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December 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Happy Holidays to all Ted Greene Friends, Students, and Fans.

The TedGreene.com has been the recipient of a wonderful gift which we’re able to share starting this month. Guitarist Phil deGruy and pianist George Winston have provided us with some amazing recordings of Ted playing solo. Their goal for this project was to offer it to you all and to help this site by encouraging contributions. I think we’ll see that they have succeeded admirably. Here’s the story:

Phil and George approached Barbara Franklin with an idea to create something akin to a second solo guitar album from Ted lesson tapes they had. Barbara was elated but unfortunately passed before the project was finished. She would have loved this. The source of these recordings is extracted from lessons they took from Ted. In particular, Phil had one “lesson” that turned into a mini-concert. That is what we’re beginning to post this month. There are a total of 16 tracks of Ted improvising solo guitar arrangements or snippets of arrangements during that lesson. The recording was informal, so George and Phil spent time to clean up the recordings so they could be heard to their best advantage.

The selection is eclectic – from the “Alfred Hitchcock Theme” to “Maid with the Flaxen Hair” and “Indiana” – all improvised on the spot. We consider this a major release of Ted’s playing because of the number of tracks, the fact that it came from a pseudo lesson situation (no audience really), and the recording quality. It isn’t a studio album of course, but it is very good. And as before, the tracks can be downloaded for free.

George and Phil made this a labor of love on their part to share more of Ted with the world and to preserve his work. As good friends of Ted’s we might ‘expect’ this, but I think it is important that we thank them both. Their effort reflects the quality of their friendship with Ted and reflects on each of them. This is another example of players stepping up to continue to protect and sustain the work of one of the world’s premier musicians.

These recordings were a special moment in time – September 15th, 1981 to be exact. Those of us who ‘sat around’ with Ted and heard this kind of music flow from him can appreciate that this was a relaxed, funny session amongst friends. I hope these recordings can evoke a little of that feeling (which also occasionally appears on various Ted lesson videos). It does for me. We’ve titled this collection “An Afternoon with Ted” and we’re sure you’re going to love it.

The first five tracks will be:
01. Someone to Watch Over Me
02. Exactly Like You
03. Exactly Like You (variations)
04. California, Here I Come
05. Harlem Nocturne
and can be found here in our Audio section:

As I write this it is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. I’m thinking of these great tracks, the generosity of George and Phil, and the unwavering dedication of Paul Vachon across the years. If your circumstances permit, I hope you’ll think about supporting the site during this holiday season. Not because you have to, but because you want to. That is the greatest Thanksgiving gift we can give Ted, considering he didn’t eat turkey, or cooked vegetables, or red meat, or most cheeses... in fact, other than diet Coke and lettuce, I can’t recall him eating anything! It also completes a goal Barbara had set for herself, which is a gift in itself.

Thank you all for your interest and support. We hope for a peaceful and happy holiday season for all.

~ Leon and the boys on the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Bach - Chorale No. 4 (BWV 9), 1972-07-00. [Ted’s early harmonization of one of Bach’s Chorales by Ted. New notation and suggested grids included.]
* Silent Night (fragment), 1972-07-00. [This is the first 8 measures in the key of C. This was part of a private lesson given to a student with the assignment to complete the arrangement. Ted just got the ball rolling for you.]
* Silent Night (comping) 1987-11-30. [Ted’s comping for the key of D. New translation page combines Ted’s grids with notation, lead sheet, and lyrics. Relatively easy playing level. We’re putting this in the “Arrangements/Christmas Tunes” section, even though it would technically go in the “Comping” section. It just seems to make more sense to put all the Christmas pieces together.]
* Silent Night (comping), 1988-11-30. [Ted’s comping for the key of E then it modulates to key of Ab. New translation page combines Ted’s grids with notation, lead sheet, and lyrics. Moderate playing level. We’re putting this in the “Arrangements/Christmas Tunes” section, even though it would technically go in the “Comping” section. It just seems to make more sense to put all the Christmas pieces together.]

AUDIO:
* “An Afternoon with Ted” [Ted’s playing during a lesson for Phil deGruy on September 15, 1981. This month we’re releasing the first 5 tracks… with more to come in January and February. Originally from a tape cassette, we’re offing mp3 files at 320 kbps.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Tonality Types – Diatonic Chord Scales in Triads, 1985. [Ted takes us through the paces of simple triad chord scales, moving up/down the neck on the same set of strings, using the following scales: Major, Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian, Phrygian, Spanish Gypsy, Lydian, and Pentatonic. Four original pages, plus four pages of translation with filled-in grids (skip these pages if you want figure it out on your own).]

COMPING:
* Georgia on My Mind, Comping on the Top and Middle 4 Strings, 1977-04-30. [Ted’s grids and lead sheet for intermediate level comping. This is the same arrangement as the other “Georgia” comping page, but it uses the top 4 as well as the middle 4 strings. New compilation page provided which includes Ted’s grids with notation, lead sheet and lyrics.]

FUNDAMENTALS:
* Harmonic Minor Progressions for Taping. [Short chord progressions for outlining a harmonic minor sound – good to use for taping and then playing single-note solos over with harmonic minor scales.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Modulation, 1974-02-12. [From Ted’s Private Music Studies files. On this page Ted is investigating various minor 6, augmented, dominant 7, and 7b9 chords as “pivot” chords for modulating from the key of C. He also has several comments/reminders for himself about modulating. Translation pages and commentary/explanation pages included.]

OTHER:
* Harmonic Scales, 1979-08-24. [This page comes from Ted’s Private Music Studies files. It’s a collection of scales made up of regular notes and harmonics. Translation page includes newly created grids plus the notation.]
* Ted Greene Song Lists, Group 7. [The seventh installment of song lists from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. This group is 19 typed pages.]
* Ear Training – Bass Ear-Training Course, p. 2, 1992-06-02. [Ted continues the same type of exercises as in part 1.]

PERSONAL/GEAR:
* List of Ted’s Guitars by “Personal Name” [We’ve now included from Barbara Franklin’s book the list of Ted’s guitar with their “personal name” that Ted gave them. This isn’t a complete and comprehensive list, but all that Barb knew about at that time. If anyone has information about other guitars not on this list that Ted owned in the past, please contact us to add to this list.]

PERFORMANCES/VIDEO:
* Ted at the Seashell Restaurant – Set List. [We’ve now included the set list for the video recording of Ted’s playing at the Seashell restaurant in February of 1993.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Melodic Patterns, 1976-10-19. [45 great single-note soloing patterns. New notation for easy reading.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Color Overview of 3rd Inversion Dominants on the Middle and Top Strings, 1986-12-19. [Two pages.]
* V-2 Organizing Middle String 3rd Inversion Dominants for Mental and Physical Practice, 1986-02-15.
* V-2 Using 3rd Inversion Dominant Colors – Group 1, 1987-03-15. [Two original pages with three translation page include for easy reading.]

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November 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

November Greetings! And Happy Thanksgiving to all Americans and anyone who embraces this tradition of spending at least one day a year being thankful for all we have in life.

This month we’re focusing a bit on “back to the basics” in many (but not all) of the new lesson material. In Ted’s “Teaching Archives” thereare several folders dealing with basic aspects of music and the mechanics of playing the guitar. While it is true that a lot of Ted’s lessons are more relevant for the serious, dedicated student or advanced player, still, there is a good deal that is geared toward those who are relatively new (but not complete beginners).

Ted usually would not teach a total beginner (although there were a few exceptions, mainly done as special favors for friends), so there is little in his papers for that level of playing. Still, Ted often liked to address basic elements of music and go deep into them. For example, if one looks at some of his pages on basic triads, even an advanced player may see some unfamiliar chord shapes. Even the veteran players may glean something new or unexpected from the “basic” lessons offered this month. Check ‘em out.

Ted set very high standards and expectations for himself and was fearless as he explored new areas for the guitar—and I think to a certain degree he felt, “Well, if anyone puts in the same amount of time and hard work they can do this too. I’m not special; I just did the work.” So he would encourage students to be patient and put in the practice time. But I think most of us would disagree with him: Ted was special.

On this site there’s a “Fundamentals” section in the “Teachings” area, but sometimes it’s not exactly clear where the “correct” or most logical place a lesson page should go. There is some cross-over, and you may find some basic lesson pages in the “Harmony & Theory” or the “Single-Note Soloing” sections, and so on.

Someone recently was asking about the proper way to approach Ted’s lessons, from the ground-up, so to speak – a graduated approach for someone new. “Where does one start, and what is the sequence to follow along this path?” Unfortunately there is no simple answer. Ted treated every student uniquely. Sure, he had some pages that he commonly handed out to most students, and he had certain tried-and-true methods to get one going along in a certain direction—but a lot of it was customized according to what Ted perceived were the immediate needs and desires of that particular student. He kept files on each student and tracked their progress. He tried to get into their heads to see what one was thinking and what skills he had or needed to improve. Oftentimes lessons were crafted specifically for one student – and if that lesson could benefit another in the future, all the better.

Many or most of the pages were personally reviewed and explained by Ted to the student during the lesson. We don’t have that luxury anymore, so if a lesson page isn’t immediately clear you’re on your own to a certain degree. But the Forums are an excellent place to post questions about the lesson, to draw upon the knowledge and experience of this community of guitarists – many of whom studied with Ted, or who understand the material. I’ve found a lot of help and clarity from this friendly group.

I’ve been writing up and preparing many of Ted’s lesson pages for this site for years now; it’s been a great learning experience and has provided wonderful insights into Ted’s approach. Someone recently asked me, “When you re-draw some of Ted’s chord grids, why don’t you use Ted’s original fret numbers?” Good question. I don’t always use Ted original fret numbers because the method he used in his earlier years is one that he later didn’t like. He explained this in one of Mark Levy’s recorded lessons. Ted used to put the fret number aligned to the uppermost (top) fret. This was done regardless of what chord tone it was parallel to.  He later adopted the method of putting the fret number aligned to the root or “visual root.” This makes understanding the chord more logical. Ted mentioned that he didn’t know why he didn’t make that change long ago. I believe that if Ted were here today re-writing these pages he certainly would use that new method. So I thought that I’d rather follow what Ted taught and practiced later, rather than mimic the underdeveloped methods he used in his early years.

In a similar vein, there are some other sheets that I just finished writing up in which Ted had not yet developed his X and square notation for moving lines. He was using some open circles plus instructions with arrows, etc. It’s a bit awkward and not very clean. So when I rewrote it I used his X’s and squares instead of the instructions and circles. It only makes sense. I hope these changes don’t upset too many people. You can always refer to Ted’s original page if you don’t care for the newly written pages, or prefer the “original.”

Over the years I’ve had some part-time helpers come and go. I’m especially grateful to the expert proofreading by Dr. David Bishop for his assistance on many, many of these pages. Whenever there is a mistake on a posted lesson sheet, it is invariably one that I didn’t have David check. If you are interested in becoming part of this team of preparing some of Ted’s lesson pages, please contact me via the Forums.

Nobody loses at guitar if they put in the time. Something good always shows up. It’s all consistent with life’s big lessons. Patience. Determination. Love. Goals. Finishing a job. The guitar seems impossibly hard in the early stages for so many who attempt it. But the transformation always starts to happen as the practicing hours begin to accumulate. Suddenly one day you realize you’re doing something you couldn’t do last month or last week, simply because of the nice effort you’ve shown….

I’ve had lots of students who, in a matter of days, could play things it took me years to get. Shocking isn’t it? My job is a humbling one, though not humiliating if I keep my attitude on straight. Periodically, it’s good to remind myself that there’ll always be very talented people in any field. But that doesn’t change the fact that for most of us pretty regular practice is what it will take to keep progress alive. Or at least a few hours a week for those who can only afford this much time. And even just this small amount will produce terrific things in each pair of hands over time if a person will just stay the course. This is especially true when someone works on something they love or crave results from. Of course, it massively helps if they’re practicing well, doesn’t it? But the gift of music is so large that even those who don’t or can’t or won’t do a good job at practicing well—even they—get quite a lot of the goodies eventually.
~Ted Greene

One last thought to leave you with: this is the month of “Thanksgiving” – and in that spirit we’d like to encourage you to help this site with a small donation. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but it shows that you’re willing to support it and keep the TG.com up and running, sharing all this fantastic information with the world freely. I don’t take a penny of it – we serve as volunteers, donating our time to keep Ted’s teachings alive. Some people have even made a habit to make several small donations throughout the year. We very much appreciate whatever you can do. Thank you!

