Jimmy Bruno: Lesson One

[MarkRhodes]

This is all good, agree completely. I reckon yes what you say is true, learned finger patterns can become limiting.

I thing the next step with the '5 positions' approach is definitely to break out of them, to start linking them up so that it all blends into one.

It should go without saying (but may not) that Jimmy Bruno expects students to play ACROSS all the fingerings. He wants students to play in one position when they are learning it, but if you watch Jimmy play, he moves effortlessly over the full range of the guitar.

Here is some stellar solo guitar work by Jimmy.

[MarkRhodes]

Another video of Jimmy performing, this from a few years ago.

He is obviously NOT just playing in one position at a time. He is at home all over the neck. He wants students to be at home all over the neck too. But this STARTS with knowing your way around one portion of it.

[AllanAllen]

I don't know what CAGED is but I know there are more notes worth including along with the pentatonic scale than just the ones he has added. Or at least ones I utilize pretty regularly. In the main "A" pentatonic starting from the root on the 6th string...

I like an Eb as a passing tone on the 5th string as well as a G# passing tone on the 4th string, and a C# on the 3rd string which works as a passing tone or a chord tone on the I.

I will sometimes use all the notes in between the 5th and 7th frets in 5th fret root scale pattern to create a smooth run all the way from D on the 5th string to B and C on the first, depending on what's happening. Gives it a smooth, flowing sound that work great hammered, pulled off, legato, etc. Adjust accordingly if you are working in strictly minor pentatonic stuff. Sometimes I feel like I'm just working towards an end point which will be drawing everything from a chromatic scale, I'm just not there yet mentally or musically. It just seems like even in a straight blues setting there are a lot of extra notes that are worthwhile if only as passing tones to smooth up some phrasing and allow for some additional speed.

Sorry if my post seems elementary. It is elementary as I am not very good with theory, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time with pentatonics/blues scales/major and minor both and those are some discoveries that have benefited my blues playing. It has helped with making more fluid pentatonic type runs especially. Hope that is useful to someone.

It’s the major scale, not pentatonic, nothing added, just the basic regular major scale that everyone should know in year one.

The way things are going, someone’s going to show up thinking they’re really clever by not even learning the string names, like voluntary ignorance is noble.

[DawgBone]

It’s the major scale, not pentatonic, nothing added, just the basic regular major scale that everyone should know in year one.

The way things are going, someone’s going to show up thinking they’re really clever by not even learning the string names, like voluntary ignorance is noble.

I see that, thanks. I guess my post was directed at the first few posts one of which I assume was showing Jimmy's version of pentatonics from some of his lesson materials. I'm voluntarily ignorant but I know my string names it's right on my tuner display.

[princeplanet]

Thanks for the kind words, Prince. To be honest, soon after writing the first version of that book in the mid '90s, I became a house husband for some years, raising two kids who are now both in their 20s and fine musicians as it happens. That took a lot of my energy and time and once I got back to gigging and practising heavily, I'd mentally moved on.

I still think it's a worthwhile text but I see that Ron Eschete notes in the video Mark posted that he's extended his thinking to include 3NPS etc and refers to his own book as if it's a remote, ancient artefact.

By the way, I always enjoy your own posts. I know you're in Oz but do you live in Sydney? It'd be nice to meet up some time for a hang. I'm playing tonight if that works for you:

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I'm in melbs, but get up there from time to time, so yeah, I'll give you some warning next time I'm heading up, cheers!

[MarkRhodes]

As far as I'm aware, L.A-based session guitarist, Jack Marshall came up with the name 'CAGED' around 1950.

Hadn't heard that. Kudos to him. It's a handy name.

I think it was a book by Bill Edwards, "Fretboard Logic" that made "CAGED" a household word.

But the fingerings are older than the name. As Jimmy Bruno once said, "This is just how the guitar is laid out." One can also do 3 NPS fingerings and start one on every degree of the major scale (so that you have seven---I learned those fingerings too, though I don't use them that much, mainly if I need to play something very fast.)

[equenda]

I like knowing things and learning stuff. I enjoy the freedom to move around the fretboard. I don't want my playing to be caged.

This statement reminds me of what a dear friend of mine says: “to play good music you only need one thing: Fantasy!”

.... wish it were true....

ettore Quenda.it - Jazz Guitar - Chitarra Jazz

[blackcat]

Has anyone here accessed the 7 positions/modes of a G major scale proposed by Yotam Silberstein in his Mymusicmasterclass pdfs that he claims to have picked up from Kurt Rosenwinkel?

David

[blackcat]

Anyone?

D.

[PMB]

Anyone?

D.

I don't have those Yotam Silberstein videos or PDFs but aren't they the default fingerings advocated by Reg on this forum? Basically, each scale step/mode begins with the 2nd (or sometimes 3rd) finger and these remain fixed in position with the 1st and 4th stretching where necessary to cover all pitches within a 6-fret range.

[blackcat]

I don't have those Yotam Silberstein videos or PDFs but aren't they the default fingerings advocated by Reg on this forum? Basically, each scale step/mode begins with the 2nd (or sometimes 3rd) finger and these remain fixed in position with the 1st and 4th stretching where necessary to cover all pitches within a 6-fret range.

Exactly that. Makes sense to me. I did not know that Reg advocated them. In that case they come highly recommended and double endorsed by Mr Rosenwinkel!

