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And they have nothing to do with CAGED. (Man, he hates that term. Joe Pass did not but Jimmy Bruno does.
I learned these the way he teaches them, in all 12 keys (more than 12 if you count, say, F# and Gb as two different keys).
(If it says "playback unavailable" just click to go to YouTube and it will play there.)
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09-02-2024 10:30 AM
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Im not quite sure how Jimmy Bruno got so much mileage out of teaching those scale fingerings. Even if he objects to calling them caged fingerings …. I mean …. They are.
Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I distinctly remember getting into jazz right as he was finding his way onto YouTube when it was new and I was like … oh awesome. And then I watched the scale videos and was like …. I have these already.
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Yeah no knock on the method, just like … we've been at this for 25 years, why are we still parsing the specifics of these scale fingerings?
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I use Caged and Jimmy Bruno's fingerings interchangeably
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I bet he’s still getting emails about them. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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One thing I’ll say for him is that every time I hear people call a scale fingering a “mode” it makes me want to put on three hats and yell at the computer screen.
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But when it comes to chord tones, versus scales, etc….aren’t all of these things something else too? Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I loved learning the Jimmy Bruno positions and how he shows where they can be applied. They don’t HAVE to be tied to cowboy chords.
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Didnt say they did. Just not sure why it’s so important that they not be tied to chords. It’s like the 42nd video he’s posted about how much he hates them being called CAGED. Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
Just not sure why we’re still on that.
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Jimmy does indeed indicate the relationship between a specific position and other chords, starting with the fifth position and its (yes, obvious) relationship to dominant seventh. Very useful for me! Originally Posted by pamosmusic
As for too much repetition, gosh, that never happens in this forum, does it?
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I had Bruno’s book but didn’t he change his thinking (fingering) on the subject later on?
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Well then I have to say I’m at a loss Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
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Originally Jimmy Bruno had 'Six essential Fingerings'. Originally Posted by alltunes
The book is still available at Mel Bay, originally it was a download PDF (2004?).
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I think the aim is to be able to play any of the Fingering patterns over any chord type. Originally Posted by Kirk Garrett
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Sure, Arnie Berle published those CAGED forms in Guitar Player Magazine 40+ years ago, way back when I was a subscriber. And he probably wasn't the first, either. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
The conceptual difference Jimmy is focusing on is that his fingerings include all of the notes available in the key in that shape, rather than starting at the root and going to the octave root. That might only add two to four notes in any given pitch collection, but that's the distinction he's making and how he wants you to think about it. He is trying to get his students away from thinking about the guitar mechanically (i.e., this scale pattern goes with that chord) and then sounding like they are playing mechanically, which is far too frequent. He strongly wants to avoid thinking "major scale over the I chord, dorian mode over the ii chord, mixolydian mode over the V chord," etc. Jimmy is not a fan of the chord-scale model of approaching music. However, he knows that stuff backwards and forwards, and I wonder to what extent he actually uses it subconsciously, at this point, in his own playing.
His position on music theory and jazz theory is that it is a post hoc way to explain what happened when the musicians played, not really the way to guide what to play. If you are thinking "there's an altered dominant coming up and I could use the whole tone scale over it," by the time you've gotten through that thought process the song is over. At best, music theory can be part of our apperceptive mass when playing music, but it should not be what is it the forefront of our experience. As Charlie Parker said (paraphrasing), "learn all your scales and stuff but then forget it and just play."
Jimmy also emphasizes using your ears to hear how the note and the line relate to the chords and to the melody, to be guided by the ear rather than guitar nechanics. He is an advocate of learning the lyrics to songs so that you know what the song is about.
And, speaking of scale forms, I would suggest learning the Johnny Smith three octave scale forms and the Segovia scale forms. I'm still working on getting those confidently under my fingers, but they're really helpful in terms of not being trapped playing in one position on the neck. Also have to work out the bebop scale versions of those. Tal Farlow described getting most of his mileage out of two scale forms with some connecting notes between them (e.g., the 3rd fret G major 2 octave scale and the G major scale within the C major #11 scale at the 8th fret, and repeating G scale at the 15th fret). Gene Bertoncini advocates learning all of the scales up and down the neck on a single string, then putting double stop harmonized scales together, triple stop, quadruple stop, etc. That is something of an extension of the Mick Goodrick unitar idea.
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He doesn't see them (or teach them) as related to CAGED. I get what you are saying. But he always teaches from the lowest note in the position to the highest, not from the root. (So fingering 5 in C starts on the low G and runs up to A on the high E string.) Originally Posted by pamosmusic
He doesn't think this is everything. He thinks it's the first thing. And he's serious when he says it is about the fingerings, not chord shapes. (He doesn't teach them in relation to chord shapes.) It becomes easier to move lines around the guitar when the fingerings remain consistent.