~ Paul and the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Bach - Chorale No. 2 (BWV 347), 1972-07-00. [Another early harmonization of one of Bach’s Chorales by Ted. He took some liberties and added a few things, and at the end he continued beyond where Bach ended. New notation and suggested grids included.]

AUDIO:
* The Girl with the Flaxen Hair. [Ted’s performance at the Joey Backenstoe wedding (the audio of this piece has been digitally cleaned up from the DVD. It is the same as is on the recently added YouTube video with the collage of photos. 320 kbps mp3 file, 4:26 in length.]

BAROQUE:
* Some of the Most Common Chord Progressions in Baroque Major Harmony, 1974-06-12. [Ted explains some basic Baroque progressions and cadences. Translation pages included.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Blues Chord Forms for Chord-Melody Playing, 1977-07-20. [Ted shows 3rd/b7th comping chords with added melody lines and which notes sound best over the I, IV and V chords. New notation combined with Ted’s grids added for easy reading.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Voice-Leading as Helpful Tool in Learning Open Triads and More, 1992-04-17. [Various chord progressions with blank grids for the student to fill out. Additional page with suggested answers.]

COMPING:
* Georgia on My Mind, Comping on Middle 4 Strings, 1977-02-26. [Ted’s grids and lead sheet for easy intermediate level comping. New compilation page provided which includes Ted’s grids with notation, lead sheet and lyrics.]

FUNDAMENTALS:
* Basic Chord Forms, 1975-05-13. [Ted presentation of basic major and minor triads.]
* Fundamentals - Chord Forms, 1977-02-17. [Another collection of basic major types, minor 7th types, and dominants (unaltered) types.]
* Fundamentals - Major Scales, 1977-08-17. [Ted explains intervals and the anatomy of the major scale, plus the cycle of 4ths/5ths. Translation pages included for easy reading/reference.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Understanding Chord Progressions, 1973-11-11. [Ted explains with examples some basic chord progressions for Baroque music and for contemporary music (using the Beatles songs as examples). Also covered is chord sequences. Nine pages of translation with redrawn grids for easy reading.]

OTHER:
* Harmonic Chords with One Backwards Interval, 1979-12-03. [This page comes from Ted’s Private Music Studies files. He wrote a collection of chords that he derived from other harp-harmonic chords by using a process of swapping notes on the 2nd and 5th strings. Translation pages includes re-drawn grids plus the “source chords” from which the new ones were derived.]
* Ted Greene Song Lists, Group 6. [This is the sixth installment of song lists from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. This group is typed pages, probably made by Ted at Barbara’s promptings to start using a computer. Seventeen pages.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Major and Minor Scales, Chords, Arpeggios, 1975-04-28. [Ted explains and gives grids for major, natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor chords. Translation pages with re-drawn grids added for easy reading.]
* Melodic Patterns – Key of C, 1974-09-16. [Great patterns to run your scales through the paces and come up with some good soloing ideas. New notation for easy reading.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Organizing Middle String 1st Inversion Dominants for Mental and Physical Practice, 1986-02-15.
* V-2 Overview of 1st Inversion Dominants on the Top 4 Strings, 1986-02-19. [Translation page include for reading.]
* V-2 Overview of 1st Inversion Dominants on Middle Strings, 1986-02-20. [Translation page include for reading.]

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October 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Autumn Greetings to all Ted Greene Fans, Students, and Friends.

This month we’re posting the final installment from Mark Levy’s library of recorded lessons with Ted. That’s 46 different mp3 files. Wow, what a treasure this is to have. It’s so diverse and deep on so many different musical(and non-musical) subjects. They’re definitely worth listening to many times over. It’s been great to have these to post each month and we’re sad to see this series come to the end. Now we’re ready for some new audio recordings. (Come on – I’m sure there’s plenty of you guys out there who have a few Ted tapes in a box in your garage or closet – we’d love to add to the collection. Please contact Paul or Leon via the forums if you’d be willing to share.)

We’re so grateful to Mark for his generous donation to the TG site so we all can have a taste of what it was like to take lessons with Ted. We recently contacted Mark for some comments about his recordings:

Wow!...it’s been over 21 years since my last lesson with Ted, yet I remember it almost like it was yesterday—August 22nd, 1994. I knew it would be my last lesson for a while as I just could not keep up with the pace and the amount of information he gave me on guitar and music. I was falling behind. I felt like I really needed to give up my spot to someone more deserving. I had been studying with Ted this time for almost 3 years straight. This period in the early 90’s was an amazing time for me. I was practicing 2-4 hours a day and going to see Ted about twice a month for a 60-90 minute lesson. At his urging, I recorded every lesson, and I’m so grateful that we have been able to share these lessons with you.

My interest in guitar and music is really varied and wide, but not very deep. I love pretty much everything from Bach Cantatas to Eldon Shamblin and everything in between, so you will see that in these lessons we cover a lot of ground. Ted’s amazing depth and knowledge in every subject in which he was passionate about, and his ability to convey it to a student was stunning. He made you feel like every lesson was personally crafted for you, and I left every lesson so motivated that I could not wait to get home and start practicing.

We would go over music theory, song arrangements, and other areas of guitar playing, but he would also talk about the birth of rock and roll, meters of American music, schools of R&B, different types of rhythms in popular music, the music of Mozart, baseball, how to set up a guitar, New Orleans sound, gospel, B.B. King’s discography, Hollywood movies, muscle cars…it just goes on and on. He knew everything about a particular subject—and I mean everything! He seemed to me like an incredible “fan” of music, the musicians, their lives, songs, and history. He also was an incredible teacher, and I think if you listen to these tapes you will agree with me. I was a composition/theory major in college and met a lot of music professors with PhD’s, but Ted just eclipsed all of them with his knowledge of western music (both classical and popular), and his ability to distill all this information and knowledge in a logical, easy digestible manner for his students.

I originally converted these lessons from tape cassette to MP3 in the summer of 2006 and since then I have received many wonderful emails from around the world thanking me. I just want to say to everyone that it’s really touched me greatly. I just happened to be the lucky guy with the microphone in the right place at the right time. I especially want to thank Leon, Paul, Dan and everyone else who has contributed to TedGreene.com. It’s such a wonderful memorial, preserving and passing on the gift of music that Ted has given us. I hope all of you learn something from these lessons.

Sincerely,
Mark

P.S. To give you a little context I’m including here my lesson notes that Ted kept on me. Barbara found this in his papers and sent me a copy. You can see how detailed his notes on my lessons are. I think Ted’s comment at the bottom of the page sums up his best advice to me, dated 6-18-92, “From now on: he’s got to go for BEAUTIFUL PHRASING”.

~ Paul and the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* A Certain Smile (Ted’s Piano Arrangement), 1975-12-18. [Ted’s arrangement in notation for piano. He included chords with figured bass, and the basic changes. New notation provided for easy reading.]
* Mendelssohn – Wedding March. [Here we have a very early arrangement by Ted. New notation and chord names provided. Good to know if you do wedding gigs.]
* Watch What Happens, 1980-02-04. [This is Ted’s basic lesson sheet of this jazz standard for students. It does not correspond to how he played it on his “Solo Guitar” album, but has some similar chord moves. This is in “outline” form, and you must add the extra moving melody notes. Notation provided to include the melody and lyrics – but you need to work out how to add the melody notes.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1994-08-22. [An mp3 of Marks’s final recorded lesson with Ted (lesson #46) – 42 minutes.]
* Wedding Chorus (“Here Comes the Bride”). [Ted’s performance at the Joey Backenstoe wedding (this piece was not included on the DVD that Barbara Franklin made available years ago). Ted played for as long as they needed for the ceremony and stopped somewhat abruptly. Mp3 file, 57 seconds in length.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Melodic Blues Progressions, 1977-07-20. [Two blues studies using dominant 3rd & b7 with melodic lines. Key of Bb and D. New notation combined with Ted’s grids added for easy reading.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Chromatic Melodies Over Progressions in the Style of George Van Eps, 1978-12-08. [Another page from Ted’s Personal Music Studies files. New notation with grids included for easier reading and absorption.]
* IV-I in Open Triads Desc. & Asc. Chains with Voice-leading, 1984-10-31. [Two pages of some basic IV-I triad moves in grids in Ted’s usual very thorough approach.]
* Progressions Derived from Triad Chord Streams and Harmonized Melodies, 1982-11-28. [One page of grids with chord streams of triads. Great exercises to work up to a quick speed.]

COMPING:
* Watch What Happens, Basic Comping, 1980-02-04. [Ted’s grids and lead sheet for easy level comping. Notation compilation page included.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Whole Tone Sounds Using One Structure at a Time, 1978-08-30 and 1977-01-24, [Previously posted as “Whole Tone Sounds”, we now provide a better quality scan of Ted’s original page with new notation and chord grids for easy reading and application.]
* Whole Tone Modulators (major key) to New I, 1974-11-26 & 27. [Previously posted as “Whole Tone Modulations”, we now provide a better quality scan of this page with accompanying notation, explanations, and redrawn grids and “follow-through” chords/grids for each example. The original page is almost unreadable, so we hope these new pages will help in understanding this lesson by Ted.]
* Whole Tone Derived Chords, 1977-01-24. [This page was previously posted, but we now include a better quality scan plus two pages of translation with redrawn grids for easy reading.]

OTHER:
* G7 First Inversion for Harmonics, 1979-08-25. [Ted’s grids for harp-harmonics of all G7 type chords (with extensions and alterations) with 3rd in the bass. Taken from Ted’s Personal Music Studies paper. New grids for easy reading.]
* Ted Greene Song Lists, Group 5. [This is the fifth installment of song lists from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. Eighteen pages.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Minor 6 and Minor 6/9 Chords on Top 4 Strings -Plus- Quizzes, 1984. [This file combines Ted’s page from Dec. 21, 1984 with four fill-in quizzes (from Dec. 20 and 21). Also included are the quizzes with filled-in girds – to be used as a reference if you want.]
* V-2, Fill-in Quiz V-2 Dominant 7ths on the Middle 4 Strings, 1984-12-30. [Two pages for you to fill in.]
* V-2 Dominant 7th Type Chords – Top, Middle, and Combined Sets, 1984. [This file combines Ted’s page for the top 4 string set (Nov. 6), middle string set (Nov. 6), and Top + middle strings set (March 9) – Plus his String Transference Quiz sheet (Nov. 12).]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Ted Greene’s Teaching Notes for Mark Levy. [From Ted’s “Students Files” – Ted’s notes that he kept for hand-out given to Mark and comments about progress, etc.]

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September 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

This month we share with you an excerpt from Barbara Franklin’s book, My Life with the Chord Chemist, pages 85-86 (Available at amazon.com):

At the beginning of December, Ted called early one evening with the sad news that George Van Eps had died a few days ago.(Ted’s beloved mentor had died on Nov. 29, 1998). Ted was decidedly sad but accepted it. Then he called back to ask if it was okay to come over after teaching. Of course it was! He canceled his last student and was here by 9 p.m., visibly tired. Due to the new upstairs neighbors waking him at all hours, it was now almost impossible for him to sleep at his apartment. He absolutely couldn’t continue to live that way and was waiting until after his gig at Papashon to concentrate on finding a solution. Yes, his gig with Cathy Segal-Garcia on December 10th loomed soon and they had hardly rehearsed. However, he was calmer about it than I’d expected, maybe too tired to feel much anxiety. I figured the coming weekend I’d just feed him, let him sleep and practice if he wanted. I loved him so, so much and wished I could do more to help him, to make his life easier, less stressful.

The day before his gig at Papashon Ted came here in the early afternoon to try different amps and guitars so he could determine what to bring. He brought out the Peavey Ltd. 400 (his old favorite), and began to experiment with various guitars: Granny(X50), Amber (late ‘80s X170) tuned to Eb, Duane Eddy, Mambo (Jazzmaster) & Deedee (M75). Mambo didn’t work at all in that amp - buzzing. Amber and the Duane Eddy both sounded great, but DeeDee got the most exceptional sound. He continued to play her, his playing was exquisite, all the right ingredients, hands supple and coordinated from practice with beautiful tone quality. He played for many hours and the music became increasingly more moving, his emotion poured into it culminating with “You’ll Never Walk Alone” which brought tears to his eyes, a most desirable and satisfying goal for him. He said when that happened he had reached the place he was striving for musically. It was absolutely incredible! At that point he said he must tear himself away or he would never stop.

