had seen it hanging on the wall at a local music store that sold a lot of instruments on consignment. The store owner was asking too much for it so I passed. But then he called me a week later and was willing to sell it cheap. I met him at his house (not the store) and there was another guy also waiting at the door. As it turns out, the store owner had sold a guitar on consignment for this guy and then spent the cash on his rent and couldn’t pay him. The guy threatened to call the cops if he didn’t pay up immediately. So I paid for the guitar and the store owner immediately handed the cash over to the other guy.

When I got home I discovered various issues with the guitar, such as the changed parts and that the pushbuttons needed work. This wasn’t mention to me when I bought it, so I called the store owner to see if I could get a discount for the money I paid. Of course he didn’t have any cash so he gave me a bunch of pedals instead, several of which turned out to be non-working (which he knew and I didn’t). Needless to say, this store owner is no longer in business. Part of why I decided to sell the guitar is that whenever I pulled it out to play I was reminded of the hassle I had with the seller. Obviously Ted didn’t know any of this and wasn’t tainted by the guitar’s history and was able to appreciate it for what it was. One final note: recently I was talking to a friend about this story and he told me that he also sold a Guild guitar on consignment at Chris’ Guitar store, a 1953 X400 that Ted purchased.

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You can see a listing of Ted’s guitars and the “personal names” he gave them in the appendix of Barbara Franklin’s book about Ted, My Life with the Chord Chemist. On page 255 she lists his Guild 1954 Blond Spruce X375 as “Bettina.” No mention of the 1953 X400, so Ted must have later sold it.

We have a nice treat for all of you this month: Along with our posting of Ted’s 1974 arrangement and comping page of “On a Clear Day”, Tim Lerch has created a two companion YouTube videos demonstrating and talking through Ted’s sheets. The arrangement: Tim Lerch - Ted Greene’s On A Clear Day and the comping page: Tim Lerch - Ted Greene’s On a Clear Day-Comping. These are very helpful videos that bring Ted’s lesson pages alive and show how you can tackle them. Thanks, Tim!

Recently in our Forums there have been some requests for more audio and video material that demonstrate Ted’s various arrangements, comping sheets, and other lesson pages. Tim has done a wonderful job here, and we would like to encourage others to make similar audio and/or video recordings of any of Ted’s pages that you’ve worked on and can play through comfortably enough so as to be instructional and inspirational to those newly approaching those pages.

We’d like Ted’s lesson sheets to be more user-friendly and accessible, and very often being able to hear or watch someone play something takes some of the fear and confusion out of it. Your examples don’t have to be as beautiful as Tim’s. The TedGreene.com family is a very friendly bunch of folks and there’s usually nothing but positive support and encouragement here. You won’t receive negative criticism, so don’t be shy if your performance isn’t as good as Ted (who is?). All any of us can do is interpret the pieces as we hear or understand them. There’s really no one who can say, “This is how it should be played” so there is a lot of room for various interpretations. You can post your links in the Forums or send to me via the Forums Private Messaging in order to get them posted in the “From Students” section or featured elsewhere.

Hope you all enjoy the new material for more summer woodshedding!

Paul and the dedicated team at TedGreene.com

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* On a Clear Day, 1974-04-04. [Ted’s early arrangement plus his undated handwritten lead sheet, compiled with notation and lyrics. Please also watch Tim Lerch’s YouTube video wherein he plays this arrangement.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-12-23 (part 1). [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 64 minutes. They review "Georgia" with different rhythmic feels, and talk about the 7 different rhythmic types. Lots of Gospel stuff, meters of American music: Long meter, Straight 8ths, Shuffle 8ths, Three “feels”, Gospel Three, Jazz Waltz, Gospel 6/8 & 12/8, Doo-wop 12/8, Waltz, Sixteenths, Swing 16ths, Rock 16ths, Florid 16ths, Folk 16ths, Two-beat (i.e., cut time), Bo Diddley, Stone Grooves (1/4 note). (Continued in part 2). Note: See Mark’s section in the From Students for a PDF of a page Ted wrote up during this lesson.]
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-12-23 (part 2). [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 60 minutes. They continue their discussion of the seven rhythmic types: Two beat, sixteenths, Stone quarter-note grooves. They also talk about practice schedule & strategies and turnaround formulas.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* The Blues, 1977-07-19. [Blues in D and F. Ted’s explanation and notation. Transcription pages included to make it easier to read.]

COMPING:
* On a Clear Day, 1984-03-13. [Ted’s comping study for this jazz standard. Most are V-2 chords on the top 4 strings. Included with Ted’s original page is a compilation page that contains new notation with the lead sheet, lyrics, and Ted’s 1974 basic changes. You may find it helpful to also watch Tim Lerch’s YouTube video wherein he demonstrates this lesson sheet.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Harmonic Vocabulary - Major Key (part 4),1984-07-14. [This is the fourth in an 8-part series. New typed text and “cleaned up” grids for easy reading.]
* Minor Key Harmonic Vocabulary Reference Page, 1974-06-11. [Ted’s list of all the chords commonly used on the various degrees of in a minor scale, and their function in relation to other chords]

OTHER:
* Harp-Harmonic Technique ala Lenny and Chet, 1978-10-14. [Basic 6-string patterns for harp-harmonics plus a few good chord forms for application. Transcribed for easy reading.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Dominant 7th Runs (parts 7 & 8), 1979-01-01. [The final installments of an 8-part series. New notation, typed text and cleaned up diagrams, courtesy of Matt Lord.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Mark’s Practice Schedule, 1992-12-23. [A page written by Ted during Mark Levy’s lesson. Included are some turnaround formulas and a list of the seven American Rhythms. Listen to the mp3 file for this lesson: Audio Lessons with Mark Levy.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-1, Major Pentatonics, 1986-08-22. [Chords scales for both sets: middle 4 and top 4 strings.]
* V-1, Dominants: 13th on Top (Top 4 Strings), 1986-08-08.
* V-2, Minor 7th Types, All 3 String Sets, 1984-11-06. [Three pages: bottom 4 strings, middle 4, and top 4 string sets.]

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JULY 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Ted’s “Waiting List”

Unless you had very good karma or a friend who needed you to “lesson sub” for his Ted lesson, or some other special connection into Ted’s world – if you wanted to study with Ted, you had to wait. He only had so many openings in his teaching schedule, and they were always filled. But once you got “in” he usually allowed for some flexibility in your lessons. Below are some memories from the “Ted Greene Memorial Blog” relating to the famous “waiting list”:

From Paul Martorella:
I go back…to lessons at Ernie Balls/Dale’s Guitar shop on Topanga Canyon Blvd. Upon moving to California I was fortunate to take a lesson from Joe Pass. At that time Joe was touring with Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson as “The Big Three.” Joe gave me some words of inspiration and told me about this guy named Ted Greene. “That’s who you want to study with.” Although Ted’s waiting list was long, his study materials were often the curriculum of choice in the very capable hands of Chips Hoover. Needless to say there were some incredible sounds emanating from the studio walls at Dale’s back then. What an amazing atmosphere of learning and inspiration!

From Mike Parsons:
I first heard about Ted in the late 1970’s when at age 16 or 17 I strolled into a music store on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood that I believe was Norm’s Rare Guitars. Somebody at the store (I think it was Norm) heard me play some solo guitar arrangements of “Send in the Clowns”, “Danny Boy” and “Alfie” that I copied off TV while watching the “Great Guitars” in concert (Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis and Charlie Byrd). Norm heard what I was doing and was surprised that a teenager was into playing those songs. He said, “You should study with Ted Greene! He plays that same style.” He wrote down Ted’s phone number for me. It was a life-changing moment. I called the next day and got on Ted’s waiting list which seemed to be a couple years wait at that point. He eventually called a couple years later and said he had an opening, and so I went and started taking lessons from him.