FWIW, years ago he taught a few different fingerings. (See his Mel Bay book "Six Essential Fingerings for the Jazz Guitarist.")
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Yeah I mean. For what it’s worth, this strikes me as something of a strawman on Jimmys part. By which I mean, no reputable teacher that I’m aware of is teaching that CAGED positions must be used over a specific chord, that those positions only run root to root, or that whole Ionian, Dorian, Mixolydian thing. I mean … don’t get me wrong … loads of problems with the way jazz is taught, and I’m inclined to think the musical internet is a big well-meaning dummy sometimes, but if what you describe there is what Jimmy thinks “CAGED” scale fingerings are then I don’t blame him for calling them “disgusting f***ing b***sh**” … to me it seems like a bit of an overreaction to something that isn’t really taught that way. But alright. Originally Posted by Cunamara
Sure. This would be probably the biggest of the problems I have with the way jazz is generally taught.His position on music theory and jazz theory is that it is a post hoc way to explain what happened when the musicians played, not really the way to guide what to play. If you are thinking "there's an altered dominant coming up and I could use the whole tone scale over it," by the time you've gotten through that thought process the song is over. At best, music theory can be part of our apperceptive mass when playing music, but it should not be what is it the forefront of our experience. As Charlie Parker said (paraphrasing), "learn all your scales and stuff but then forget it and just play."
Also great and seems scale-fingering-agnosticJimmy also emphasizes using your ears to hear how the note and the line relate to the chords and to the melody. He is an advocate of learning the lyrics to songs so that you know what the song is about.
Yeah my old guitar teacher in high school taught scale positions as just kind of ways of getting around and taught me CAGED, 3nps, 4nps, some three octave patterns that were basically Segovia patterns, single and two string, one octave shapes etc. I’ve kind of stolen that general outlook, though I don’t usually use all the different fingerings explicitly. I usually give people the analogy of moving to a new neighborhood. You get there and you have one way to get from home to work. Then you look at a neighborhood map and you pick another way, and another. Then you run into construction and have to take a detour. And over time you just start to learn how the neighborhood is laid out and you just know how to get around. The routes themselves are important in that you need to have those rote pathways to start getting around and learning the layout, but unimportant in that it doesn’t matter much what the particular routes are, so long as you have them and are using them to exploreAnd, speaking of scale forms, I would suggest learning the Johnny Smith three octave scale forms and the Segovia scale forms. I'm still working on getting those confidently under my fingers, but they're really helpful in terms of not being trapped playing in one position on the neck. Also have to work out the bebop scale versions of those. Tal Farlow described getting most of his mileage out of two scale forms with some connecting notes between them (e.g., the 3rd fret G major 2 octave scale and the G major scale within the C major #11 scale at the 8th fret, and repeating G scale at the 15th fret).
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I think the main reason Jimmy harps on this is that many people keep asking him about it. It's that simple. (And that frustrating, for him.) It is also of fundamental importance. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
One may organize the fretboard in some other way. There may be several efficient ways to do it. But a budding player needs to settle on one in order to learn it (and learn how to use in when improvising.) Afterwards, another approach may be learned to complement it. As the old saying goes, you can't ride two horses at once. (And Jimmy is teaching people who come to him for lessons; he's not telling competent players who aren't his students that they're doing it wrong.)
I remember submitting videos to Jimmy years ago and the assignment would be solo over the changes to Satin Doll in fingering 5, then move to 6, the 7, then 2, then 3. (Those are the 'names' of the 5 fingerings, derived from the lowest scale degree in each fingering.) Only when you can do THAT do you move on to weaving from one into another one. I learned a thing or two.
Here's Jimmy and Frank Vignola doing a blues in Bb. He moves around the neck well.
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[QUOTE=pamosmusic;1357445]
Also great and seems scale-fingering-agnostic /QUOTE]
The goal is to be able to play what one hears in one's head on one's instrument without having to stop and think "well, how do I play that?"
He wants students to link their ears and their hands so that they can translate musical ideas into musical passages on the instrument. In a sense, the two become one, much like thinking of a word and immediately writing it down without having to wonder how to spell it.
Frank Vignola (see video above) is more the scale-fingering-agnostic. He did a lesson on 101 ways to play a C major scale. He likes to finger things in as many ways as he can think of. That's important to him. And it obviously works for him.
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Has anyone here followed through with lessons from Jimmy? These fingerings are merely a starting point. He emphasizes that a person needs to know these before he can teach them, along with the chord inversions. When he is playing tunes in his YT videos he is not sticking to the scale tones in these fingerings but he is using them.