Lori and I got to Papashon early to have dinner and by the time the show began the restaurant was filled to capacity. I thought Ted and Cathy blended beautifully together and Ted played brilliantly. Everyone there was riveted to his every nuance. He generally held back but on occasion threw in some fine jewels. Ted’s accompaniment accentuated the deep sensual qualities of Cathy’s voice. The show lasted until 11 p.m. About that night Ted somewhat humorously penned, “Dec. 10 AN INTENSE EXPERIENCE TONIGHT. My old dear friend Banana Créme tuned to Eb with the crème blonde Deluxe Reverb. (I’m shocked; this is still my best set up Tele with 3 pick-ups, tuned down) Cathy charms the crowd, we have some really gorgeous moments & also some really deep bluesy ones. Sadly many just OK or whoa, how’d we get thru that in spots too. But the people overall applauded & cheered and due to their fervent wish to be enraptured, were. And I did catch some magic shimmering moments that just hung in the air and thrilled the crowd it seemed, so gratitude is in order. So much love in the room, this outweighs my reservations.”

~ Paul and the fine gents on the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Stella by Starlight, Key of A, 1977-10-09. [Previously posted, we now offer a better quality scan of Ted’s original page combined with standard notation and lyrics. This version is slightly easier to play than the version in the key of E.]
* Stella by Starlight, Key of E, 1977-10-09. [Also previous posted, again we offer a better scan combined with notation and lyrics. Ted wrote that this arrangement is a “more modern version ala Bill Evans jazz trio setting” and he suggested tuning your guitar down a 1/2 step when playing it so it would sound richer and warmer as in the key of Eb. The rhythmic notations are suggestions that approximate how Ted might have punctuated the chords, similar to Lenny Breau style.]
* You’ll Never Walk Alone, 1994-08-14. [Previously posted, again this file is a better quality scan of both Ted’s arrangement that he wrote for Barbara, and his lead sheet with analysis. This is not an arrangement that Ted gave to his students, but it was crafted just for Barb, and is fairly easy to play, but with some very nice chord moves. When Ted played this song he certainly used a more elaborate and embellished arrangement. Notation added for easy reading.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1994-04-20. [An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #45 with Ted – 38 minutes. Subjects discussed: 1994 baseball; Voice-leading exercise and assignment; Diatonic harmony, Harmonizing a Melody (see accompanying lesson notes page in Marks “From Students” section).]

BAROQUE:
* Baroque Modulation or Secondary Chord “Openers” 1975-01-13. [From Ted’s Personal Music Studies files. Transcribed by Frank Didiodato.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* 12-Bar Blues – Chicago Blues, 1993-09-06. [Ted’s fingerings of a classic Chicago blues accompaniment groove. Music notation included.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* 3-Voice Major Triads – Soprano Organization, 1984-05-01.  [A thorough and systematic tour of all 3-note major triads on the guitar.]
* George Van Eps – Style Variations, 1981-02-25. [On this page Ted takes a semi-chromatic melody line and loosely puts it over a ii-V-I progression in E, using 12 variations in the style of George Van Eps. This comes from Ted’s Personal Music Studies files. New notation and grids added for easy reading/absorption.]
* I-ii-IV-ii-I in Close Triads, 1987-01-07. [Diatonic triad studies in six keys. Ted provides the first chord and your assignment is to fill in the rest of the voices.]

COMPING:
* A Certain Smile, Keys of E and Ab, 1985-02-09. [Comping chords for this wonderful tune that Ted recorded on his Solo Guitar album. Translation page combines Ted’s grids with notation and lead sheet plus lyrics. Ted called this an “Interlude accompaniment” and wrote, “In solo guitar playing I find it nice to go into interludes based on the chord changes of the song…”]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Expanded Diatonic Colors, 1990-04-25. [Some examples of expanded key chord moves, which have very modern sounds.]
* ii7-V7-I, 1974-11-28 & 29[Ted explains the history of this fundamental standard progression, and provides numerous excellent examples – from basic to moderate level. Translation and new grids provided for easy reading.]

OTHER:
* Basic Chord Progressions for Ear Training, 1975-05-19. [Basic reference list for comparison and ear-training. This is mostly for the ear rather than the hands, but the exercises are good basics for that as well. Translation and new grids provided for easy reading.]
* Diminished 7 Harmonic Chords, 1979-01-30. [Looking for some great chord forms for diminished 7th harp-harmonics? Look no further…Ted has plenty here for you. New grids provided for easy reading.]
* Ted Greene Song Lists, Group 4. [This is the fourth installment of song lists from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. Seventeen pages.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* This Guy’s in Love, 1977-04-18. [Ted provides scale and arpeggio forms for every chord in this pop song, to be used as a reference for single-note soloing. The “translation” page combines the lead sheet with Ted’s grids aligned.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Dominant 11th Chords, Top 4 Strings, 1987-01-16. [Four pages of V-2 Dom. 11th chords/inversions. Two additional pages are included with have the assignment filled in (ignore these if you want to do the work yourself).]
* V-2 Dominant 11th Chords, Middle and Top Strings, 1987-01-23. [Five pages of Dominant “sus” or 11th chords. Five additional pages are included with translation and have the assignments filled in (ignore these if you want to do the work yourself).]
* V-2, Color Overview of Suspended 3rd Inversion Dominant V-2, 1987-04-29. [Suspended and extended suspended chords (9, 13, and 17) chord forms – all in 3rd inversion (b7 in the bass). Chord forms and V-I progressions. For the page on the middle 4 strings we’ve added a notation page that includes the chord names, but for the page on the top 4 strings we’ve leave it up to you to fill in the names.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Ted Greene Guitar Lesson Notes 1994-04-20.  [In Mark Levy’s “From Students” section. This page goes with the audio recorded lesson for the same date (also posted this month.]

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August 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Mid-Summer Greetings!
This month I wanted to share some excerpts from the Ted Greene Memorial Blog by people who were not students of Ted, not guitarists, or not even necessarily musicians…just ordinary people who came to love this warm-hearted man.

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 individualsare 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 for reigniting 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 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, the spiritual and technical insights Ted had imparted that Lenny diligently practiced. It was uplifting for me as well as my husband.

One time 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. 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.  God bless Ted and his family.
~Jason D. Kuhar

I met Ted about twenty five years ago.  He was a sports card collector and used to come into my husband’s store.  He’d also come to our house a few times that summer and played for us as we sang along.  I knew he taught guitar but had no idea at the time of the genius of this man.  One summer when my daughter had a broken leg and couldn’t partake in much of anything, I thought Ted could give her a few lessons to keep her busy for the summer.  What I didn’t realize was that it was like asking Einstein to teach Physics 1.  He politely declined, saying he was very busy, but gave me the name of a guitar store where he said they gave lessons. I went to sign her up for lessons and was asked who recommended them.  I said, “Oh, a friend of mine.  His name is Ted Greene.”  The response shocked me.  “Ted Greene is your friend?!” and the employee called the others over to tell them that.  I remember asking, “Why the big deal?”  It was then that they showed me a copy of Chord Chemistry, Ted’s album, and the Ted Greene Guitar Strings that they sold, informing me of Ted’s genius.  And he was my friend.  Wasn’t I a lucky one?  Humble Ted, gifted Ted, dear, dear Ted.
~Paula Himmelstein

For the past 16 years I have had the pleasure of “getting to know” Ted through the stories and reflections my husband, Ricky Katz, has shared with me.  Ricky would look forward to each lesson with Ted as if he was going to sit at the feet of the “master,” and when he returned from that lesson he was always a changed man—growing yet even closer to his own musical soul and understanding life a bit more so—simply from a half-hour lesson with Ted.

It became clear to me over the years that Ted was more than just a guitar teacher.  Ted was clearly a remarkable human being, a person who had great respect for the individual person, the depth of a person’s soul, and the value of human life.  In a business filled with people who think they are bigger than life, Ted clearly understood that he was just one person on this planet, here for a purpose:  to connect with others through their love for music as well as through a myriad of other varied and unique areas of interests….

My husband surprised me this past February by bringing me to Spazio’s to hear Ted play—the first (and now unfortunately the only) time I had.  I do believe that I left a changed person.  As a classically trained musician (violin and piano) I marveled at the way this man embraced his guitar.  He made it sing as so many violinists I have heard throughout the years.  He was intimate with his guitar.  His two hands seemed as one.  He was in a relationship with that guitar, with the gentleness, respect, and care one gives to a loved one.

It is clear that the music world—the world as a whole—has lost a gem….
~Anonymous

I was another fortunate person to have known Ted.  For the record: I’ve never picked up a guitar, nor have I ever been musically inclined.  I met Ted when I was in my teenage years, and he was about 35.  My dad and he used to listen to rock and roll music at my house until the wee hours of the night.  I would come home from a night of partying and sit down and talk to them awhile.  They would take a break in whatever song they were reminiscing about and chat with me.

Ted and I talked about my major triumphs in life at that time:  boys, school, cars, etc.  Our conversations would go on and on.  To think I would talk endlessly to this awesome guitar player about my insignificant issues when I was 16 when people were on waiting lists to take lessons from him!  And here I am chatting to him at 2:00 a.m. about my petty problems!!!  And all the while Ted would be caressing my cat, Sylvester.  He was a true animal lover…. 

Through the years I came to know Ted as this great, compassionate guy, whom I could discuss any topic with—and we definitely did, except for music of course, which I knew nothing about.  Although he once told me that “rap music” wasn’t really music, and I have quoted him on many occasions to my husband! He…always made me think, which was good.

Yes, I knew he was very talented, remarkable and innovative in his field, but to me he was always this nice, gentle, warm-hearted human being who always saw the goodness in people and animals. 
~Amy Kerbeck

I want to thank Cousin Teddy for all of his warmth and kindness throughout my life.  Teddy was a true friend to everyone, and someone who I cherished spending time with.  Despite being a great musician he was never pretentious, but always humble about his talents and his art.
               
I remember discussing the guitar with one of my law school professors.  When I told him that I might be able to set up a meeting with Ted Greene, his eyes lit up and he was ecstatic.  “The Ted Greene,” he asked?  “Yes,” I said, “he’s my cousin.”  In the world of guitars Teddy was matchless, and everyone knew it.  But Teddy never acted above anybody else.  He was always warm and friendly and humble, and simply enjoyed playing music for the sake of playing music.  Teddy gave my professor numerous lessons which I know he cherished.