I took several lessons from him in the early 1980’s. Those were the most inspirational lessons of my life. I remember bringing in songs that I was working on, arrangements of songs like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Guys and Dolls”, and Ted would just blow me away with his improvised chord melodies to those and countless other songs. His modulations, voice leading, vibrato, and touch were magical; so moving. …The music he played seemed to be an extension of who he was: a very kind and gentle person.

I remember giving Ted a ride to return a video to Blockbuster and just getting a kick out of what a wonderful person he was outside of the lessons. I got to chat with him then and at other times about sports and music and other things. I just can’t imagine a better person to pass the time with on this planet. I talked to Ted on the phone a couple of times in more recent years but I hadn’t seen him in a long time. The last time I saw him was at a bar in Agoura Hills watching Albert Lee. We ran into each other there and chatted a bit. I actually wanted to take some more lessons from him this year, and I thought I would give him a call pretty soon. After 29 years – with much of that time spent teaching and playing guitar for a living – I still knew I could learn from, and more importantly be incredibly inspired by a lesson with Ted.

From “DG”:
I remember the “waiting list,” as I got on it about 20 years ago. Ted called me back about two months after I first left a message for him. He apologize that he just didn’t have room for another student. Recently, (20 years later) I was blessed with an opening to become one of his students! How blessed and fortunate I am to have been in his presence during the past 7 months!

From Tony Mandracchia:
In 1974 I got a job through my longtime friend and teacher at that time, Derol Caraco, working behind the counter at Dale’s Ernie Ball Guitars – the store where Ted taught. What an environment in which to work for a 17 year old kid! Half of Ted’s students were already pros. They would sit around the store jamming and telling road stories while waiting for their lesson with Ted. I would take care of the billing and Ted’s waiting list. That waiting list just continued to grow. I would get calls from people to see how far down ‘the list’ they were. Of course I signed up for lessons myself after Derol assured me I could handle it – providing that I practiced a bit more seriously. So I did...most of the time!
“Geez Ted, I was kind of busy this week...I didn’t get a chance to practice.” At this point Ted would nod his head sympathetically and ask, “How about TV? Did you get a chance to watch much TV this week?”

From Mark Kramer:
I got on Ted’s waiting list sometime around 1979, and then one day out of the blue I got “the call” from him saying that he had an opening for regular lessons. That was 1979. I drove down every 2 weeks from Santa Barbara for my lesson for years. The last lesson I took was around 1991 or 1992. Ted was an amazing teacher. We spent two years together working through Walter Piston and several other traditional classical harmony books – all on the guitar! Somewhere I have a notebook of 18 Bach Chorals that I wrote out in “Ted Greene style” diagrams with dots.

One year while teaching guitar at the National Summer Workshop I co-taught a special “Ted Greene Workshop.” Ted came out for the last part of the week. I spent the first part of the week going over a small fraction of the stuff he had taught me. Then he showed up. I’ll never forget him playing “All the Things You Are” for the class in a Baroque style with fugue-like moving lines.

From Cesar:
I remember 15 years ago buying some intense looking guitar books written by “some guy” name Ted Greene and showing them to a friend. It turned out that my friend was one of Ted’s students. He got permission from Ted to give me his phone number. I was warned that there was a waiting list. When I called Ted to inquire about a lesson, my palms were all sweaty from being so nervous. For whatever reason I was able to secure a monthly lesson right off the bat. On my first lesson I asked him to teach me “Someone to Watch Over Me” in chord melody style. I taped that lesson and still have it.

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This month we’re posting the highly anticipated second half of Ted’s “Messin’ Around at Home (II)” recording. We have a few more recordings of Ted to share with you all, but they’re becoming few and far between. We want to once again put out the call / plea for any of Ted’s old students to send us copies of their cassette recordings of lessons with Ted. Many of Ted’s students say that they recorded each lesson and how inspirational these are for them to hear again. Yes, certainly. Are you ready to share them? We’re all especially grateful to guys like Mark Levy and Kevin Griffin for sharing their collection of lesson recordings. If anyone wants / needs help in the digital transfer of their cassettes, we can certainly do it for you for free. We’ll even edit out any “embarrassing” sections that you don’t want the world to hear. We’d like to preserve as much of those audio and video recordings here for the educational and inspirational benefit for guitarist everywhere for years to come. Please contact me or Leon White (via the forums) to arrange this.

Usually we publish one new Ted arrangements per month, and appropriate for July we’ve posted his handwritten notation to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But since this website is an international community and not everyone here shares the American patriotic spirit, we’ve decided to post another one of Ted’s beautiful arrangements, “Sweet Loraine.” I think you’ll like them both, along with all the other amazing new material. Enjoy!

And finally, we have one more surprise announcement from Ted’s musical partner, Cathy Segal-Garcia:

"Never Forgotten"
Legendary Guitarist Ted Greene with vocalist Cathy Segal-Garcia
A Double Set!

One documentary DVD of a live performance
and
One documentary CD of 2 live performances

Watch and listen to one of the performances on the DVD:  Ted Greene Rocco’s Accustomed

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To order the package email Cathy at: cathy@cathysegalgarcia.com
Price for sales within the continental U.S.  $25 (includes free shipping)
International sales:  $25 (plus extra charge for shipping to be determined by country)

Wishing you all a great summer with more time on your axe.
~ Paul and the Team at TedGreene.com

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* The Star-Spangled Banner, 1978-11-28. [Ted’s arrangement in handwritten notation.  Be sure to check out Paul’s compilation write-up in the “From Students” section.]
* Sweet Loraine, 1984-12-06. [Ted’s arrangement with grid chord diagrams.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-11-25. [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 63 minutes. They discuss Gapped 3rds and stacked 5ths, Chord melody on Georgia on My Mind, More on the history of rock ‘n roll, the three traditions of jazz, and Ted shares some of his experience as a teacher.]
* “Messin’ Around at Home (II)” – 1998. [An informal recording made of Ted playing his guitars “Luscious”, “Gigi”, and “Lucky” for Barbara. Presented here is the second half of the recording – tracks 4-6: “Baroque Improvisation”, “Informal Improvisation with Conversation”, and “Informal Improvisations with Lucky.”]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Walking Bass Blues – Mixing Blue and Warm Colors, 1991-07-15. [Blues in Gb. Notation included with Ted’s grids.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Chord Streams with V-2 Major 6ths, 1984-07-29. [Although these pages go with Ted’s other V-System files, we thought these might be better grouped with the other lessons on “Chord Streams.”]

COMPING:
* A Foggy Day – V-1 Chords, Top 4 Strings (key of Ab), 1985-08-03.  [Ted’s comping study for this jazz standard. Most are V-1 (close voicing, “stretch” chords) on the top 4 strings, key of Ab. Included is the lead sheet with melody, changes, and lyrics.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Harmonic Vocabulary - Major Key (part 3),1984-07-06. [This is the third in an 8-part series. New typed text and “cleaned up” grids for easy reading.]
* Complete Normal Vocabulary for 20th Century (Max Steiner) Sounds,1974-11-26. [Ted’s list of the different chord types with extensions and alterations, and the scale degrees which they can function.]
* Secondary V7 Chords (Secondary Dominants),1989-1990.  [These three pages were written in 1989-1990, demonstrating with chord grids some progressions with secondary dominants. You will need to supply the chord names and analysis.]