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I sent him a video of me doing the fingerings through all 12 keys and he replied "excellent"
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Right. He wants students to master this and then move on to adding outside notes. In C, the first outside note he would have a student add is Ab (the b9 of the V7 chord) Originally Posted by Scorch
By the way, one of the things about CAGED teachers (and some great guitarists teach this way) is that they will say things like "C-shape G chord" and "A-shape C chord." I find that confusing.
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He "approved" mine too. It isn't difficult, though some students don't want to do it (or not in all 12 keys.) Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Ron Eschette made a video in response to some talk here about CAGED shapes (-Jimmy Bruno hates the term but Joe Pass used it, and Ron picked it up from Joe.) He ran through an exercise of playing through all 12 keys in a 6 fret range by ascending in one key (say, C) and descending in the next (F), then ascending in Bb and descending in Eb. I got a lot out of that exercise.
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Some unauthoritative thoughts...
We guitarists may tend to imagine ours is a difficult instrument, not realizing it is really right at the top of conceptual clarity. JB's insistence on primacy of fingering is pure genius toward grasping this clarity of foundation.
Woodwinds present a fingering scheme that approximates linearity; a series of releasing or placing the fingers results in rising or lowering pitches; however, looking closely one finds pitches executed by sometimes releasing a finger between to placed fingers, or placing a finger to mechanically open or close a distant hole, or multiple fingerings for the same pitch. The effect is the fingering patterns for different scales are not the same and must be learned, which is why woodwinds practice scales in all keys. In addition, the multiple ways to finger the same pitch differ mechanically so that one way may be good for ascending but another way good for descending, or whether one's phrase is chromatic or diatonic, or if one is playing smooth or jumpy. Woodwinds have to know the context of their playing and actively select the particular fingerings and their alternates (some high notes on the sax fingering chart have two dozen ways to be fingered!). There is no real consistent big picture for fingering, just a mass of individual solutions that need to be mechanically internalized to the point that the fingers learn to know when in a certain key playing a certain way what the best fingering will be for the moment.
Trumpet is even more abstract; the three valves if depressed will lower the pitch by a half step, a whole step, or three half steps (respectively, first, second, and third finger), and if released will raise the pitch by the same amount for the same fingers... and the raising and lowering are additive, and only work this way in the lower range, playing higher by lipping up by half octaves produces exceptions, etc. There is virtually no conceptual linearity in the fingering, only in the lipping. These folks also must practice scales in all keys to internalize the best way to select among multiple fingerings for the same pitch.
Piano is said to be linear because of the layout of one key per pitch, but the fingering is not linear; the patterns of scales in different keys only collapse into linearity if you imagine all the keys being the same size and color (full symmetry), but it is only by breaking that symmetry into the familiar keyboard that the pianist can identify the different pitch classes (think about it). This is at the expense of key signatures presenting different patterns to play the same thing in different keys. Pianists also spend a lot of time playing scales in all keys to learn the variations in fingering. Paradoxically, the piano is more likely to be thought linear by those who don't play it (or don't know much more than the note names), whereas pianists don't even think of linearity regarding the piano (unless they misunderstand and attribute it to some other aspect).
The point is that these instruments' mechanical operation forces an ordered process to be:
Note first, fingering second
One of the nice things about having played an upright bass and violin (as a guitarist) is noticing the lack of frets suggesting the question, "To what sense does an executable pattern, form, or shape reside conceptually on the finger board or in the fingers?" String instruments have independent linearity in two dimensions; up the finger board and across the finger board (6->1 for guitar), both dimensions strictly increasing simultaneously, and additive. The idea that the guitar may be played based on this mechanics allows the process to be unordered:
Notes are fingerings, simultaneously
If you are thinking that is the same as "Fingerings are notes, simultaneously", you aren't getting it yet. It's subtle (think about it).
The clue to this conceptual path is mechanically provided when the guitarist plays an unfretted instrument (even if for the first time very badly). The absence of frets places more focus on the fingers and fingering, coming to reveal that the fingerings were always the primary objects of execution, the creators and expressors, not the finger board of strings and frets themselves, necessary but incidental.Last edited by pauln; 09-11-2024 at 11:22 PM.
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I like that analogy! Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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As somebody that’s never played a guitar, or any string instrument, this is a really difficult thing to wrap my head around. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I started mapping out all the different combinations that produce the same scale (in the same octave) for each major scale starting on the first scale degree, because it’s what I’m used to practicing other instruments
My teacher whipped out the Jimmy Bruno fingerings in response. It’s starting to make things clearer but man it’s weird hearing it like that. The fretboard is still mysterious to me
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