Teddy left his mark on all whom he touched, including me.  …My apartment and my office is littered with sports memorabilia, especially pertaining to baseball, and it was Teddy who bought me my first baseball cards as a kid.  I will never forget going to the baseball card shop for the first time with him, remembering how excited I was to look at the cards together, and how we just enjoyed each other’s company.  He turned me on to the passion that I still have today.  As I look around at my memorabilia I think about him fondly.  I am grateful to have had my experiences with him.  He was a wonderful person and will be sorely missed.
~Mike Brown (Cousin Mike)

As friends and neighbors of Ted’s for many years, my husband and I have been the fortunate recipients of his big heart and generous ways on many occasions.  Our most profound memory was of Ted coming to our apartment on the spur of the moment, guitar in hand, to sit awhile and play for my husband after one of his many surgeries.  My husband was very surprised and deeply touched.  In one hour’s time Ted’s “musical medicine” transformed my husband back into the happier and more optimistic person that he had always been.  For all of these moments we will always be grateful.
~Marsha & Michael Literas

Hope you enjoy all the new lesson material this month. Dig in!
~ Paul and the boys on the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Bach – Chorale No. 253 – Ted Greene Harmonization, 1984-02-14. [Ted’s original notation, plus new notation with suggested grids.]
* Bach – Chorale No. 262 – Ted Greene Harmonization, 1984-02-14. [Ted’s original notation, plus new notation with suggested grids.]
* Bach – Chorale Nos. 4, 290, and 335 combined – Ted Greene Transcription, 1974-10-19. [Ted’s original notation, plus new notation with suggested grids.]
* The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, 1997-1999. [Previously only page 1 of Ted’s original was posted. We have now added page 2 plus a notated version combined with Ted’s grids and suggested grids for the 11 measures which Ted left incomplete.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1994-02-23.[An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #44, with Ted. – 96 minutes. They spend most of the lesson talking about the tune “Darn That Dream” but also about blues progressions and counterpoint; split voices, chromatic harmony, and descending vs ascending harmony.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* A Night in Tunisia, Chord Solo, 1987-05-08. [This is a chord solo, not a chord-melody arrangement of the tune. Ted wrote this for the first section only. Notation combined with Ted’s grid diagrams plus lead sheet provided as a reference. ]

CHORD STUDIES:
* 3-Note Triad Inversion Rows – Minor, 1984-05-06 and 1984-09-08. [An excellent workout with minor triads – two pages.]
* Close 1st Inversion Triads with Inner Voice Motion (2-to-1), 1986-11-15. [Diatonic triad chord-scales with a moving inner line. Ted provides the first two chords in each exercise; you continue with similar. Five pages.]
* Symmetrical Dominant Progressions – PART 2, 1987-03-14.[Ted titled these pages as “Harp-like Right-hand Study with Symmetrical Dominant Progressions – V-2 Middle Strings”, with the possible intension that these studies would focus on the right-hand fingerpicking patterns. But these studies are actually more about the progressions and chord voicings, also excellent for ear-training. Ted’s original pages give the first two chord diagrams for each progression, but then the rest of the grids are blank for the student to fill in. We’ve filled in the “correct” chords on the translation pages for a reference, but you can do the work yourself on the original pages. As he wrote, these are more about the mental aspect than the physical exercises. They are meant to make you think.]

COMPING:
* Always – Comping on Top 4 and Middle Strings, 1984-05-16. [Ted wrote up two version of comping for “Always” both in 4/4 time, instead of the original 3/4 time. Ted’s grids are combined with new notation, plus lead sheet with lyrics.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Harmonic Tendencies and Common Progressions, 1986. [These lesson sheets had been previously posted as four separate pages. They have now been combined on one PDF file along with translation text to make it easier to read. Twelve pages.]

OTHER:
* I and V Triad Progressions, 1983-12-31. [Ted wrote this page as part of his ear-training series.]
* Harp-Like Chords (Minor 6’s), 1975-09-21. [Chords in close voicings with open strings and/or harmonics. This sheet focuses on minor 6 chords. Redrawn grids for easy ready.]
* Ted Greene Song Lists, Group 3. [This is the third installment of song lists from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. Nineteen pages.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Major Pentatonic, 1987.  [Seven lesson sheets by Ted giving exercises for playing pentatonic chord scales (“chord streams”) using V-2 (and related) chord forms. On several of these pages Ted left some of the grids blank for the student to fill in. Included in this file are those filled-in grids with typed text, but also the original pages for you to fill out yourself. These are pretty cool pages with lots of application possibilities.]
* V-2 Minor 7b5 Chords – Drills, Transitions and Quiz. [Six lesson sheets by Ted giving drills, tough transition exercises, and a fill-in quiz. For four of these pages Ted left some of the grids blank for the student to fill in. Included in this file are those filled-in grids with typed text for easy reading, but also the original pages are there for you to fill in.]
* V-2 Minor 7b5 and (m)7/11b5 Chords. [Two lesson sheets]

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July 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

A very special summer greeting to all friends, students, and fans of Ted Greene!
This month commemorates the 10 year anniversary of Ted’s passing, on July 23, 2005. Belowis a commemoration that Barbara Franklin put in the Los Angeles Times shortly after Ted’s passing. I think she would want it posted here this month.

One of Ted’s very close friends, Dan Sawyer, wanted to share with us some recollections about Ted from the early years. Part of this is taken from the CD, “Ted Greene Remembered” and part was written for this occasion.

Ted Remembrance
By Dan Sawyer

I’ll never forget the first time I met Ted Greene. I was fresh out of high school and thought of myself as a pretty hot guitarist… played in the best local bands. A musician friend said I just had to meet a guy he knew. After a few weeks of prodding I agreed, so we drove up to the hillside home of the Greene family. Ted was still living at home with his parents and sister. We shook hands at the door and went into his bedroom which was littered with guitars and every sort of book and record. Ted sat on the floor cross-legged holding a black Gibson Les Paul guitar. He asked some friendly but probing questions which surprised me with their directness. After talking for a few minutes, it was obvious that this man’s mind was unique and brilliant. His whole way of thinking seemed different than anyone I had ever met.

Then he started to play and my mouth fell open. Here was a guitarist who could play everything from Bach and Gershwin to Wes Montgomery and Johnny Smith. More impressively, he understood the music theory behind all of them. He claimed his current favorites were Max Steiner and Albert King; two musicians who wouldn’t normally be mentioned in the same breath! My friend urged him to play the Mike Bloomfield solo from “East West.” Ted laughed and said he hadn’t played it in a while, but soon enough he was tearing up the fingerboard with a very good approximation of the famous guitar solo. So Ted was able to appreciate and play the popular music of the 20th century, but was also able to see the electric guitar as an instrument capable of performing in an orchestral style. This included all the classical music from the European tradition and American film scores! No one had ever played the guitar like this. Not George Van Eps and not Andres Segovia. It was a new way of conceiving what the 6-string electric guitar could do. What an impressive accomplishment. What beautiful music we heard that day.

As Ted and I became friends over the years, he showed me many beautiful chord progressions and techniques. I owe him so much for the musical inspiration and the friendship. My arrangement of It Had to be You on the Ted Greene Remembered record is dedicated to Ted who heard me playing it one day and praised my arrangement. I tried to feature some of the harmonics that Ted had mastered so well.

The first day I met Ted Greene (as described above) he was still using light gauge strings as most of the guitarists were. So he was able to do the Albert King bends as well as other ones he learned from Domenic Troiano. He was also still using standard tuning. This makes sense since he was also playing in loud rock bands such as the Nomads and Joseph Byrd’s The United States of America. (Ted later recommended me to replace him in that band). But very shortly after, he switched to heavy strings “for their tone.” However, he still liked extremely low action until later. With heavy strings came tuning down to Eb, D, or C#. Now Ted could really get orchestral with his playing. It’s worth noting that he also liked to tune higher than normal pitch and he had special guitars set up for this purpose. These guitars had specific string gauges and had pickups that he had determined were best for high tuning which he would call harpsichord.

I remember one conversation we had around this time. I asked Ted which instrument was more “in tune”—the guitar or the piano. His answer was that the piano was more in tune. So I said then why not play the piano with its increased range and harmonic possibilities instead of guitar? His answer: “Because of the tone, man…the tone!” ~Dan Sawyer

A special treat for this month is a new YouTube video by Tim Lerch playing Ted’s written arrangement of “Sweet Lorraine.”
YouTube/Tim Lerch - Sweet Lorraine - Ted Greene Lesson
We asked Tim if he would do something for July to commemorate Ted’s 10 year passing, and he agreed do a video playing this song, which includes some tips on strategies for how to learn, practice and memorize one of Ted’s pages, plus details about ties/sustain, right hand issues, and more. If you haven’t seen any of Tim’s videos, head on over to YouTube and watch some (or all of them!). Whether he’s demoing a guitar, a pick-up, amp or device, or giving instruction on special techniques and applied theory, or just playing—they’re all excellent, and many of them deal with Ted’s written lessons, comping pages, and arrangements.

Also check out his TimLerch.com website. Enjoy the video…and do thank Tim for all the work he put into learning and videotaping this very challenging arrangement.

Get Ted’s original page here: Sweet Lorraine Ted Greene Arr 1984-12-06
And here’s a write up done by Paul Vachon and David Bishop:
Sweet Lorraine Ted Greene Arr 1984-12-06 Grids with Notation

~ Dan Sawyer, Leon White, Dan Sindel, Tim Lerch, David Bishop, Paul Vachon and the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Misty, 1990-12-25.  [Ted’s more advanced arrangement of this classic jazz standard. Notation and lyrics combined with Ted’s grids for easier reading. This is an incomplete arrangement, missing the last A section. At the bottom of Ted’s original page he wrote, “Etc. as something above, or ask for page 2” but there is no page 2….so don’t ask! The last eight measure are include with extra space, so you can add your own chord voicings (or use something from the early A sections).]
* Bach – Chorale No. 3 – Ted Greene Harmonization, 1984-02-14. [Ted’s original notation, plus new notation with suggested grids.]
* Bach – Chorale No. 17 – Ted Greene Harmonization, 1984-02-14. [Ted’s original notation, plus new notation with suggested grids. Also included is Ted’s analysis for the first 10 measures.]
* Bach – Minuet (two) Ted Greene Arrangement, 1973-09-26. [Ted’s original notation, plus new notation with suggested grids. The second Minuet was written by Christian Petzold (not Bach).]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1994-01-28 [An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #43 with Ted. They talk about Tertian modulations, Gap 3rds, 5th stacks, and Cycle of 6ths – 72 minutes..]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Modern Dominant Progressions, 1979-02-02. [Three pages of 2-measure progressions that are great for turnaround ideas in blues progressions (as well as other progressions).]

CHORD STUDIES:
* 3-Note Triad Inversion Rows – Major, 1984-05-01, 2.  [A nice workout with triads – two pages.]
* Examples of I Chord Vamps, 1977-04-08. [Partly for ear-training, partly for the chord progressions and forms.]
* Open Triad Inversions, 1976-02-26. [Two excellent charts of triad “chord streams” for three-note triads.]
* Symmetrical Dominant Progressions – PART 1, 1987-03-14.[Ted titled these pages as “Harp-like Right-hand Symmetrical Dominant Progressions”, with the possible intension that these studies would focus on the right-hand fingerpicking patterns. But these studies are actually more about the progressions and chord voicings, also excellent for ear-training. Ted’s original pages give the first two chord diagrams for each progression, but then leaves the rest of the grids blank for the student to fill in. He undoubtedly would check their work at the next lesson. We’ve filled in the “correct” chords on the translation pages for a reference, but you can do the work yourself on the original pages.  As he wrote, these are more about the mental aspect than the physical exercises. They are meant to make you think.]

COMPING:
* Always – Comping on Top 4 Strings, 1984-05-16.  [Ted wrote up two version of comping for “Always” both in 4/4 time, instead of the original 3/4 time. This page utilizes mostly V-2 chord voicings. Ted’s grids are combined with new notation, plus lead sheet with lyrics.]

OTHER:
* Chords Applicable to Stopped Harmonic Technique, 1973-12-06.  [Chord forms for A major (F#m7) and A7 or Em6 type sounds. Also included is two right-hand harp-harmonic patterns. Redrawn girds for easy reading.]
* Ted Greene Song Lists, Group 2. [This is the second installment of song lists from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. Eighteen pages.]
* There Are 12 Major Triads in Every Major Key, 1984-02-23. [As Ted wrote, “Tonality will support a major triad built from any and all of the 12 degrees of a major key.” Ted demonstrates this with short musical phrases using a major triad on each degree of the key.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Major 7 Sys. Inversions – Plus – Maj7 & Maj 6 Fill-in Quiz. [Three pages]
* V-2 Major 6/9, Major 9, Add 9 Chords – Plus – Fill-in Quiz. [Four pages]
* V-2 Major 6th Chords – Plus – Fill-in Quiz, 1984. [Three pages]

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June 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Pedro: What were his “minimum requirements” for new students? I mean that he probably wanted students to have certain skill and ability to focus, in order to make the most of each lesson. Having read your book, My Life with the Chord Chemist, I remember that you wrote that Ted “very kindly refused a beginning player.”
Barbara: When I met Ted in July 1992 his requirements were a sincere love of guitar and total dedication to practicing. He told me he would consider a total beginner if he felt the person fit that criteria.

Pedro: How did he evaluate a student for these minimum requirements? Phone interview, first lesson?
Barbara: Again, in 1992—mostly over the telephone, as that is how potential students made their first contact with Ted. In some cases if a new student came as a sub for an existing student and the lesson worked out well, that person would gain a spot on Ted’s teaching roster.