David

[MarkRhodes]

Has anyone here accessed the 7 positions/modes of a G major scale proposed by Yotam Silberstein in his Mymusicmasterclass pdfs that he claims to have picked up from Kurt Rosenwinkel?

David

From a video of Kurt giving a clinic, I think his fingerings were like those Reg (a longtime member here) uses. I think there's a long thread on them...somewhere.

[blackcat]

From a video of Kurt giving a clinic, I think his fingerings were like those Reg (a longtime member here) uses. I think there's a long thread on them...somewhere.

Hi Mark,

Is that one of the series of clips that disappeared from You TUbe?

David

[JWMandy]

The Grand Unified Diatonic Pattern.

You learn how the 5 lay and move. And then you start to see in-between options. I used to pick a key, play the lowest pattern ascending, shift up to the next one in the same key and play it descending, shift and ascend until you get to the end of the neck. Then go back down. Then shift two patterns in the same kind of way. Then another key. Then I started to see the 3nps patterns that lay between and connect Jimi's 5. The ones with the little stretches for every-other fret.

FWIW, thought Jimmy's 6 patterns were something, but THESE patterns just make much more sense to me. They're really just 1 pattern that you roll over 1-string higher or lower and tweak. First fingers are 7-3-6-2-5 degrees of the scale. Double the 6th on the 1st. And that makes it easy to figure any of th 6 from the 1st layout. Wish someone had taught me this eons ago! or at least taught me to see this then. Ah.... bygones are gone, right? So this is a much easier - or at least less complicated - that his earlier book with 6V2, 6V4, 5V2, etc.

[Hierophant_73]

How would knowing these 5 positions help one to navigate this:

First, sorry if I don't make myself clear: I'm not too proficient in English. As far as I understand, what Jimmy tries to achieve with his “5 positions idea” is a way to transfer the piano layout to the guitar. Basically, what he's trying to achieve is to players develop a deeper understanding of the guitar, thinking in the way the keys of a piano are displayed on this other instrument. By doing so, he wants you (and me, and other players) to conceptualize the guitar neck and visualize. It's obvious the five position, by itself, won't get you any far, but if you start to develop this thinking, the goal is to you find easy play anywhere, anything on the guitar.

[Maxxx]

He tricked you all.. there's a 6th pattern!

[AllanAllen]

He tricked you all.. there's a 6th pattern!

Nope, he cut one to simplify things since publishing that. Get with the times LOL.

[MarkRhodes]

Nope, he cut one to simplify things since publishing that. Get with the times LOL.

As I'm sure you know, but others may not, Jimmy didn't just cut one pattern. In the Six Fingerings book, he utilizes shifts; the five fingerings include no shifts.

It is important to recall what Jimmy called all this: Lesson One, not The Last Word on Playing Jazz Guitar. (By the way, Jimmy had to sightread to play the charts when he---at age 19---was playing in Buddy Rich's big band. And Buddy did not allow players to take the books home with them: he wanted the players to have to read the music during a performance, rather than play from memory. There's a video somewhere of Jimmy talking about his time in Buddy's band--it's worth finding and watching. Anyway, the five fingerings don't complicate reading music. Once learned, one learns to shift from one to another. Joe Pass played this way, as he mentions in his method books.)

[Christian Miller]

Yep. You just have to learn the neck. Do it different ways until it’s all linked up .


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[Christian Miller]

Someone said that this was close to Bruno’s approach. Tbh I have no idea and it sounds like he doesn’t have just one way. But this is quite flexible.

I didn’t find big positional shapes so useful for mapping bop changes, although I know them.

For guitarists mapping the scales on the neck is quite a large undertaking, but it is worth doing even if you aren’t a scalic improviser.


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[CliffR]

A couple of days ago at work I was recording a video for my boss for part of a presentation to an external company. I was using some software to record an animation on my computer. About an hour before the presentation I watched my video back and realised I'd been watching Jimmy's latest youtube video while I recorded it. So there was this animation with the audio of Jimmy cussing and telling one of his hilarious anecdotes. Glad I checked and had time to re-record .

[GuyBoden]

The simple Major pattern repeats on the whole of the fretboard.


(Below: This is 4th tuning, but it shows clearly how the simple Major pattern keeps repeating endlessly.)

[Cunamara]

(By the way, Jimmy had to sightread to play the charts when he---at age 19---was playing in Buddy Rich's big band. And Buddy did not allow players to take the books home with them: he wanted the players to have to read the music during a performance, rather than play from memory. There's a video somewhere of Jimmy talking about his time in Buddy's band--it's worth finding and watching.)

If I remember correctly:

Buddy throws drumstick at Jimmy during a solo: "No goddamn Berklee scales on my bandstand!!!"
Jimmy: "But Buddy, I didn't go to Berklee."
Buddy: "Then you read the same goddamn books!"

I have played with drummers who had by far the best ears in the band. If you're playing some glib crap, not locking in with the groove of the tune, not listening, they'll pull you up short on it. They can hear you playing the chart, not the song. Buddy Rich was that on steroids.

[AllanAllen]

I think he asked the horn player what Buddy meant and the guy said “play the same shit tomorrow and he’ll love it” which he did.


It wasn’t good ears, it was hazing.

[MarkRhodes]

"The Bus Tapes" are legendary.
(He's cursing the band on the bus after gigs.)