Search - Jimmy Bruno: Inside Outside Jazz Guitar on DVD

Freedom!

DJM | Haydenvile, MA United States | 04/14/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Jimmy Bruno has perfected his jazz guitar teaching method and offers it on this new DVD. As an aspiring improviser I've been completely trapped by the scales-over-chords concept and have not been able to make any progress. As the changes stream by I struggle to play the correct modes, but things are changing so quickly I can't keep up. I can't make music this way. At best I manage to play fragments of scales. Bruno frees me from all of this and allows me to make real progress in my improvisation.

On this DVD Bruno tells me to forget about scales - yes, just forget about them. Instead I should focus on making melodies - that's the task at hand. And - most important - I need to listen closely to my melodies as I am improvising them.

The guiding musical concept for this is the "Tonal Circle." This is not a scale - it is non-linear! Within each key there are seven notes inside the circle and five notes outside. I should first focus on making melodies using the "inside tones" until I can easily hear what each one sounds like over the different chords of a typical progression like II-V7-I (don't worry about the chords - just listen to your melodies and hear how they sound over the chords.

There are a few things I need to know beyond this as I practice and experiment with creating melodies. First, I need to know where the notes are on the fretboard. Having dispensed with scales, Bruno shows me five contiguous regions on the fretboard and the fingerings for the inside notes, within each region (and the outside notes too). Remember, these are not scales (they do look a lot like the CAGED fingerings).


For each region Bruno refers to his nomenclature for the 6 scale fingerings he offered in his first video ("No Nonsense...). Or you could buy his book, "Six Essential Fingerings for Jazz Guitar." It helps to know this terminology - it is not the same as CAGED.

Also, Bruno says that I should learn the fingerings for all of the arpeggios for the inside notes within each region (and some of the outside ones too, eventually). But, I certainly shouldn't worry about "modes" or even, necessarily, play the "correct" arpeggio over a chord. Try 'em all out! Wherever in the progression!

As I practice making melodies I start adding in the outside tones one-by-one and hearing how they sound - in my melodies and over the chords. Bruno has an excellent schedule for doing this note by note.

And.... there's more on the DVD. But just this - the core of his method - gives me freedom to learn to play music. Try it out!"

How To Think Outside The Box...

Kenneth Gonzalez | 01/27/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've been playing a long time and I wish I'd had this years ago. Jimmy makes a very compelling case for his method and it works. Trusting your ear first and then explaining it with theory is a good thing. Exploring Jimmy's ideas will help you inject life into your soloing and comping. It's helped me increase my enjoyment of the instrument substantially.

For those that don't have a lot of good formal guitar/music education, you may wish to start with his first video and get some of his basics down. Also, the Mel Bay books with his scale fingerings are more accessible than the book with the DVD. The latter isn't bad, but it is a bit challenging to work with.

Once you work this for a bit, it'll unlock your creativity and let you go places way beyond where you started."