OTHER:
* Harp-Harmonic Technique (part 2), 1978-06-28. [Ted’s collection of chord forms utilizing the bottom 5 strings. New grid diagrams added for easy reading.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Dominant 7th Runs (parts 5 & 6), 1978-01-01. [The fifth and sixth installments of an 8-part series. New notation, typed text and cleaned up diagrams – courtesy of Matt Lord.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Sweet Loraine, 1984-12-06. [Notated by David Bishop and grids added by Paul Vachon. This easy-to-follow arrangement by Ted can be found under “Contributions by David Bishop and Paul Vachon” in the “From Students” section. The end measures were purposely left blank for you to add your own ending.]
* Modern Blues Progressions, 1974. [A page from Mark Levy’s lessons with Ted.]
* The Star-Spangled Banner, 1978-11-28.. [Paul’s write-up of Ted’s notation that includes suggested grids and lyrics.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-1 Symmetrical String Crossings with V-1 Major Sounds, 1986-08-26.
* V-2 Major 6ths, Outside String Hook-up, 1984-03-16.

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JUNE 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Summer Greetings!
Well, summer’s almost here… officially not until June 21st… and we have a nice surprise for you. Barbara Franklin had a couple of cassettes of Ted playing for her that she titled, “Messin’ Around at Home.” The dates for these two cassettes are: “Messin’ Around at Home (I) – 1997, March 23, and “Messin’ Around at Home (II) – 1998, April 4 & 12. These are very informal recordings made in Barb’s apartment. She wanted to share them years ago when she was in the process of distributing the many unpublished CD’s and DVD’s of Ted to anyone who asked. Whew, that was a project! This month we’re starting out by posting the first half of the second album (II).

Her initial reluctance to give out these CD was twofold: 1) she thought that since they were such informal, off-the-cuff recordings that they might not portray Ted in the best light. Obviously he would have wanted any “official release” recording to have a more polished sound quality, and he would have selected arrangements that he had worked up some slick intros, interludes, modulations, endings, harmonics, etc. Many of these pieces he did on-the-fly simply because Barb requested them. Some he didn’t really know very well (as you’ll later hear in the 1997 album). In addition, Barb admitted that for the 1997 recording she and Ted were relaxing and each had a glass of wine, so she was concerned that his playing might have been affected by that. (Geez, I should play so well on my best days!) I don’t believe Ted drank very often, so that was quite rare and she was a bit concerned.

And 2) the other reason for delaying the distribution was that there are a few informal comments made by Barb that she wanted removed. She asked me to edit them out, and this has been done. These were just a couple of very short comments; words of affection by her for Ted.

She also requested that the first album be kept as a single track, and not separate the songs. There are just two tracks – the first one is 33 minutes, and the second is 11 minutes. There was a telephone call that interrupted the recording, so we could divide it there. Here Ted plays continuously, segueing one song into another. It would have been a disservice to Ted and the music to have chopped the songs up into individual tracks, so Barb wanted it left as a continuous piece. The 1998 album is different, and we’ve split it into 6 different tracks. We’re posting 3 tracks this month and then the final 3 next month. In September and October we’ll post the 1997 album.

I like these recordings because they let us hear Ted just kickin’ back, relaxing with some stuff that he was noodling around with, and playing some songs that he felt Barb might like. I once remarked to Barb that she had probably heard Ted play his guitar more than anyone else on the planet: she heard him practicing, working on arranging, writing up student lesson sheets, playing for her, noodling while watching TV and movies, and of course she tried to attend as many of his live performances as she could. She thought about my comment for a while and was very quiet. I could tell she was trying to hold back the tears. She then replied, “Yes, that’s probably true. I was so blessed to have him. I wish we could have captured more of him to share with the world.” In one of Mark Levy’s recordings for this month Ted tells Mark that he felt it was essential for him to have a partner (girlfriend) who had the same interests as he. Well, Ted certainly found that in Barb. They both shared a passion for music and much more (Leon will have to give us more details about some of that). I think you’ll get a taste of their intimate relationship in these recordings. I hope you enjoy them, are inspired, and possibly learn something from them.

Connected with this new recording we’re fortunate that Anders Hagstrom has transcribed Ted’s rendition of “Tea for Two” and is now sharing it with us. You’ll find it in his “From Students” section. (Thanks, Anders!)

This month we’re starting a series on Ted’s “Harp-Harmonic Technique” and related files that will go for several months. The first installment is a replacement of a file that was posted years ago, but we now have a better scan of the original combined with typed out text and Ted’s grid boxes enlarged and cleaned up for easy reading. I think you’ll love this series – we’ll get into all of Ted’s harp-harmonic chords, finger patterns, some chord progressions and scales. After this series you’ll have no excuses for not knowing how to play at least some harmonics like Ted. Ted seemed to have been one of the master’s of this technique even though he usually deferred to Lenny Breau and Chet as the originators of it. I heard it stated once that Chet Atkins said of Ted’s harmonic playing, “He owns that technique!”

Appropriately selected for this month we’re posting Ted’s arrangement of “The Summer Knows” or more commonly referred to as Theme from “Summer of ‘42” We’re also beginning a series of Ted’s comping pages for “A Foggy Day” that will run several months” and we continue with the “Harmonic Vocabulary” and “Dominant 7th Runs” series.

We’ve dished up plenty of good food for your brain and fingers to keep you busy this summer. (Keith, you’ll have plenty to work on when you’re not working with your falcons amid the blueberries!)
ENJOY!

~Paul and the Fabulous Fretting Fellows at the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* The Summer Knows (Theme from “Summer of ’42), 1992-12-10. [Ted’s arrangement; two pages. Be sure to check out Paul’s compilation write-up in the “From Students” section.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-11-11 (part 1).
[An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 63 minutes. They discuss jazz blues form, minor sounds, and gapped 3rds, (continued in part 2).]
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-11-11 (part 2).
[An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 22 minutes. They continue their discussion on gapped 3rds.]
* “Messin’ Around at Home (II)” – 1998. [This is a very informal recording made of Ted playing his guitars “Luscious”, “Gigi”, and “Lucky” for Barbara. Presented here is the first half of the recording –tracks 1-3: “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”, “Improvisation on Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”, and “Tea for Two.” Next month we’ll post the second half.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Blues Progression Skeletons, 1985-08-25. [Four “basic” jazz blues studies in the key of C. Notation included with Ted’s grids.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* 3-Note Chord Hearts and Chord Fragments - Minor 7th Types, 1987-09-30. [Five of Ted’s pages for 3-note minor 7th chord streams. These are easy to play, useful moves for comping or chord soloing, or chord-melody arrangements.]

COMPING:
* A Foggy Day - V-1 Chords, Mostly Middle Strings (key of F), 1985-08-03. [Ted’s comping study for this jazz standard. Most are V-1 (close voicing “stretch” chords) on the middle 4 strings. The compilation pages include Ted’s grids diagrams plus notation, a lead sheet with lyrics.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Harmonic Vocabulary - Major Key (part 2),1984-05-02. [This is the second of an 8-part series. Includes new typed text and “cleaned up” grids for easy reading.]

OTHER:
* Harp-Harmonic Technique (part 1), 1977-02-03. [Ted’s right-hand patterns for harp-harmonics plus a ton of chord forms for application. This replaces the file previously posted and is the beginning of a multi-part series on Ted’s harp-harmonics.]
* George Van Eps – Ted Greene Lesson & Performance Notes, 1972 – 1998. [Taken from Ted’s Personal Music Studies files, this document combines a page from a 1972 lesson with GVE, and another page Ted jotted down “from the last time I saw my beloved teacher and friend, George Van Eps” at Papashon. If you’ve studied GVE’s material this may be clearer as to what Ted was notating.]
* Ear Training – Guitar Solfegge, 1988-89. [Ted called these pages “The Inner Fingerboard” – exercises for singing intervals on the guitar. New notation/text included.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Dominant 7th Runs (parts 3 & 4), 1977-12-31. [The third & fourth installments of an 8-part series. New notation, typed text and cleaned up diagrams, courtesy of Matt Lord.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Tea for Two – Ted Greene Transcription by Anders Hagstrom, 1992-12-10. [From Ted’s recording “Messin’ Around at Home (II)”, now available in our AUDIO section.]
* The Summer Knows (Theme from “Summer of ’42), 1992-12-10. [Paul Vachon’s compilation which includes Ted’s grids plus standard notation and lyrics.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-1, Learning Chord Forms Thru Chord Rows, 1981-01-10.
* V-2, Dominant 9th Chords Systematic Inversion Studies Plus Quiz, 1985-1984. [Two pages of V-2 grid studies, and two pages of a “Fill-in Quiz.”]