Pedro: I read that if a student had to cancel he would ask him or her to send a “sub”. How did this work?
Barbara: All students were informed during their first lesson that if for any reason they had to cancel a lesson they were to send someone else in their place to take the lesson. Ted chose this method for several reasons: Ted was very difficult to reach on the telephone, therefore it would almost impossible to cancel. The sub method was a common policy for musicians (in L.A., at least) when they could not fulfill a commitment for a gig—the rule was send a sub. Ted did not want to charge students for missing a lesson, nor did he want to be out the money for his time.

Pedro: Did he charge in advance a whole month or did he charge lesson per lesson?
Barbara: Per lesson.

Pedro: How did he decide if a student should have weekly, biweekly or monthly lessons?
Barbara: Many factors went into this decision. When Ted had a full roster there was no other alternative but to have a monthly or bi-monthly lesson. This was contingent upon the number of students he had at various times during his teaching career. In many cases Ted would give so much information in a one-hour session that even a month wasn’t long enough to absorb it all. Ted also made decisions on an individual basis, allowing some students to come weekly.

Pedro: About the grids that he gave to students and that are now oh-so-kindly posted on this great site...did he fill the grids during the lessons? Students have “originals” or copies of previously written charts? Did he have a collection of grid-charts and he made a photocopy of a given sheet for a student?
Barbara: Ted [usually] used previously written lesson sheets—and he had thousands. It all depended on what was applicable. A lesson was highly individualized and tailored to each student. Ted used to hand stamp the grids. Then he found the “blanks.” When Ted wrote out a specialized lesson for a student, he generally asked the student to please photocopy the lesson so he (Ted) could have a copy.

Pedro: Did Ted ever advise a student to quit lessons or, for example, go from weekly to monthly lessons?
Barbara: Yes!

Pedro: Regarding his waiting-list, when he had an available space did he just go “in the order” of the waiting list or did he somehow give priority to some students?
Barbara: Initially Ted tried to take students in order on the list, as it was the fair thing to do. If someone came as a sub they could usually continue lessons after that if they wanted. One important thing to note is that Ted’s teaching agenda, requirements, flexibility, etc., changed considerably over the course of his teaching career. I did cover a fair portion of this in my book.

William Perry: Sometimes Ted had a waiting list, sometimes he taught a lot of students, and other times less. Most often…he would ask the student on the phone where they lived and what they wanted to study. He would then recommend a teacher that he believed was better suited to the student. He probably did this because he sincerely believed it. It also helped him... Almost every time I saw him he had one or two of these calls. You had to be persistent, and it was always based on a love thing... he loved his students. For me, and I’m sure others, it was life changing. He helped me so much in my spiritual growth, appreciation of beauty, and love. He is in my heart and mind every day.

Related to this subject we now have several pages in the Teachings “Other” section about Ted’s own practice programs and work sheets or study sheets. These are from his Personal Music Studies papers for the years 1971-1976. As I poured over these and many other related pages I clearly see that Ted wasn’t a great guitarist by accident. He worked diligently, unceasingly, and methodically (even mathematically) at all his studies. And Ted wasn’t a great teacher by accident either—he really planned and prepared his teaching program. A large part of his personal practice program included working on “teaching” materials that he wanted to write up and develop. Already posted but related to this subject is a page on Ted’s thoughts about the ideal qualities in a student:
Ideal Qualities In Student

On a lesser note: I finally collected all my lesson notes from my time with Ted (previously posted in the Forums), and put them into one PDF file in my “From Students” section. Plus I added two lessons/letters Ted wrote me.

I think the best way to get a sense of Ted as a teacher is to listen to the recorded lessons in our Audio section. Especially helpful are the ones with Mark Levy and Kevin Griffin. Soon we’ll be coming to the end of the vast Mark Levy library. Again we ask if any of Ted’s former students have old recorded lesson cassettes that need to be digitized, please contact either Leon White or Paul Vachon. We’ll be happy to help do the transfers for you for free, in order to share your tape with everyone here on this site.

Wishing you all a great summer, hoping you’ll enjoy the new material from Ted!
~ Paul and the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Misty – with analysis (and more), 1974-05-15.  [Ted’s early “easy” arrangement outline of this classic standard. Notated “compilation” page included. Ted wrote this sheet before he developed his playing order system of dot, X, box, and triangle, so you’ll need to follow the new notation (or your ears) to play added notes in the correct sequence, and you’ll need to fill in the missing melody lines. Also included is Ted’s analysis, his lead sheet, a fragment he called “Misty Improv. Chords,” and another fragment for “Walking Chords.”]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-11-18. [An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #42, with Ted. 95 minutes. They talk about V-3 voicing, Major 9th’s, expansion roots, modulations, Blues, Lenny Breau, and Curtis Mayfield.]

ARTICLES and INTERVIEWS:
* “Movin’ Wes: A High Point in Guitar Artistry” by Ted Greene, 1998 (typed transcript).  [A transcription of Ted’s unedited article reviewing Wes’ “Movin’ Wes” album.  Notation for the musical examples included.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Walking Bass Blues – A Study in Contrasts (Key of Db), 1987-05-10. [Another one of Ted’s blues studies with a walking bass line. Notation and typed text include.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Diatonic Triads (and Sounds) and Pedals (Major Key), 1976. [Three of Ted’s pages from 1976, April 15, 18, and 28.]

COMPING:
* Come Rain or Come Shine. [This comping page came to us thanks to Tim Lerch who obtained a copy from Brazilian guitarist Genil Castro. The chord qualities written in on the Xerox copy were added by the student. This is a rather difficult piece using lots of “stretch” chord – beautiful sounding but a bit of a challenge for many of us. Notation and re-drawn grids provided for easier reading.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Misc. Notes on Solo Guitar Devices, 1980-07-19. [This page comes from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. It is untitled and undated, and it’s not exactly clear what Ted is cataloging here, but it seems to be a list of various harmonic devices to be used for solo guitar pieces.]

OTHER:
* Ear Training Progressions (Triads I, IV), 1983-12-28, 29. [Chord shapes to play to train the ears to hear the I to IV progression. Page 1 has triads only; page 2 includes major 7th chords.]
* Harmonic Chords Derived by Switching, 1979-12-03. [Using an Amaj9 chord, Ted transforms it to six generations using a voice switching technique. Intended for playing as regular notes mixed with harmonics. Re-drawn grids plus explanations with arrows have been added for clarity.]
* Ted Greene’s Personal Practice Programs, 1973-1976. [Ten pages from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers.]
* Ted Greene’s Personal Study Areas, 1974-1976. [Fifteen pages from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers.]
* Ted Greene’s Work and Study Sheets, 1971-1974. [Twelve pages from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers.]
* Ted Greene Song Lists, Group 1. [Sixteen pages from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers comments.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Cute – Solo based on the Chords (version 2), 1978-05-14. [Another one of Ted’s single-note solos (in standard notation with fingerings) for this jazz standard. New notation added for easy reading.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2, Major Extensions Chord Transformation Exercises, 1985. [Two pages.]
* V-2, Major Type Chord Forms – String Transference Quiz, 1984. [Three pages of quizzes.]
* V-2, Major Type Chords-All Sets, 1984. [Five pages.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* Ted Greene Guitar Lessons with Paul Vachon, 1984-1985 Notes. [Previously posted in the Forums, these lesson notes are now all on one PDF file. The text has exact quotes from Ted.]
* Ted Greene Letters to Paul Vachon, 1987. [Two lesson/letters from Ted to Paul.]

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May 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Spring greetings to all friends, students, and fans of Ted Greene!

This month we’d like to share some words from Barbara Franklin on her observations of Ted’s thoughts and about how to go about presenting his V-System to students (in this case V-2 chords). Extracts taken from My Life with the Chord Chemist, pages 18-19 and 21-22:

At the beginning of 1985 Ted focused on hisVoicing System Studies, first by top note and outer voices to find practical or at least “reasonable expectations.” …He searched for the best ways to organize and present this material.

Mid-year Ted reflected on the pros and cons of teaching his Voicing System 2. After a year or two of trying the V-2 System, one set at a time, and also the V-2 all sets at one time; he raised issues to consider and also offered himself a valid argument for each issue. Such as, why teach one set at a time when the crossovers are actually used more? But conversely, the crossovers felt so good that the student may never learn to go up and down each section, one at a time, which he or she will need at the top and bottom of the board.

Ted knew he couldn’t give most students all the chord forms at once of any one type (say, V-2 dominant 7) since they couldn’t process that much information for quite a long time. The other alternative could be to give them small sections of the neck with crossovers, but many might feel less responsive to the seeming lack of an overall system to this. At least with one set at a time there was a general acceptance and good feeling and results. However, even then it would require lots of review and application for long-term absorption.

In later summer, Ted discovered what he termed “a great new method” and began writing out a gradual presentation of minor 7 and dominant 7 type voicings for himself and for teaching. His path was often lead through trying to find ways to show things to the students via different presentations and organizations, which often helped him in self-organizing and retention of the material.

In 1989 he gave much time and thought to his “pet project,” his Voicings Systems. Ted had determined three methods of figuring out which voicing group any 4-note (non-doubled type) chord belonged to. Although he had come up with all three methods independently, he realized their amazing similarity at the core. Along with that he more clearly detailed how to devise each Voicing System’s style or size.

There is no question that this is a testimony to Ted’s commitment to his studies. Throughout the latter part of the 1980s the amount of work he accomplished is impressive to the point of being astonishing. …On top of all that, he still made time to practice, and find ways to improve his playing.

~Barbara Franklin

In 2012-2013 we posted James Hober’s explanation of Ted’s V-System using numerous notes and pages from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers as well as his student hand-outs. We also posted Ted’s 7 Basic Qualities & Systematic Inversions for each of the 14 voicing groups, and we’ve been continually adding more and more of Ted’s hand-out sheets that he created for each of the groups. At this point we’ve posted every “formal” page for V-3 through V-14, almost all of the V-1 sheets, and about a quarter of the V-2 material. There are still quite a few pages in Ted’s Private papers that will also need to be added – but these are usually very densely written notes and worksheets he wrote for himself, and will require transcribing, re-drawing, and often explaining in order to present them properly. So these will take time to get out.
          
But we wanted to tell you that in upcoming months we’ll be posting many more of the Voicing Groups sheets (mostly V-2). Now almost all of the V-2 minor chord types material has been posted. Next we’ll focus on V-2 major types. As mentioned by Barbara, Ted was experimenting on how to present the VG material, and he never completed his task, but he still continued to write up individual lesson sheets. While these lessons focus on certain aspects of utilizing the various chords, they are not presented in any kind of formal “method” or graduated system of study. Obviously they’re not intended for a very beginner guitarist, and I believe Ted assumed that the student would have at least some basic knowledge of music theory and enough experience with playing various chord forms that he would know where he could apply much of the newly presented material.

A note from James Hober:
It’s no accident that Ted wrote way more V-2 sheets than for any other voicing group. They deal with fundamental chords, fundamental progressions like ii V I, and fundamental ways of connecting chords like systematic inversions and crossing over from one string set to another while remaining in the same voicing group and the same region of the neck.

In a way, we have been releasing sheets backwards because we wanted to make sure that we covered absolutely every voicing group. But Ted himself gave students who were new to the V-System sheet after sheet of V-2. Period. No discussion of the overall system. Never any discussion of the three methods or even that they existed. Perhaps he may have mentioned the 43 four-note chords, but he never went into detail about what they were. He omitted these advanced topics deliberately. His idea was that those explanations would come later and in published form.

The V-System explanations plus all the Seven Basics Qualities pages already up, hopefully fills in the blanks that Ted left – and combined with all the lessons for each of the voicing groups (particularly V-2) provides a similar approach as to what Ted might have done in his V-System book.

Ted preferred to start students with the all important V-2 material that is coming out now. He’d want them to get these basics into their fingers and minds. And we really appreciated it, for this is beginning, foundational material. Quite a few people who come to this website already have a certain command of systematic inversions and fundamentals, but many students also come to here looking for basics and where to get started. Guess where a great place to do that is: V-2!

