Guitar Heroes, Part Two (Ted Greene)

Update, Sept. 2019. Last spring I wrote the following “Guitar Heroes” post after discovering the work of the late Ted Greene. I described how a creator of YouTube tutorials had used, without credit – stolen, that is – Greene's arrangement of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” In revisiting this video the other day, I see he now gives credit (in the notes beneath the video) where it is due. No thanks to me; but in fairness I am drawing attention to it. No changes to the post, though; only this update/preamble.

•

Late last fall, as the holidays approached, I went in search of guitar arrangements of secular Christmas tunes. With no particular song in mind I came across a YouTube tutorial of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

The chords and harmonies the instructor played (on electric guitar) sounded pretty good, so I downloaded the tabs in PDF. After working on it a day or two I went back to the video to review a tricky passage. Then I scrolled down to read some of the comments.

“Great playing,” someone wrote. “But you really should credit Ted Greene, whose arrangement it undoubtedly is.”

Someone else agreed. “This is pure plagiarism,” he stated flatly. “Sorry, Lesson Dude, but you’re big a piece of douchebag for not giving credit to Ted Greene.”

Additional comments developed this theme. “This arrangement is Ted Greene’s. Maybe you should credit him somewhere.”

“No credit to Ted Greene = thumb down,” a fourth guy chimed in, adding a thumbs down emoji for good measure.

Ted Greene

“What kind of pickups are those?” someone else asked – and the thread turned to more pragmatic issues. The “Lesson Dude” did not acknowledge any of the Ted Greene accusations.

Ted Greene. I did not know the name, so I googled it. And sure enough, I found “Merry Little Christmas” on tedgreene.com, under “transcriptions” – virtually note-for-note what that lesson dude had on YouTube.

Ted Greene, it turns out, was a legendary figure in guitar circles – which means most people have never heard of him. Me, for instance. He died too soon, at age 58 in 2005. His website is maintained by admirers who want to preserve his legacy, which is largely as a teacher.

Ted Greene wrote several books, one of them Chord Chemistry. I had twenty-five bucks on a Powell’s Books gift card from my friend Janet, so I bought it. It has been eating my brain ever since.

A few years back I wrote a post for this blog called “Guitar Heroes.” Ted Greene is now among these heroes.

There are lots of Ted Greene videos on YouTube, most of them home videos shot by fans. He recorded one album, just one, many years ago. It is primarily show tunes. “A lot of what America listened to [when I was a kid] was Tin Pan Alley’s product,” he told an interviewer in 1995. “And a lot of that was inextricably bound up with show tunes. The Great American songbook.”

Scott Tennant

Other Heroes

That first “guitar heroes” post centered on William Kanengiser and Ralph Towner. Kanengiser is a founding member of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. Another founding LAGQ member is Scott Tennant, a great player (originally from Detroit) with some interesting solo stuff (check out his arrangement of “Wild Mountain Thyme”).

Andrew York

Andrew York is also on the new Heroes list: a former member of the LAGQ, author of the Jazz Guitar for Classical Cats series (another Janet gift card purchase), and a composer and soloist of note. Pardon the pun.

Tommy Emmanuel is a great player, even brilliant, and I’ve found some of his stuff useful. He even recommends Chord Chemistry in a video somewhere, and gave a very interesting TED talk. But some of his playing is a little too showbiz for my taste.

Of course, no decent list of guitar heroes would omit people like Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, and Jim Hall. Maybe I’ll talk about them another time.

Meanwhile, I continue with Ted Greene arrangements. In cycling parlance, a few of them seem beyond category. But “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is doable. The holidays have come and gone so I practice it out of season.

Ted Greene must have had hands of rubber. In guitar parlance the song is a bear, a bitch, a total challenge. It’s coming together – but slowly.

Look simple enough? This is one of the more difficult Ted Greene passages in Merry Little Xmas.

Tommy Emmanuel