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MAY 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

A hearty May greeting to all Ted Greene fans, friends, and students!

I’ve been hunting for stories about Ted to post in these monthly Newsletters, so I began reading through some of the old entries in the Memorial blog – “Memories of Ted,” and decided that many of them are just so good that we really need to re-post a few excerpts. So I’ll be doing that on a somewhat regular basis (I hope you all don’t mind) in addition to giving updates on new things we’re posting for the month, etc. So to start off, here’s a couple of excerpts:

From Pat Smith, written back in 2005 on July 27th:
“I took a bunch of lessons with Ted, and since I live in the Bay Area I would take multi-hour lessons whenever I went. Ted was a sweet guy and his knowledge of guitar was amazing. I have often said I would be very happy to know as much about one style as he seemed to know about every style. His abilities as a teacher are well known, but it's sad that his shyness and striving for perfection denied us more recorded examples of his playing. He was so great at playing with deep emotion. I remember one of John Pisano’s guitar nights that featured Ted along with many other top players. The rude audience talked through many of the acts, but when Ted played you could have heard a pin drop. He played a very lovely version of “One for My Baby.” During one lesson Ted and I were talking about our mutual love of the Telecaster. He casually said that if he ever got rich he would give me one of his blackguard Tele's. That blew me away, not that I expected anything, but that he would say such a thing. He had a very giving sharing spirit.”

And another from Sherwood E. Ball, July 29, 2005:
Growing up in my dad’s guitar store in Tarzana was a truly unique experience. My father, Ernie Ball, had the first guitar store in the U.S., which included six teaching rooms in back of the store. As a young guitarist I would teach beginners after school. Other teachers were Stan Black, Jay Lacy, Bill Eucker and Ted Greene.
My father had a huge classical music library in about 6 file cabinets. Ted would take his breaks from teaching and either walk with us to the Winchell’s Donut shop for snacks, or go through the Dad’s classical music collection, one by one, and play pieces that were not written for guitar. Ted was the hero at the store. He could sight-read Debussy!
I took my first lesson from Ted in 1967. He taught me about bending strings and explained that Eric Clapton was playing B.B. King licks, who was playing Otis Rush licks. Ted was also a maniac with a soldering gun. Whenever he could afford it he would buy extra pickups from my dad’s repair department and install them in his many guitars.
My father passed this last year, but a few years before he died I took a lesson from Ted at his apartment in Encino. Ted was so intent on making sure that I got the message to my dad that Ted apologized for his early years of being a bit whacky. Of course, Ernie Ball felt that Ted was just the “genius Ted,” and it really wasn’t such big a deal as Ted was making it out to be.
But Ted cared about his ethics and integrity. He cared about giving to people and about the passion of guitar. The few lessons I took from Ted were so intensive that it took me a long time to learn just a few of the points in the lesson. I videotaped my last lesson. I said, “Ted, please just play and I’ll learn it from the tape.” I didn't want to waste his time by handing me the guitar back and forth while I fumbled. Ted was more than a genius, he was legendary and a rare spiritual being.

Those who knew Ted commented over and over again about his giving nature. He wanted to share his knowledge, his love for music, his enthusiasm, his time, his instruments, etc.... In that spirit of giving, I wanted to let you know about some of the sharing folks who have contributed to this months’ new items (many of whom have given similarly over the past months or years) – a few of the “extraordinary gentlemen” of the TedGreene.com Team:

David Bishop: Notation for Ted’s arrangement of Handel’s “Allegro” and creating “The Wine of May” lead sheet, plus proofreading almost everything we post before it hits the web.
Matt Lord: “Dominant 7th Runs” (an 8-part series) and “Establishing a Major Tonality” both write-ups of Ted’s lesson sheets.
Anders Hagstrom: Transcription of Ted’s “Improvisation #11 (Blues in Bb).”
Nick Stasinos:  Re-mastering & re-tracking of the “Ted Greene GIT Seminar 1978” audio files.
Will Kriski: Transcription from Ted’s video of “Baroque Improvisation, part 1.”
Mark Levy: Sharing his collection of recorded lessons with Ted.
Paul Vachon: Compilation pages for Ted’s “The Wine of May” comping study and monthly Newsletter coordination.
Dan Sindel (our humble Webmaster!): our computer whiz who stitches all these elements into the tapestry of the website for your browsing and downloading pleasure. Ted Greene Facebook updates.
Leon White: Watching over us all to make sure we don’t get into too much mischief.

Other news and updates for this month:
We wanted to let you know we’ve uploaded a “new and improved” version of the “Ted Greene GIT Seminar 1978” recording into our Audio section: Ted Greene GIT Seminar 1978. Nick Stasinos did the re-mastering, and here is said about it:
“When these tracks were originally posted late in 2008, I noticed a few tracks were missing as compared to Sunny Paul’s track list that he posted in the Forums (New Ted Tape). Pursuing the missing tracks meant going back to the source, which Paul Vachon so kindly supplied me in mid-2012. I meticulously pieced together the seminar again so it made sense to me where one song or topic ended and another began. In the process of re-dividing the tracks I also boosted the gain +3 dB, making the tracks a little more intelligible. The end result was an additional three new tracks, including the songs “It Had to Be You” and “Fascinating Rhythm” (with Cathy Segal-Garcia), plus better quality to the overall sound. The previous track #8 titled “Over the Rainbow” was really a beautiful medley of lullabies, which also included “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins and “Tender Shepherd” from Peter Pan. I hope you all enjoy the extra tracks and the sound improvements.”

Months ago I was determined to post Ted’s arrangement of “The Wine of May” for this month. (It seemed a fitting time.) But I discovered that this is a rather uncommon tune, and a Google search turned up zilch. David Bishop to the rescue! He located a few old recording on iTunes and then created a lead sheet for me. As soon as I began to work on it I realized that Ted’s page was not an arrangement but a comping study. What’s more, Ted indicated that it was to be a “jazz waltz” even though the song is in 4/4. What to do? As a solution we’ve created two versions: one in 4/4 as the song was written, and one in 3/4 as Ted had conceptualized. The melody was modified to fit 3/4 time. Ted’s chords work fine for both versions. With some additional modifications you won’t find it too difficult to come up with a real slick chord melody arrangement based on Ted’s harmonies. It’s a nice tune, and I don’t know why it is so obscure. Give it a try.

In case you haven’t visited our Forums for some time (it has been very quite there lately, and we do hope you’ll pop in a little more often!), I’d like to point out a thread that Tim Lerch recently posted. Go here. Tim was recently featured in Fingerstyle 360 magazine issue #6 with a fine interview and a transcription of his “Tea for Ted” (transcribed by our Anders Hagstrom). Be sure to get that issue!

Also to note:  the file we posted last month in the “Single-Note Soloing” section, “Solo Based on a Standard Progression” has been identified as “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.” The file was replaced with a new version with that info included.