So the V-System actually is suited for beginning, intermediate, and advanced students. If Ted had lived to write his V-System book I really think it would have reflected this, starting with lots of V-2 material like this month’s sheets, progressing to intermediate with a presentation of the three methods, and then moving on to the more advanced, intense details about the 43 four-note chord types.

We released the intermediate and advanced V-System material and explanation because there was a strong demand for that from TG.com members. But personally I love all the V-2 stuff coming out now. We’re finally getting to “friends” – that is, relatively comfortable, extremely useful chords and progressions that you can get in your bones, ready for instant recall. For anyone getting into Ted’s stuff, it seems to me like V-2 is a great starting point.

~James Hober

So there you have it – our update on the status of the V-System and an idea of where we’ll be taking you with this material. Don’t worry, we’ll still continue to post new Ted arrangements, comping pages, blues, theory, harp-harmonics, single-note soloing and more each month. This site is dedicated to keeping more on your musical plate than you’ll be able to consume! So take a taste of everything, and then decide your needs and priorities, and enjoy whatever you chose to devour.

~ Paul and the Fabulous Men on the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Fixin’ A Hole, 1992-06-18.  [Ted’s write-up of this Beatles song as given to student, Craig Price. Go to our Audio section for Ted’s demonstration. Also take a look at Ted’s 1992-11-14 comping outline of this song in our Comping section.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-10-18[An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #41, with Ted. – 90 minutes. This lesson is all about Wes Montgomery. Reharmonization variations for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”]
* Fixin’ A Hole – Ted Greene Lesson with Craig Price, 1992-06-18. [This is a short excerpt from Craig’s lesson wherein Ted demonstrates his write-up for this Beatles song.]

BAROQUE:
* Intervals Used in Implied Major Triads, 1984-05-03, 2. [Three pages on implied chords via dyads of inversion rows, soprano organization, and bass organization.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Walking Bass Blues #2 – Key of C, 1989-03-25. [This is a great little walking bass blues that is pretty easy to get under your fingers. I really like the chord moves in measures 7-12.]

COMPING:
* Longer Chord Progressions Using Modern Chords–Moonglow & Georgia, 1976-06-08.  [This is a “starter lesson” for comping. Ted provides two examples plus some instruction on how to play and interpret his grid diagrams. We have two copies of Ted’s original page, one is better quality, but the other has some additional comments that Ted’s wrote.]
* Fixin’ A Hole, 1992-11-14.  [Ted’s comping outline for this Beatles song, as written out for student Craig Price during his lesson. Also see Ted’s 1992-06-18 arrangement of this song.

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Voice-leading Reference Charts – Triads Only, 1975.  [This lesson is a gold mind of excellent voice-leading examples. Ted provides notation for a thorough study all different variations of A major going to every diatonic degree (triads only). Ted didn’t write out the grids, since multiple forms are possible, and he wanted the student to discover his own fingerings, string sets, etc. New notation provided. At the bottom of page 8 (last page of the new notation), grids for possible chord forms are provided.]
* Main Harmonic Resources in Contemporary Music, 1975-10-05. [Thanks to Frank Didiodato for his work on transcribing this lesson sheet.]
* The II Major Chord in the Major Key, 1991-08-30. [Ted examines the II (V of V) in a major key. New notation with Ted’s grids given for easy reading.]

OTHER:
* Harmonic Chords, 1979-12-03.  [Some interesting harmonic studies from Ted’s Private papers.]
* Learning to Hear V 11ths, 1992-08-09. [Two of Ted’s pages for ear training for hearing dominant 11th chords and its extensions.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Cute - Solo based on the Chords, 1977-10-12. [Two different fingerings (in different neck positions) for the same single-line solo based on the tune, “Cute.” New notation provided for easy reading.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2, Minor 9ths in ii7-V7-I, 1985.  [James wrote about this sheet: “This is a great example of one lesson that is at somewhat beginning level, yet with an interesting twist. It contains lots of chords that Ted is calling “minor 9” but that sure look like familiar major 7 chords. What’s going on? Ted is encouraging you to learn to think of these chords from a different root, namely the “invisible” minor 9 root that is a minor third below the major 7 root. So what looks like a familiar Cmaj7 is “re-understood” as an Am9 in a ii V I progression. These major 7 shapes that we previously used in the I function of the ii V I progression can, with this new thinking, also be used in the ii function – a nice way to stretch knowledge we already have! The key is relearning what we already know from new roots, visualized on the fingerboard.”]
* V-2, ii7-V7-I, Top 4 Strings, 1986-02-16 (2 pages).
* V-2, Minor 7th Extensions: b7 thru b3 in the Soprano, 1986-02-23 (3 pages).
* V-2, Minor 7th Extensions: 11 thru 13 in the Soprano, 1986-02-24 & 25 (3 pages).
* V-2, Minor 7th Types – Locking in the 2nd String Visual Root, 1986-02-23.  [Try resolving these examples with a G major type chord.]

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April 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

April Greetings!
This month we wanted to share some excerpts from the Ted Greene Memorial page about Ted’s rates for private lessons.This corresponds with “Ted’s Financial Policy” page that we’ve just added in the Lessons “Other” section (and which had been posted in the Forums years ago by Barbara Franklin).

January 1987,
As for lessons by mail – I’m swamped with work, but not too swamped to do it. Since I charge $18.00 an hour in person, I’ve been charging $10.00 thru the mail, hoping that this is fair.

March 18, 1987,
P.S. I won’t always be able to give you this much feedback, Paul... I’ve been sitting here for an hour and 1/2 and I won’t always have the time. I’m not asking for more money, rather just saying I may have to deal more with the printed papers just a little. I hope this makes sense to you.

~ Paul and the all the generous contributors on the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Bach – Praeludium XXIV, Ted Greene Transcription, 1969. [Ted’s early transcription of this Bach piece from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II. New notation added for easier reading.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-09-20 [An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #40, with Ted. – 67 minutes. They talk about: Symmetric harmony; Minor key song types (Jazz) 1) Dark minor key (melodic, i minor 6), 2) Minor key with extensions (Dorian, a la Milestones), 3) “SpanJazz” (Spanish jazz, ala Nardis). Sub-dominant area of color (diminished), I bVI II V in V1/V2. 90’s contemporary harmony, vertical structures that don’t have 3rds, polytriads, and Flat degrees.]

BAROQUE:
* Summary of Diatonic Chord Progressions in Baroque Harmony, 1975-03-24. [Ted discusses the primary (tonic, subdominant, and dominant) triads and related triads in major and minor keys, and provides some progressions. Thanks to Frank Didiodato for his work on this lesson.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Blues Progressions, 1977, April. [Two blues progressions in the keys of Bb and E.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Chords for Chord-Melody Playing, (part 5), 1974. [This is the final segment of a five part series. Organized according to the melody note. This part deals with dominant 7th type chords (extended, suspended, altered and overtone series dominants). All examples are given for root of A. Redrawn grids for easy reading.]

COMPING:
* Moonglow – for use with Rhythm Section, 1976-06-09.  [Another Ted comping page for “Moonglow” in the key of G, “for use with a rhythm section (at least a bass player).” Notation and lead sheet combined with Ted’s grids for easy reading and comprehension.]

FUNDAMENTALS:
* Triad Spelling, 1972-02-09. [This page had been previously posted. We now include a translation. Thanks to Matt Lord for his work on this lesson sheet.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Subdominant Harmonies, 1973-10-24. [Ted’s explanation and grid diagram examples of subdominant functioning chords.]
* Voice-Leading Reference Charts - 3-Note Triads, 1975-02-08 and 24. [Ted notates “good” voice-leading of a I chord (here in the key of A) to all other degrees in the key and provides a comprehensive look at all possible options. New notation provided for easy reading. Chord grids are not included since strings choice makes for multiple options and fingerings. This is a fantastic reference page that holds many “jewels” for those who put in the time to learn them.]

OTHER:
* Ear Training and Harmonization – The Primary Colors, 1991-04-06. [Exercises for learning to hear “one, four, five” progressions. Translation pages included for easy reading.]
* Starter Chords for Diatonic Harp-Harmonics, 1990-04-23. [Ted wrote out the first or “starter” chords for a string of diatonic voicings to be used with harp-harmonics. Notation and grids added for clarity. This is from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers.]
* Ted’s Financial Policy, 1980-07-17. [Ted’s policy for increasing his lesson rates from $10.00 per hour to $15.00. This was a difficult thing for him to do, and he must have felt that he needed to explain himself…but he never circulated this page. Previously posted in the Forums by Barbara, we now include it with a translation page.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* “It Could Happen to You” – Solo Based on the Chords, 1977-11-26.  [Ted’s single-note solo based on the chords to this jazz standard. This page was previously posted in our Arrangements section. We’ve now moved it to the SNS section, provided a better scan of the original, plus added new notation for easy reading.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Minor 7th and Minor 9th Chords - Plus Fill-in Quiz, 1984. [Chord streams and patterns for V-2 m7 and m9 chords. Please note that page 2 is to be played vertically – from the top of the column downward. Pages 3 and 4 are quizzes for the student to fill in.]
* V-2 Minor 7th Middle String in ii7-V7-I, 1986-02-07 thru 09.
* V-2 Using Minor 7th Types with 11 on the Top, 1986-1987.

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March 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Spring Greetings!
This month we’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to Andy Brown, a wonderful guitarist living in Chicago.  He recently released a solo guitar album titled “Soloist” that I think many of you will enjoy hearing.  But first let’s hear Andy’s story about his experiences with Ted and Kenny Poole:

I first became aware of Ted Greene through his book Chord Chemistry.I bought it as a budding teenage blues guitarist, and even though the concepts were beyond me at the time, I did love the shots of Ted barefoot and bearded, seated with a gaggle of cool guitars.

Years later, I gravitated towards jazz and fell under the spell of local Cincinnati legend Cal Collins. His bluegrass experiences as a youth had taught him to play “the whole box” as he called it, not just single string lines, and his chordal approach really appealed to me. Soon after discovering Cal, I started to hear the name Kenny Poole. People said he was a reclusive genius who usually played solo and that he was a disciple of George Van Eps. I remember the first night I heard him like it was yesterday. Seated on a stool, with his blonde 70’s Gibson ES 350T tuned down a whole step, he played some of the most beautiful and emotional chord-melody guitar playing I’ve ever heard.

He wasn’t exactly the warmest, most inviting guy at first. He had just given an interview for the short-lived Cincinnati Jazz Guitar Society newsletter, and there were several classic Kenny quotes. One was the answer to the questioner asking if Kenny taught guitar lessons. Kenny’s response was something along the lines of “I teach every night when I play, but the students don’t show up.” I always chuckle to myself and think that this was obviously spoken before I came on the scene. He viewed me with a bit of wariness at first, than later with a mild curiosity as I started showing up EVERY week and staying all night.

I don’t mean for this to sound as if Kenny was mean or cold-hearted. In fact, he was one of the warmest and deepest people I’ve ever come across. It’s just more to show that in this day and age of everyone trying to teach and share everything, he was a bit more reticent until you had proven yourself.

My passion and love for Kenny’s music grew over the years. He would never give me a formal lesson, but our relationship took on several distinct phases. During the first phase, every month or so he’d make a recommendation of an album he thought I should hear or discuss a musician that was important to him. These kernels of information were so helpful to me, and I judiciously followed every lead he let slip out. George Van Eps was Kenny’s idol and spiritual master, and hearing him speak about George and the other master players he admired was pure inspiration for me.

After about three years he finally asked me to sit in. What a thrill! That night changed our relationship, and started the second phase of my apprenticeship with him. After that he would demand that I sit in every time I came to hear him. He would not hesitate to challenge me by playing songs I didn’t know or telling me things that I was doing wrong musically. It was intimidating but luckily I was brave enough to keep doing it, week after week.

It was during this period that someone brought a cassette copy of Ted Greene’s “Solo Guitar” album to one of Kenny’s gigs. On the first break he said we should go out to his car and listen to it. Like me, Kenny knew of Ted’s reputation as being a fellow Van Eps devotee, and I knew he was curious. Needless to say, when the first track started, Kenny’s jaw dropped to the floor. I felt a mixture of awe and a bit of unease coming from him. At that point in his life, Kenny had basically stopped listening to music for over a decade. Being a genius, he had heard what he needed to hear and it was stored in his head, with no need to revisit it. But Kenny had never come across anything like Ted, a contemporary who had developed along very similar lines and influences, and who obviously had taken George’s message and expanded on it in a way very similar to his own.

