Customer Reviews

Jimmy Bruno: Inside Outside Jazz Guitar

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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!

This is the best instructional device for learning and even thinking about jazz guitar soloing. Not only does Jimmy show you actual moves and where you can go to grab the notes that you want, he mentally breaks down the barrier that's been erected by well-intentioned but ineffective college jazz professors. In college, where thousands of musicians or aspiring musicians pay money to improve their knowledge and skill, the teachers tend to teach in a way that MOST people can understand. They take the "average" student and try to find the "best" way to teach that "average" person jazz and improvisation. This almost always invariably involves memorising and practicing every major and minor scale in every key, the dominant seventh scales (mixolydian mode) the other modes, starting from every finger on the 2 lowest strings up and down 2 octaves. Get your breath now. Then, after you can play them in your sleep, you can attempt to put those scales or at least "parts" of those scales into jazz chord progressions and see if you can get them to fit. Good luck with that. Oh, and you also get to learn a couple Arab scales, pentatonic, and 12 tone. For the so-called "average" player, who doesn't sing or sight-sing, can't match pitch, doesn't play more than one instrument, and has little or no "natural" talent, this actually helps them become successful at putting some notes down into a song that will "fit" and sound pleasant over the chord progression. But for the vast percentage of people (maybe as high as 50%) who CAN sing, sight-sing, know a pitch, plays more than one instrument, and has at least SOME measure of natural ear and talent, this method confuses and slows down their performances resulting in "wrong" notes and unpleasant sounds. The student is taught to do mental super gymnastics while in the midst of fast moving music and chord changes that blow by in a second while trying to improvise and physically manage their instruments. ANyone who has a modicom of natural talent suddenly finds themselves sounding "worse" than they ever have and questioning their own natural abilities (and career choice) when they had previously played very nicely for years without anyone's help or interference. What might work well to teach the "masses" doesn't always work for those who have naturally gifted skill or naturally gifted ears. If you ask the "greats" like Oscar Peterson, most pros say that they ARE'NT THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING when they are playing. They are in a "zone" or "groove" or are in the "pockect" or "jammin'". Words that describe more how a person "feels" rather than what they are doing and how they are doing it. Jimmy Bruno teaches you how to stop thinking so much while you are trying to play and trying to enjoy the process. Music really shouldn't be a dire experience with punishments awaiting those who "fail". He shows you how to stop worrying about "wrong notes". He shows you how there are NO wrong notes. He shows you how to play an A-flat minor 7 scale over a C major chord and make it fit and sound nice. It's all about how you approach the notes you play and where they lead up to--the melody-- not what actual tones you are playing. This is a must have for all guitarists trying to improve improvising.

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.

In the last couple of years I have purchased several Guitar lesson videos
To include Creative Force--Pat Martino

Speed and ability to play many notes have always come easy to me but, my hunger is to have a better understanding
of those cool outside sounding lines that make your buddies break out in laughter when you play one.

Jimmy Bruno has done a great job explaining this in this video.

Jimmy Bruno is a great guitarist and an excellent teacher.

Jimmy Bruno has put together a very straight forward approach to bringing outside tensions into jazz improvisation. The DVD Is filled with useful examples that seem to have been created on the fly by Mr. Bruno and then transcribed afterward - which demonstrates the practical application of what he is teaching. I did learn useful ideas here, as long as the tune is modal and simple. However, the reality is that most jazz standards go through a number of key centers and employ a number of 2-5's in different keys before resolving back to the original key. We could have used some examples of this against more difficult changes in order to take the concept one step further into the real world of jazz tunes.

Jimmy Bruno is a master jazz guitarist. I have his other DVD called "No Nonsense Jazz Guitar" as well, and was so impressed that I bought "Inside Outside Jazz Guitar." I expected a lot, and I wasn't disappointed. Bruno is a born teacher who cuts right to the meat of the subject without getting tangled up in a lot of theory- not that I have anything against theory, it's just that I've found that so many publications focus on scales and modes, arpeggios to the detriment of what you really need to know, and that is the development of motives, rhythms, and control of melody. The Disc is about two hours long, and there's no padding. Nothing 'extra', no digressions. Bruno re-names scales as "pitch collections" and then zeros in on the five pitches that lie outside of the collection. Very simple, very direct. Get it. Save yourself some time and trouble.