We’ve also combined Ted’s pages on “Diatonic Modulation” and “More Modulations” together with Barbara Franklin’s translation & comments pages. They’re all in one file now titled, “Modulation – Diatonic Modulation and Other Modulations” in the “Harmony & Theory” section.

Next month we’ll have a new recording that you haven’t heard before. This was something that Barbara wanted to share it with you all. It’s a private recording of Ted playing for Barbara. She had requested that I remove some of her personal comments. That done, we’ll be putting up 3 tracks of it in June, and three in July. And there’s more… so sit tight!

Okay, I’ve rambled way too long and it’s time for you to get at those new items! ENJOY!

Paul and the great guitar guys of the TedGreene.com Team

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APRIL 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

This month Leon White shares another one of his stories about Ted:

Ted at the movies. I knew Ted over thirty years, but getting him out someplace was almost impossible. I think the reason was that he couldn't bring his shopping bag of papers with him to work on them because the theater was dark. We did get him out twice - both times on “dates,” although my wife and I were married, Ted brought a date. The last time was to go see the movie “The Big Sleep (1944-45).” The movie was made in 1944, released to troops, but then pulled back so that Warner Brothers could release all the war movies in production. The score was by Max Steiner - a gentleman who helped define the movie score. One of Ted’s favorite composers, Max pulled out the stops for the Bogart-Bacall mystery. Ted’s date for the event was a quiet lady whose father worked at Warner Bros. in the Music Department with all the great movie composers. She even had some of Max Steiner’s music! She seemed to know A LOT about scoring and orchestral music, and Ted said she was wonderful at the piano. She did not agree. Meet Barbara Franklin.

We all had VCR copies of “The Big Sleep” but this was different. The UCLA film archives had restored the 1944 version of the film. It turns out we’d all been watching the 1946 version. And there were real differences. Thirteen (?) scenes had been changed - some cut, some re-shot, some with additional footage added. One actress had been replaced, and at the time, UCLA was asking for help in identifying her!? All these changes meant one thing for certain - Mr. Steiner ("Max" to Ted) had re-scored a lot of cues, so here we were - 4 movie geeks - going to sit in a small theater on the UCLA campus to see this version, and hear a short discussion of which parts had been changed. (The original credits at the beginning of the film were not restored, I noticed.) That Ted had agreed to attend was a shocker in itself, and even though this was a non-event, my wife had insisted on purchasing tickets in advance. HA!

We arrived early and stood outside. A line gradually grew. And grew. And grew. And kept on growing. Turns out this wasn’t the movie-geek event everyone had planned on. To our great happiness, several thousand had showed up to “catch” this movie. Ted and a crowd? He seemed okay. The UCLA staff were freaked. At first they decided not to show it all, a rumor was reporting. We were still waiting outside. The villagers were getting pitchforks and torches…. It was decided that those with tickets would see it now, and an additional showing would have to cover everyone else (it turned into more showings, and now this is all available on DVD).

We all knew the score almost by heart, so when the changes came is was incredible. We had a great evening, and Ted discussed something he had heard about Max Steiner. Steiner often was on set during shooting, making notes. Seems he might be inspired by the pitch of the dialogue to write a cue or melody. I can’t guarantee it, but if you want to hear Max Steiner grab the dialogue watch the opening three scenes of “The Big Sleep.” One of them (“Carmen the little sister” coming down the stairs) has the melody before the dialogue! So when you wonder about just how good a listener Ted was, or what inspired him when he played (and he played parts of this score from memory on the guitar) - check this out. I still do.
~ Leon

On another subject: we want to share with you a link to a CD made by one of Ted’s students, John March, in honor of Ted. The recording is titled: “Chord Alchemy, a Student's Tribute to Ted Greene.”

The full story is here: Chord Alchemy

John informs us, “One third of the proceeds from all CD sales will go to the tedgreene.com for keeping the site going. The other two-thirds will go to Naropa University music students and to saving towards producing a 2nd CD.”

This project was started years ago, and John had sent some early recordings and the idea of his CD to Barbara Franklin for her input. Here is what she said:
“This project is the culmination of a long and arduous mission, the result of a student’s reverence and dedication to his beloved teacher and mentor, Ted Greene.
John March has accomplished the goals he set out for himself by paying a musical tribute to Ted and his works, for the many gifts of learning about music, life, and in fact himself, that were bestowed upon him during the many years Ted graced his life.
Ted’s influence and spirit are subtly reflected throughout John’s interpretations of the beautiful pieces of music he chose to share with others.
Within each piece of music, the process of John’s growth as a musician and a person is evident. John overcame the most challenging obstacles to attain, what I feel, is a true expression of Ted’s spirit in capturing and immortalizing the inherent beauty and delicate nuance in Ted’s wonderful solo guitar arrangements of standards, as well as displaying some unique qualities, born from John’s history of playing the music of the blues.
Finally, and most honorable, are John’s intentions for creating this project. I know in my heart that Ted would be so proud of him. May it go forth into the world and work its magic with my blessings.”

~ Barbara Franklin - Author of My Life with The Chord Chemist: A Memoir of Ted Greene, Apotheosis of Solo Guitar

Also see a note about this in the Ted Greene Archives: A Student’s Tribute

Leon (and Paul) and the incredible members of the TedGreene.com team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Aura Lee, 1973-09-11. [Two Ted Greene arrangements – well, really just one plus another one as an assignment. The first one is the melody with a bass line (added by Ted) given as an assignment for you to fill in the harmony in 4 (or 3) voices. The other one is an arrangement in which Ted added the harmony. We’ve included new notation for easy reading. (Be sure to see Paul Vachon’s compilation page in the “From Students” section for added grid diagrams). This song is an old American Civil War song, and it was the basis for Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender.”]
* The Green Leaves of Summer (Ted’s lead sheet),1974-09-17. [Ted’s handwritten lead sheet (not an arrangement).]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-10-01 (part 1). [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 64 minutes. They discuss “The making of a guitarist,” triads, harmonized scales, melodic patterns with harmonized chord scales, and Baroque textures.]
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-10-01 (part 2). [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 41 minutes. The go over chords for “God Bless the Child,” and talk about expanded-root diatonic chords, and the reharmonization experimentation process.]
* Ted Greene Lesson with Keith Richman, 1991-02-16 & 17 (part 2). [An mp3 file of Keith’s lesson, 46 minutes. They review “The Days of Wine and Roses” and “Nocturne.” There’s also a brief explanation of voice switching/swapping.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Jazz Blues, 2000-07-13. [Blues in Bb. Simple chords for comping. Notation included with Ted’s grids. We’ll put this one in the “Blues” section, even though it could also fit in the “Jazz” section.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Chord Voicings on the Middle 4 Strings (level 1), 1977-02-26. [Two pages of grids for major, minor 7, and dominant 7, chord types.]
* Chord Forms for Solo and Ensemble Chord Melody Playing, Level 1, 1977-08-19[New copy with reformatted grids for easier reading (Thanks to Matt Lord.)]

FUNDAMENTALS:
* Aeolian Flavors and Progressions, 1987-11-22 &-1990-05-09. [Notation and translation pages included.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Secondary Dominants, Tonicization (part 5),1975-07-01. [This is the fifth in a multi-part series on the theory and application of preceding diatonic triads, other than the I (or i), with its own V7. Translation/new notation pages included.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Solo Based on a Standard Progression, 1977-11-29. [Ted’s solo for a jazz progression, in key of E and in G. New notation included.]