Two somewhat humorous anecdotes from that time in the car: Kenny immediately proclaimed that Ted was playing a seven string guitar. At that point I had read a few things about Ted and I offered up my muted reply that I thought he was just tuned down a step or two, as Kenny always did. He insisted that Ted was using a seven string, saying, “Now look, I’ve heard a lot of seven string playing....” The other funny thing was when the tape ended he said, “Here man, you take it.” He had heard it, digested its essence, and he didn’t need or want to hear it again. From then on he only spoke of Ted with the absolute highest praise.

I took the tape and fell in love with Ted’s music immediately. To hear another approach to that style of playing helped me to somewhat break away from the towering influence of Kenny and his music. I went back to Chord Chemistry and Modern Chord Progressions and started trying to learn what I could.

My wife and I relocated to Chicago in 2003, and that started my third and final phase with Kenny. Musically, he began treating me more as a partner, and personally more like a brother or son. We shared many deep and intimate nights of music whenever I would come back to Cincinnati for a visit.

It was around this time that I purchased my first computer, and one of the main things I repeatedly searched for on the magical Internet was Ted Greene. Unfortunately nothing ever showed up. I desperately wanted to obtain a lesson with him, as I felt he could communicate things about what I needed in ways that Kenny never could. I had gotten to know jazz virtuoso Howard Alden a bit, again through our shared love of Van Eps. Howard gave me Ted’s number and told me I should call him for a lesson.

I decided to coordinate a trip around my 30th birthday, visiting my sister in San Francisco and then seeing Ted in LA. When I called him, he was very friendly, but said that he was all booked up during the time I was going to be in LA. I had no choice but to drop Howard’s name and tell him that was how I got his number. With that he perked up a bit and said we could do the lesson on his day off at his girlfriend’s place.

Needless to say, that was the best 30th birthday present I could have asked for! I spent the whole afternoon with Ted and Barbara and it was a beautiful experience. The things he said to me, including words of encouragement and helpful tips, have benefited me ever since. Just being in his presence, seeing the gleam in his eye, and the humility and gentleness that emanated from him was an inspiration. He talked about time management and sticking with concepts until you’ve added them to your playing before moving on. He also talked about how easy it was to feel overwhelmed, and I remember him saying about himself, “My reach has always exceeded my grasp.”

I eagerly told Ted about Kenny, whom he knew by reputation but had never heard. I promised to send him some recordings of Kenny and to stay in touch. The news of his death four months later was a shock. It was followed by the death of Kenny less than a year after, both at the age of 58. The loss of these two mentors has hurt deeply and I can’t say I’ve ever fully gotten over it.

The only positive to come from Ted’s untimely loss has been the birth and growth of TedGreene.com. The dedication and spirit of his former students, Barbara, and other friends from far and wide has provided an unending supply of valuable musical information. The lesson sheets, the videos, the audio lesson, the gig recordings, and the masterclasses have all been like a dream come true for someone like me to have access to. Anytime someone asks me for lessons, I say “Have you checked out TedGreene.com? Take a look at that and you won’t need anything from me!” The fact that folks work tirelessly to update the site and provide access to this one-of-a-kind master and all FOR FREE is one of the marvels of our musical age. The only thing now is to find the time to take advantage of it all. If only Ted were here, I could dream of asking him how to make the best use of my time....

~ Andy Brown

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To give you a taste of Andy’s new album, he has shared two audio clips:
Dancing in the Dark:
https://soundcloud.com/edreene/dancing-in-the-dark
and
Stompin’ at the Savoy:
https://soundcloud.com/edreene/stompin-at-the-savoy

To order the whole album go to Andy’s site:  www.andybrownguitar.com or from Amazon.
Being a fan of Ted, Kenny Poole, Joe Pass, and George Van Eps, this album easily became a favorite of mine.  Thanks for sharing, Andy!

One of the new lessons this month is from Ted’s Personal Music Studies files, of a couple of early pages on harp-harmonics – grids and right-hand patterns.  On one sheet Ted refers to a pattern he learned from his student Nick Stasinos.  Here’s what Nick tells us about that:

Back in the mid-70’s I went to see John Fahey play at the Lighthouse. The band opening up for John Fahey was called The Blue Light District. I remember the front man being this very cool chromatic harmonica player. Jay Graydon was the guitar player and he played these very fluid harp-harmonics. It was angelic! I was awe-struck! During the break someone in the front row leaned over and asked Jay where he learned how to play harmonics like that. His answer: “Ted Greene!”

I knew Ted taught at the same Ernie Ball Guitar Shop that I was taking fingerpicking lessons at from Derol Caraco. This changed the course of my guitar studies. I never heard anything so beautiful! I immediately signed up on Ted’s waiting list and the rest is history. ~Nick

~ Paul, Leon, Dan and Dan, Mark, David, Matt, Andy, and Nick
on the Awesome TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Pastorale #1, 1969-01-22. [We believe this is one of Ted’s own compositions. It was written in 1969 and is intended to be played as a classical piece. New notation plus “suggested grids” included. Of course other fingerings are possible, and each player is encouraged to explore what feels/works best for him.]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-08-23. [An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #39, with Ted. – 44 minutes. They talk about ostinatos then different approaches to playing “A Taste of Honey.”]
[NOTICE: Mark’s original cassette tape was defective, so the sound is very slow, low and wobbly towards the end. However, this is a new version that was speed-corrected (somewhat), so if you already have a previously downloaded mp3 of this one you’ll probably want this new one to replace it.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Chords for Chord-Melody Playing, (part 4), 1974. [This is the fourth of a five part series. Organized according to the melody note. This part deals with dominant 7th type chords (extended, suspended, altered and overtone series dominants). All examples are given for root of A. Redrawn grids for easy reading.]

COMPING:
* Moonglow, Comping on the Top 4 Strings (key of G and Eb), 1977-02-22.  [Two very helpful comping studies using the top 4 strings only. Notation included, aligned with Ted’s grids and the lead sheet for reference.]

FUNDAMENTALS:
* Harmonized Close Triads in 5 Tonalities, 1983-06-14 [Subtitled, “From Light to Dark.” This page is to be read vertically. Ted shows harmonized chord-scales in the tonalities (modes) of Major, Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian, and Phrygian. Examples given for A and E. Great for ear-training. Note: this page is meant to be played/read vertically.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Expanded Key Chord Move, 2005-01-18.  [This is a fragment of the page that was filed in Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers along with some notes on the V-System. It is something he wrote “as given, more or less, to student and fine player already, Troy Dexter.]  Apparently Ted wrote this up after the lesson because he thought it was worthy to save. New notation and grids added. This page was previously posted in the Forums in a thread on “Harmonization Studies” that lead to a discussion about expanded key. forums/harmonization-studies]
* Chord Substitution (Parts 9-10),1973. [This is the last 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.]
* Alternate Voice-Leading,1989-1990. [This is a compilation of three related lesson sheets by Ted. The first page is titled, “Cycle of 4ths Progression Starting on the 2nd Half of the Beat. Rhythm Created by “Delays”/Using 10ths and 6ths. The 2nd and 3rd pages are titled, “Alternate Voice-Leading with Open Triads in Diatonic Key Cycle of 4ths Progressions” with an assignment to fill in the chord names and function. Notation was added and aligned with Ted’s grids, plus chord names & functions added for easy reading/learning. These are wonderful phrases that could be used in numerous ways (intros, interludes, for modulations, endings, etc.). I really enjoy playing these examples.]

OTHER:
* Common Goals of Life, 1977-03-12. [Ted’s outlook on life and what he believed to be common goals for most humans. Not music related, but shows an insight to his attitudes towards people, work, personal striving, etc. Translation included.]
* Harmonics, 1978-10-28. [From Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. More chords for harp-harmonics, plus some right-hand patterns. Includes re-drawn grids and graphics for easy reading, plus comments from Nick Stasinos about Ted giving him credit on this page for a pattern.]
* Harp-Harmonics Instruction Book Page with Ted’s Note. [Barbara copied this page from one of the books in Ted’s massive library. It’s from Howard Morgen’s, Concepts: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar, page 147. In the chapter on harmonics Ted added his comments to Howard’s text. Translation included.
Dan Sawyer wrote to us about this, “I agree that it was Chet Atkins who invented the technique long before Lenny Breau. Also, Ted is mentioning Domenic Troiano, who was a Canadian guitar player that Ted and I would go listen to whenever he was in town. Domenic had a fantastic style that sounded like a B3 organ or Ray Charles’ piano. He was also one of the very first to play “harp-harmonics.” Unfortunately, he didn’t really record any of that style (as far as I know).”]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Diatonic Melodic Minor Arpeggios, 1976-03-30. [Arpeggios for minor, m/9, m6, m6/9, m∆7, m∆9 m6/∆7, m6/∆7/9 sounds, along with the corresponding chord form and scale for each position. Re-drawn grids for easy reading. (Special thanks to Matt Lord for his work on this page).]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2, Linear ii7-V-I, Top 4 Strings, 1985-04-15.[From Ted’s Personal Music Studies paper, this page was not intended to be a lesson hand-out sheet. Some examples are ii-V-I, and others are just ii-V moves. New notation and re-drawn grids included. (Special thanks to Matt Lord for deciphering this page)]
* V-2 Major 7th and Major 6th Chords on the Top 4 Strings – Plus Fill-in Quiz, 1984-11-14.
* V-2 Dominant 7th and 9th Chords on the Top 4 Strings – Plus Fill-in Quiz, 1984-11-14.

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February 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

February Greetings!

This month we have some thoughts and memories from Rowanne Mark about her experiences of singing with Ted back in 1978:

I’ll try to tell you something about our “rehearsals” together. Ted would bring a small amp and guitar to my apartment and we would sit on the floor, since I didn’t have furniture at that time, having justmoved to Huntington Beach from my home in San Diego. I had been getting a few gigs from referrals in the Orange County area and saving my money to move to Los Angeles. I didn’t know yet that HB isn’t LA, but far south of it. The bass player in the band in which I was singing took me to hear Ted Greene and Cathy Segal Garcia performing. They were great! Cathy and I have been good friends for these many years now.

Ted and I each had our own tune lists, mine with my specific keys. Ted had a very small piece of paper on which were hundreds of tunes listed, written by hand in the tiniest lettering one could imagine, and with no specific keys. I think he could master any tune in any key. I grew up listening to the standards, but being new at singing jazz I didn’t know all the tunes that were inculcated into my head from childhood. Ted would ask me if I knew such and such a tune, I would start to sing it to see if I knew all the words.

Sometimes we would start by me suggesting a tune and the key, and by the time we finished playing that song we would have tried out many different keys and decided to have at least one key change in the arrangement. Up or down, a half step, a whole—it didn’t matter. It was so much fun. Ted’s accompaniment is exquisite. He could really justify and makes right the singer’s musical choices. He was always so spontaneous, so “in the moment” in his playing, yet he played so perfectly and naturally one would think he had rehearsed it a thousand times.

One evening Ted brought me two records: Max Steiner’s soundtrack to Gone with the Wind, and a Julian Bream classical guitar record. He said these were two of his favorites. One can hear the influence of Max Steiner’s orchestrations in the chord changes Ted often used.

We needed to make a demo tape in order to get a gig. Ted had a friend who had a studio, and that’s how we made our tape. I don’t remember the friend’s name or where the studio was. The tape was actually intended to be more of a practice recording - certainly not to save or publish. We never actually had a gig together.

Ted was imparting so much, but it never seemed that he was trying to “teach” me. Ted never treated me as a student, but as an equal and a friend. This speaks to Ted’s big nature or character. I have only my limited time with Ted to recall, but I suspect he was this way with everyone. Just as his playing elevates the listener and other players, he elevated the person he was playing with. He was so dear, so very kind, and also quite philosophical.

Ted and I talked a lot about the “spiritual” things - spiritual vs. material - but not about “spirits.” As you know Ted was not materialistic; he was very unselfish and giving. He felt that music could and should be “healing” and inspiring love and truth, and not inciting one’s lower nature. We discussed this often. He did say one time that he believed the actual physical tones or vibrations in the right chord progressions, or with the right sound, could heal. And he definitely believed that the spiritual nature or outlook and motive of the performer was very important. He also stated that his thoughts had been sort of evolving in this direction, and this was the reason why he didn’t want to play rock & roll or certain types of blues, or any kind of “angry” music.