OTHER:
* Ear Training – Chord Progressions and Broken Chord Textures, 1985-05-05. [For I-vi and I-iii progressions.]
* Intros, Verses and Endings. [Some private notes and reminders taken from Ted’s Personal Music Studies files. Translation/typed page included for easy reading.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Here’s that Rainy Day, 2001. [Paul Vachon’s compilation page which combines both of Ted’s arrangements with chord diagrams, music notation, and lyrics.]
* Aura Lee, 1973-09-11. [Paul added grid diagrams and new notation to Ted’s handwritten notated arrangement.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-1, V-2, V-3 – Major Type Chords on the Top 4 Strings, 1985. [Ted called this V-1, V-2 and Friends, and a few V-3’s. Regular and normal extensions without 11 or #11. These 2 pages are in the V-System Lesson Sheets / Combined Groups area.]
* V-2 Minor 7ths: Exercises and Chord Streams, 1984-07-19 & 20. [Three pages: V-2 Practical String Crossings for V-2 Minor 7ths (chord streams), V-2 Minor 7ths Bottom 4 and Middle 4 Strings, and V-2 Minor 7ths Exercises Using All 3 String Sets.]

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MARCH 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

A few weeks ago I had a nice talk with Tim Lerch regarding Ted’s lesson pages, and I wanted to share some of the discussion here, since it seems vital when approaching Ted’s various arrangements, comping pages, blues, chord studies, etc.

First and foremost, a phrase that should be blazoned across the top of almost all of Ted’s arrangements and similarly related pages is something to the effect: “Rhythmic notations are only suggestions. Please use some melodic delays, chord break-ups, right-hand rolls, arpeggios, slides, harp-harmonics, added bass lines, etc., and a ton of feeling to bring these pages to life!”

Ted developed his unique chord grid system to show not only the exact note placement for a given chord, but he added the X, square, triangle, and star to show the chronological order of those moving lines in that chord. He was striving to be very precise in conveying chords and moving lines, yet his system was incapable of showing the rhythms of these moving lines. They could be played many different ways, and the student was encouraged to experiment with different phrasing, rhythmic feels, fills, sustains, vibrato, etc. in order to make them their own. He didn’t want others to try to be a Ted clone. He wasn’t too hip on having his arrangements notated because that seemed too permanent, too “this is the only way to play this”—and he didn’t want that. Think of Ted’s sheets as guides, or outlines of where to begin—then make them your own as a player.

In some of the Mark Levy lesson recordings, Ted stresses the importance of choosing to play with beauty or groove above intellectual stimulation: either play a piece with such beautiful lush chords, sustain, vibrato, and feeling that it moves the listener, or play it with a groove that makes them want to tap their foot or clap. That’s what a listener wants and that’s what you want. It’s much more satisfying than being able to just execute some complicated collection of chords that utilize every substitution principle, back-cycling, extension, and altered chord additions that you can cram into two measures. It may look good on paper, but does it have beauty or groove? Does it touch the heart?

Watch Ted’s videos for similar examples: Listen to how he plays the examples in the A Session with the Stars video. Check out his California Vintage Guitar Seminar (2003, Dec 14) as he reviews “The Twelve Days of Christmas” examples. Note how much life Ted brings to the written page.

Something Tim wrote for Ted’s “Both Sides Now” YouTube video: “I would say that Ted Greene is perhaps the most emotionally evocative guitarist I have ever heard. Lots get said about his mastery of harmony, his dedication to his students, his encyclopedic knowledge, and his kind spirit, all of which I agree with; but his ability to convey emotion in his playing is a very special quality that I appreciate more and more as time goes by. Thank you, Ted, for putting your fingers on the strings.”

You might also benefit from watching the YouTube videos that Tim has made for some of Ted’s lesson sheets and noting how there is a lot of “wiggle room” to play them in a variety of different ways.

If you play the notation exactly as written, it will work but might sound stiff, uninspired, and lackluster. A good way to get a sense of how to approach a song is to listen to others; watch a YouTube performance; learn the lyrics; learn to sing, hum, or whistle the melody as you play “campfire guitar” chords; move it into other keys and listen to how it sounds in different registers; try chords with open strings, different textures. By all means, experiment!

Make the melody sing! If you come across one of Ted’s famous monster chords with stretches that are beyond your ability at the time, then find some simpler, more doable chord fingering to replace it. Don’t allow whatever lack of technical ability you might have to get in the way of playing the piece smoothly, with feeling, and conveying the beauty or groove that you intend.

We bring this up as (hopefully) good advice when working on Ted’s lesson pages, but also because we recognize the fact that as we have been transcribing and notating many of Ted’s sheets for the Lessons section on this site, it may seem that we’re ignoring his wishes regarding notation. For the most part the music notation makes Ted’s pages more approachable. It saves one a lot of time trying to decipher what Ted sometimes scribbled onto his page crammed full of grids, with handwriting filling in every crevice between the cracks, faded ink, and micro-writing that often requires a magnifying glass to see. In transcribing these pages we take great care to preserve exactly what Ted wrote without changing or embellishing it. In our efforts for clarity, we hope we don’t give the impression that these notations should be played like a classical piece—memorized and executed to precision. I think you get the idea.

This month we started posting Ted’s handwritten lead sheets in the “Arrangements” section. They aren’t really arrangements, but I couldn’t think of a better place to put them. For those of you following Mark Levy’s recorded lessons, I’ve posted the lead sheet for “We’ve Only Just Begun,” since Ted plays it as a short example in Mark’s 1992-09-02 lesson starting at 38:30 (in key of F).

Ted has a lot of these lead sheets. With those pieces for which he has a written arrangement or comping page, we’ll include the lead sheet. For tunes without any other lesson sheets, we’ll post the lead sheets by themselves.

We want to draw special attention to this month’s “From Students” new contributor, François Leduc. He has a file that contains his complete transcription of Ted’s monumental recording “Solo Guitar.” He’s hoping there will be some discussion in the Forums to review those passages where others may have different interpretation of the chord voicings or notation.

You may notice that we’ve now posted all seven parts of Ted’s “California Vintage Guitar Seminar (2003-12-14) video clips on Ted’s YouTube channel (thanks to our webmaster, Dan Sindel). We were also fortunate to get a copy of two of private guitar lessons of Ted with acoustic fingerpickin’ champion, Keith Richman. We’ll post the second lesson next month. (Thanks, Keith!)

We’d like to remind you all at this time that your donations go a long way to keeping this site alive and kickin’. In Ted’s spirit of sharing, everything here is freely offered, but we hope you will regularly contribute so this will continue to be “your site.” Every little bit helps. Thank you.

Paul and the Fabulous Fellows of the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

VIDEO:
* Ted Greene - California Vintage Guitar Seminar, 2003-12-14 - ALL 7 Parts on YouTube.  
And for your convenience, here is a YouTube playlist for all 7 segments
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-kofVXLz0XabumwaN3Xfjar9ic-dALbv
*** PLEASE SHARE THESE and enjoy! :)

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Jazz Style Walking Chord Blues, 1987-03-01.  [Another one of Ted’s walking blues studies, this time in Ab.  Notation included (thanks to David Bishop) with Ted’s grids.  We’ll put this one in the “Blues” section, even though it could also fit in the “Jazz” section.]
* 4 Note Melodic Fragments for Basic Bebop Single Line Study, 1980-08-31.  [Under the “Jazz” header.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Diatonic 4/3/4/4/ 4th Chord Studies, 1988.  [Three files:  “with Alternating Delay in Top 2 Voices, 1988-10-02 page 1 and 2” and “Integrating 4/3/4/4 Diatonic 4th Chords into Other Settings, 1988-10-03.”  [Translation page included for the handwritten assignments.]
* Chord Voicings on the Top 4 Strings (level 1), 1977-02-2  [Three pages of grids for major, minor 7, dominant 7, minor 6, minor-major7, minor 7b5, diminished 7, and augmented chord types.] 
* Gapped 3rd Stacks: m9 and its Extensions with Favorable String Crossing, 1979-02-17 & 1998-05-08

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Secondary Dominants, Tonicization (part 4), 1975-05-17.  [This is the fourth in a multi-part series on the theory and application of preceding diatonic triads, other than the I (or i), with its own V7.  Translation/new notation pages included.]