Ted always wanted to be a force for good in anyone’s life, with those whom he came into contact. When it comes to Ted I just say to myself, “Thank you, God, for showing me Your sweetness.”

~ Rowanne Mark

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Ted Greene with Rowanne Mark

Rowanne also told me that she sang on two of Allan Holdsworth’s albums:  Atavachron (1986), track 7, “All Our Yesterdays,” and Secrets (1989) track 2, “Secrets.”
YouTube, Allan Holdsworth - All Our Yesterdays
YouTube, Allan Holdsworth - Secrets

Rowanne mentioned that it was always a joy to work with Allan because he has that same kind, caring, and thoughtful nature that she found in Ted.

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We received a request in the Forums for Ted’s arrangement of “My One and Only Love,” and since this is February (month of Valentine’s Day) it seems fitting. Unfortunately Ted didn’t complete his write-up of this tune (as mentioned below), so it would be interesting if a few of you out there would post in the Forums your versions for completing the Bridge and last A section. Mine is in my “From Students” section, but that’s just one interpretation. Let’s see a few more. And we’ll have to revisit and stimulate our “group project” of doing an arrangement of “How High the Moon” that was started in the Forums.

~ Paul and the fine gentlemen on the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* My One and Only Love, 1998-10-09.  [Ted’s write-up for the first two A sections of this classic jazz standard. The Bridge and final A section was not done. We’ve included a notation compilation with Ted’s grid diagrams, and added blank grids for the Bridge and final A for you to fill in. Ted sometimes left arrangements unfinished with an assignment for the student to complete it, bring it back for the next lesson and discuss and analyze it.]
* How High the Moon (lead sheet), 1979-05-21. [Ted’s handwritten lead sheet (not an arrangement).]

AUDIO:
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-07-19 [An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #38, with Ted, recorded in July 19, 1993 – 65 minutes. They discuss: Diminished 7th Chords (resolutions and extensions), Lydian sounds, Expanded diatonic sense of key.]

BLUES & JAZZ:
* Slow Blues with Walking Bass, 1987-05-24.  [Another example of one of Ted’s blues studies with a walking bass, here in the key of C. Notation included.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Chords for Chord-Melody Playing, (part 3), 1974. [This is the third of a five part series. Organized according to the melody note. This part deals with m7b5, m6, and minor/major7 type chords. All examples are given for root of A. Redrawn grids for easy reading.]

COMPING:
* All of Me, Comping on the Middle Strings, (key of Db), 1984-10-07. [This comping study is almost exactly identical in voicings to Ted’s other comping page for “All of Me.” The only difference is that this study utilizes the middle 4 strings and is in the key of Db, whereas the other study is on the top 4 strings and in the key of C. Notation included.]

FUNDAMENTALS:
* Musical Goals and Necessary Areas of Study, 1976-05-31. [Ted’s chart of various areas of study, indicating what he felt he could help with. Transcription pages included.]
* Mixolydian Harmony and Melody, 1986-01-20. [Examples in the key of Eb Mixolydian using grid diagrams]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Progressions Through Voice-Leading, 1992-08-11. [Ted’s lesson on voice-leading using a specific method. Ted left the original lesson page with blank grids for the student to complete the examples. Translation pages include the assignment grids.]
* Chord Substitutions (Parts 7-8),1973. [This is the fourth 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.]
* Chord Connections, Part-Writing, Voice-Leading, 1974-02-17.  [Some information about the origins of harmony.]

OTHER:
* Whole-Tone and Other Chimes (Harp-Harmonics), 1982-07-20.  [From Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers. Translation pages include notation, grids, and finger patterns for these harp-harmonic scales.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Middle Two Strings of the Guitar: The Major Scale–all 7 Segments,1991-01-23.  [Two-string patterns/fingerings for Eb major scale fragments. New text included.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2 Inversions - Learning Add9 Chords, 1985-03-19. [Ted wrote on this page, “As tough as some of this may be, the beautiful color of the add 9’s make their friendship well worthwhile.”]
* V-2, Major 15 Basic Extensions, 1984-03-19. [Taken from Ted’s Personal Music Studies papers, this sheet details all the V-2 chord forms for the 15 basic extensions for major type chords – for the top 4 strings only. Special thanks to Matt Lord for creating new easy-to-read grids and organizing these pages to make them more accessible. (Ted’s page was never intended to be a student hand-out, but just for his own studies.)]

FROM STUDENTS:
* My One and Only Love, 1998-10-09.  [Paul Vachon’s compilation of Ted’s arrangement, plus suggestions for one way to play the Bridge and final A section.]

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January 2015 TedGreene.com Newsletter

Recently I stumbled upon a thread in a message board guitarsbyleo.com/Forum from Hellecasters guitar-slinger Will Ray commenting on one of Ted Greene’s YouTube videos: YouTube–Ted Greene Lesson–G&L ASAT Evaluation So I wrote Will and he sent me some additional memories of his time with Ted. Here’s a combination of those messages:

Nice video! I miss Ted. When I was working with the Hellecastersin the mid 1990’s I took a few lessons from him. He was really interesting. At the time I was charging $75/hr for lessons, but Ted charged me what he charged everyone, which was $18/hr. I asked him about why he didn’t charge more. He said, and I quote: “$18/hr allows me to pay my rent, my bills and keep plenty of food in the house. It’s good Karma. $16 isn’t quite enough, and $20 would be just too over the top.” I loved that attitude!

Another interesting thing about him was that he was an information junkie. Some might even call him a hoarder by today’s standards. When you walked into his apartment you had to navigate through stacks and stacks of newspapers, magazines, and albums. You had to follow a path from the front door to his lesson room. He wasn’t a slob though—he kept a clean apartment, there was just a lot of stuff crammed into it, mainly reading material.

I had a copy of Chord Chemistry, and just to get Ted to sign it was an ordeal. He was extremely humble and felt embarrassed to even have to sign something. It was like he wasn’t worthy or something—just a quiet, monster player.

He really didn’t like leaving his apartment as I recall. I had to coax him to my house in Burbank to get him to lay down some guitar on a song of mine. I of course paid him, but I had to practically force him to take the money.

Ted used a really old 3-pickup archtop hollow body on it—maybe an old Epiphone or Guild from the 50’s. I remember it had really heavy gauge strings, like 13’s or something. But the action was incredibly low, the lowest I ever saw on a guitar. It was easy to play but impossible to bend strings on. But man, he could play! We both played directly into a first generation Line 6 POD into my board at my studio and it sounded great!  It was around the year 2000 or so. He could make any guitar sound great. I miss him.

I’m including an MP3 of a song that has Ted and me together. It’s called “Holy Smokes” and features Ted trading solos with me. It’s off my “Mojo Blues” CD and I gave Ted one of the first copies. I’m panned Left and Ted is panned Right, with him taking the first solo each time. His are the very chord-oriented solos (no surprise there). Feel free to post it on your Ted Greene tribute site if you like.

He was a great guy and I miss him.
Will

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We’ve posted the mp3 of “Holy Smokes” in our Audio section under “Miscellaneous.” If you like this song, you can go to Will Ray’s website and purchase the full CD: WillRay.biz/Store. Also check out his other albums. Will is an incredible player and we all thank him for sharing this recording with us, and especially for dragging Ted into his studio! www.willray.biz

In preparing the material for this month I found an interesting quote by Ted in the new Mark Levy lesson recording (1993, June 21). I thought you’d like to see it, so I transcribed it here. People sometimes ask about how to approach Chord Chemistry or Modern Chord Progressions, well, here is what Ted said about this, and it ties in with George Van Eps’ books as well:

Ted: [referring to his interview with George Van Eps, discussing his Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar:]
He said, “Oh, just open it anywhere and just find something you like and work on that.”
I said, “George, people are concerned. There’s a lot of material there.”
He said, “You can’t exhaust all that. Don’t even try. Just find things you like.” I guess he knew when he wrote it. It would have been cool if he explained that in the beginning. Like, it would have been cool if Ted Greene did that too! I didn’t tell people that either. “This [Chord Chemistry] is a reference book, when you get down to it, folks.” Even though I didn’t realize it when I wrote it. I mean, I could have said that to them. During the process I didn’t know, but once I was done I looked and said, “Damn, it’s just a reference book.” “Find two examples maximum per page that you like,” you know?

Yes, thank you Ted, I think most of us here knew that, but it’s good to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth!

~ Paul and the boys on the TedGreene.com Team

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New Lesson Material:

ARRANGEMENTS:
* Bach Invention No. 1, 1980-05-12. [Ted’s arrangement of J.S. Bach’s piece, transposed from the key of C to Eb. There are three copies of Ted’s original page, the 2nd copy includes some corrections Ted made to his fingerings, and the third copy is Ted’s breakdown and analysis (in red ink) of the composition. The corrections were made to the new notated version. In addition, we’ve attached a translation of Ted’s analysis with comments by David Bishop.]
* A Patch of Blue, 1974-09-12. [Ted’ early arrangement of this Jerry Goldsmith tune from the 1965 film with the same name. Paul’s compilation page is added here because the lead sheet is so rare that most people won’t know this song without including this as a guide.]

AUDIO:
* “Holy Smokes” – Will Ray and Ted Greene together, from Will’s “Mojo Blues” album.
* Ted Greene Lesson with Mark Levy, 1993-06-21.[An mp3 of Marks’s lesson #37, with Ted. – 94 minutes.  Topics covered: Mixolydian harmony, Tele wiring/circuits, George Van Eps interview & Harmonic Mechanisms book, Modulation assignment, Different colors/feelings of dissonant chords and others, review of a gospel tune.]

CHORD STUDIES:
* Chord Inversions – Exercises to Help Learn, 1974-08-27. [Some early exercises Ted wrote for working on chord inversions. Translation page includes notation of the melodic patterns used in the exercises.]
* Chords for Chord-Melody Playing, (part 2), 1974. [The second of a five part series. Organized according to the melody note. All examples are given for Am. Redrawn grids for easy reading.]

HARMONY & THEORY:
* Chord Substitutions (Parts 5-6),1973. [This is the third 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.]
* Theory of Chord Progressions,1974-02-17. [Some insights by Ted about chord progressions. Translation page included for easy reading.]
* Voice-Leading and Parallelism on Guitar, 1975-03-09. [Ted’s explains the development of harmony via voice-leading, with parallel solutions as well as common voice-leading solutions.]

OTHER:
* Harp-Harmonics – Chord Voicings for Chimes, 1978-10-28. [Another lesson sheet by Ted showing various chord forms and finger patterns for playing harp-harmonics.]

SINGLE-NOTE SOLOING:
* Cute –Single-Note Soloing Outline, 1981-06-05. [Two examples of 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.]

THE V-SYSTEM:
* V-2, Dominant 7th – Organized by Selecting Key Fixed Tones, 1984-11-11. [From Ted’s Personal Music Studies files, redrawn for easy reading by Matt Lord.]
* V-2, Major Types - String Crossings, 1985-03-18.  [Exercises in string crossings from bottom set to top set, to ease melodic leaps.]

FROM STUDENTS:
* V-2, The 35 Chord Qualities (plus Modes).  [Created by Gareth Rixton, based on converting Ted’s V-9 page on the 35 Chord Qualities to V-2 voicing group. This covers chords on the bottom string set only, and also relates these chords to 5 common scales and their modes.]
* Ted Greene Lesson, 1993-06-21, Assignments on Modulation.  [Ted’s handwritten examples he wrote during Mark Levy’s private lesson, discussing modulation. Please refer to Mark’s recorded lesson in our Audio section.]
* More or Wes Blue, 1986-01-10.  [Two notated versions of Ted’s blues composition honoring one of his favorite guitar players. The first version has Ted’s grid diagrams included with standard notation, the second version also includes TAB. Created by Paul Vachon.]
* Uptown Blue, 1986-04-19. [This write-up of Ted’s blues study was posted years ago and combined with the TAB version of “More or Wes Blues.” We’ve now separated these and posted them individually and made it a single file.]

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