OTHER:
* Ear Training - Learning to Hear Diminished, 1991-03-03.  [This is for ear training, but Ted also explains some theory about diminished chords and makes his case for the diminished 6 chord name.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Golden Earrings, 1974-04-04.  [Paul Vachon’s compilation page which combines both of Ted’s arrangements with chord diagrams, music notation, and lyrics.]
* Ted Greene – “Solo Guitar” Transcription – [Standard notation and Tab of Ted’s entire album, transcribed by François Leduc.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-1 - Long String Cross Chains with V-1 Major Types, 1986
* V-2 - Minor 7ths – Outside Strings Hook-Up, 1984-03-16.
* V-4 Diatonic Chord Scale-Type Passages with 7ths, 5th in Bass, 1988-06-01.  [“With right hand breakups to add a little life to the dry harmonized scale.”]

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FEBRUARY 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

In putting this month’s Newsletter together, Paul asked if I could share one of my Ted stories: Guitar Shopping with Ted.

Guitar shopping with Ted for a beginner student who was left-handed but somewhat ambidextrous and who had big hands – turns out to be my son. After a few years of piano study he wanted to move to guitar. His birthday was coming up and I talked to Ted about it for advice. The next thing I know we’re off to a local music store to look at affordable new Telecasters. We looked around and found a basic blonde one with a humbucker in the neck made in Mexico. The neck was a bit wider and so we zeroed in on that one after playing a few others. Then it began.

Regular visitors to the TedGreene.com website know about Ted’s knowledge and attention to detail. I had intended to just pick up a basic guitar and work on it. Instead we had a mini-seminar on Tele setup after we both agreed that the bridge pickup was okay. Pulling out tools and adjusting the instruments is a bit of a no-no in a chain-store, but that didn’t stop Ted. He plopped it across his lap (just the way you see him do so in the videos) and began his work.

The salesman asked him not to do that, and then wangled us into the back room of the store where the sales guy guarded us. Up and down, back and forth went the bridge and neck until it sounded in tune with the stock strings. Ted wanted to change the strings. Down went the salesman foot. “C’mon man, be cool – it’s for his son,” Ted replied. (As if he was going to change the salesman’s mind. We skipped that.)

Ted relented and continued to adjust the neck pickup, and then we all went back out to the front of the store. Into a twin reverb the adjusted Tele went. Then Ted played a bit. That was when the cat came out of the bag and some folks in the store realized who he was. (At first, to be honest, someone behind the counter said, “That guy plays like Ted Greene!”) After that I was absolutely convinced that ANY Telecaster sounded fabulous after Ted got through tweaking it. I saw that guitar transformed in real time.

Ted’s involvement in picking out and adjusting this guitar was a separate birthday gift from him to my son – the kind you can never buy. Most of all though, Ted and I had a great afternoon – as it was great to just play and talk. The guitar was a perfect fit for my left-handed son, who took “beginner” lessons from Ted initially. (Rare experience on how to hold the guitar, etc.) Later Ted reminded me: “Any time you want to shop, call me. I love it!” Me too, Ted.

Leon and the Extraordinary Gentlemen of theTedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-08-13 (part 1).  [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 64 minutes. In this lesson they review the song "Exodus" (see Ted’s arrangement here:  Exodus.pdf); talk about Modes, the “Old Gambler’s Trick” (modulate down 1/2 step); Lenny Breau Story playing Ted’s Tele; and Roadmaps / campfire guitar for "Ain’t Misbehavin’.”]
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-08-13 (part 2).  [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 62 minutes.  In this recording Ted talks about his early guitar experiences with R&B and Link Chamberlain, Jay Lacey, and discovering the Telecaster; chord charting techniques – Ted’s visual root system for chord grids; V-1 voicing – harmonics on base notes; “What if Mozart met Bill Evans?” Quarter-note music; A B melody variations (“Moonlight in Vermont”); Dip notes, and Pentatonic scales…Whew!]
* Ted Greene Lesson with Dave – Lesson 2, 1989.  [The second and final recorded lesson with “Dave” 37 minutes.  Ted patiently helps Dave with some scale patterns.]

VIDEO:
* Ted Greene - California Vintage Guitar Seminar, 2003-12-14, Part 7.  [This is the final installment for this seminar.  A lot of Christmas stuff.  Okay, so we’re a bit late on this one…or maybe we’re just early for next year.  It’s never too early to start working on Ted arrangements!]  Clip 7:  More variations on “Deck the Halls.” Ted plays a very gorgeous version of “O Tennenbaum” (somebody transcribe this one, please!) and “White Christmas.”]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Lazy Blues Chordal Style, 1985-12-23.  [Another one of Ted’s unique blues studies, this time in Db.  This here is the full page which now includes the second “re-voiced” chorus.  New notation included.  Be sure to watch Tim Lerch’s excellent YouTube video instruction/review for the first half of this page: TedGreeneLazyBlues]
* BeBop Solos and Progressions, 1981 and 1980.  [A few single-note bebop solos for jazz progressions.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Here’s That Rainy Day, first phrase with various harmonizations, 1979-07-16.  [Ted applies different harmonization techniques to the first few bars of this popular tune.  New notation and grid diagrams added for easy reading.]
* 4-Note Diatonic 4th Chord Studies, 1987.  [4th chord-scales on the top 4 strings, middle strings, and mixed sets (3 pages).  Ted gets the examples started, but you fill in the blanks.]
* V-2 Minor7b5 Chord Streams on all 3 Sets, 1985-03-02.  [We put this lesson in with the other chord streams pages rather than in the V-System section.  Good stuff.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Secondary Dominants, Tonicization (part 3),1975-05-16.  [This is the third in a multi-part series on the theory and application of preceding diatonic triads, other than the I (or i), with its own V7.  Translation/new notation pages included.]

OTHER:
* Ear Training - Hearing Chord Progressions and Their Basses, 1987-10-12 and 13.  [Some good basic ear-training exercises using chords (Part 1 and 2).  7 pages total:  5 transcription pages, 2 original pages.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Easy to Love.  [Paul Vachon’s compilation page which combines Ted’s grid chord diagrams with the music notation and lyrics.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Systematic Inversion – Learning Minor7b5 via Transformations, 1985-03-01 & 02.  [Helpful inversion exercises for V-2 minor 7 transformed into minor 7b5 chords (4 pages).  On page 1 you’re required to add the m7b5 chord forms in columns 8 and 9.]

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JANUARY 2014 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Happy New Year! We’re pleased to be entering this year with a continued dedication in bringing you more and more of Ted’s teachings, music, and videos. If you hang with us you’ll be amply rewarded – musically, that is!

Looking back on 2013 we had a great collection of new material that covered a wide variety of subjects. Here are a few highlights: In our Audio area we posted Ted’s “Solo Guitar Improvisations” plus the Ted Greene & RoAnne Marks recordings. We finished uploading all of Kevin Griffin recordings and started posting the Mark Levy library. In the Video section we added the California Vintage Guitar seminar clips (not quite finished with this series yet). And in the Lessons section we finished posting The V-System instruction pages (thank you, James Hober!), and lots of individual voicing group lesson sheets.

Some of the lesson series from 2013 that were (and still are) quite popular: the Harmonic Improvements series, the Chord Streams series, and the series on Descending Progressions. Several people commented that they really learned a lot from the transcribed/notated lessons on Ted’s How High the Moon, Harmonization of first phrase. We had a couple of requests for Ted’s Original Tunings pages, so this entire set of notes from his private music studies folder was organized and uploaded. For the Single-Note Soloing section we ran a series on Diminished 7th Sounds, and also Dominant 7th Scales. And of course we served up several blues studies and a new arrangement each month.

All of these are enough to keep us quite busy for years… but now let’s look forward to see what’s on the horizon for 2014. We intend to publish more of Ted’s lessons pages that have his written instructions, more classical/Baroque transcriptions, and a variety of single-note soloing material. We also have some previously unpublished audio recordings of Ted that’ll be a nice surprise and treat for all, and we hope to get some more video clips up. Our Webmaster expressed a desire to completely redesign and improve our Video page sometime in the near future… so let’s keep our fingers crossed on that project.

This year we’ll continue with the series on Secondary Dominants/Tonicization, 4th Chord studies, Chord Streams, and I’ll make it a point to post more comping pages. The individual V-System lesson sheets will continue until the end of time (there sure is a lot of them!), and I’d love to notate some of the sheets Ted has on a series of harmonization of a given melody, for this is a favorite of mine. Of course there’s a lot of other things we haven’t decided upon as of yet, so it’ll be a surprise to see what turns up each month. By the way, if you’d like to request any of Ted’s lessons (in general or in particular), just take a perusal of the partial index that Barbara Franklin provided in the back of her book, My Life with the Chord Chemist (Available at Amazon.com). There’s a lot of material waiting to be posted, and your specific requests will drive those lesson sheets to the top of our to-do list.

This month TedGreene.com welcomes Matt Lord to the team, joining me in the preparation of the lesson sheets from Ted’s vast teachings archive. Matt prepared the transcription/translation files for Ted’s “Melody and Harmony Relationships in Minor Keys” lesson and is eager, willing, and abundantly able to help out. We look forward to seeing more from him. Other unsung heroes on the team include David Bishop and Mike de Luca for their expert proofreading; transcriptions from Anders Hagstrom and Ric Molina; The V-System by James Hober; YouTube video lessons on Ted-related material plus general advice and occasional proofreading by Tim Lerch; website technical support and maintenance along with video clips creation by Dan Sindel; and of course our Grandpapa and Commander-in-Chief, Leon White. To these and all others who contribute periodically we extend our special thanks for the selfless giving of their time and talents to keep this site alive. And to all of you who help with your donations and support we wish you an exceptional New Year filled with musical growth and beautiful playing.

~ Paul and the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Processional in Bm.  [This is an original composition by Ted from the spring of 1968 (he was just 21 years old at the time!).  It’s in the Baroque style of Bach with some interesting harmonic twists.  (Be sure to see David and Paul’s compilation file for this piece in the “From Students” section.)]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-07-06 (part 2).  [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 22 minutes.  In this recording they discuss New Orleans sound, New Orleans "rolling feel", swing feel, history of rock blues shuffles from the 50's into the 60's]

* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1992-07-20.  [An mp3 file of Mark’s lesson, 64 minutes.  In this recording they discuss Voice-switching or "swapping" techniques, companion ii-V chords ala Wes (Ted called “Co-minors”, mono-chromatic harmony (the result of 5 or 4 note scales), Campfire guitar, roadmap to “Ain’t Misbehavin’” Curtis Mayfield, and “Living above the 9th.”  Examples on voice-switching from this recording can be found in the “From Students” section, in the area for Mark Levy, and from Paul Vachon.]
Note:  The pitch on Mark’s 1992-07-20 recording was off:  it was 1/2 step too low in the first 30 minutes, and for the last part it drifted even lower and lower until it was around 2 steps too low at the end.  To correct this I applied some pitch bending to it.  I think you’ll find it easier to listen to and play along with—well, at least they won’t sound like they’re groggy or drunk!  So if you’ve downloaded this file from another source previously, you might consider replacing it with this new version.

* Ted Greene Lesson with Dave – Lesson 1, 1989.  [A lesson with “Dave” on chord construction, scales and patterns, shuffle rhythms, and a blues lick.  Dave was a substitute for another one of Ted’s students, and was at that time a somewhat novice player.  It’s interesting to hear how patient and encouraging Ted was with students of all levels.]

* Ted Greene with RoAnne Marks (track 8).  [The final mp3 from this 1978 collection:  “Blue Colors (Improvisation)” is a 12-minute solo guitar blues jam.]

VIDEO:
* Ted Greene - California Vintage Guitar Seminar, 2003-12-14, Parts 5 and 6.
Clip 5:  Continuation of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” sheet.  This clip begins with example #13 of Paul’s compilation page; then Ted plays “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”  After the break Ted begins to review his “Christmas Carols” handout ChristmasCarols1.pdf.  “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
Clip 6:  Ted continues discussing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” then he plays “Deck the Halls” in different styles.

BAROQUE:
* Melody and Harmony Relationships in Minor Keys, 1976-03-05.  [Ted breaks down the use of various minor scales and their diatonic harmony as used in Baroque music.  Transcription pages included.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Big Band Blues: 3 Statement Form (V-2 chords), 1985-06-22.  [One of Ted’s blues studies that was originally filed with his V-System lesson sheets.  This lesson deals with V-2 chords on the middle 4 strings.  New notation included.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Melodic Chord Streams - 1975-09-27 [Amaj7 (F#m7) and Gm7 chord streams, redrawn from one of Ted’s very early, difficult-to-read lesson sheets.]
* Diatonic 4th Chords:  R479 Types, 1987.  [Another one of Ted’s lessons on 4ths or quartal harmony.]
* A Session with the Stars, Handout Sheets, 1980.
[These are Ted’s handwritten pages he made for the video lesson.You can find the video on YouTube: Ted Greene - A Session with the Stars.]

COMPING:
* Here’s That Rainy Day – Chord Soloing Style, 1977-09-12.  [For “Chord Soloing Style” or accompaniment.  Most of the forms are on the top 4 strings.  We’ve combined this with Ted’s handwritten lead sheet.  Translation pages included.]

FUNDAMENTALS:
* Learning the Basic Chord Forms, 1979-01-09.  [Three pages dealing with basic m7, dom. 7 and major chord types, in progressions.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Secondary Dominants, Tonicization (part 2),1975-05-15.  [This is the second in a multi-part series on Secondary Dominants or Tonicization – the theory and application of preceding diatonic triads, other than the I (or i), with its own V7.  Translation/new notation pages included.]

OTHER:
* Ear Training Exercises, 1975.  [Part 1 (singing melodies) and 2 (singing chords).  Ted often emphasized the importance of ear training and lamented that most guitarists don’t work enough on developing this essential skill.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Processional in Bm.  [Compilation pages by David Bishop & Paul Vachon.  Ted’s composition with new graphics for easy reading – re-notated and grids added by Paul Vachon; chord names and commentary by David Bishop.]
* Diatonic Voice Switching, from Ted Greene Lesson on 1992-07-20.  [Mark Levy’s written assignment (dated 5 days after the lesson) showing diatonic chord switches (and the “in between” chords”) in various keys.  Please listen to Mark’s recording for a better understanding.]
* Voice Switching, from Ted Greene 1992-07-20 Recording with Mark Levy.  [Paul Vachon’s notation and chord grids showing the processes involved and the resultant chords.  Please listen to Ted explain this on Mark’s recording for a better understanding.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Melodic Minor Single-Note Scales, 1974-12-18.  [Overtone Dominant.  Scales for: minor 6, minor(major 7), minor7b5, 7#9#5(b9, b5), and 13#11 families.  Shown for F# melodic minor (= D#+7 = F7#9+ family = B13#11 family)…  Redrawn for easy reading.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-4, Common-Tone Soprano in V-4 Dominant 7ths, 1989-10-04

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