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Jimmy Bruno's first guitar lesson
CraigHensley
Maine New
I've been enjoying this video and can't imagine being a young person going into my first guitar lesson and expecting to learn this stuff. Seems doable at this stage. We like to focus on arpeggios, but this exercise using rest stroke seems helpful for developing technique, especially with all the double-downs, and for learning all 12 keys. I still favor certain keys and have blindspots in others. I like the way he refers to each position based on the scale degree starting point.
"Nobody wants to do the work, you just want to play. Music don't work like that." JB
Comments
That video is hilarous, apart from the guitar-playing wisdom (and Jimmy's health issues)!
He makes an excellent point in the video. About how people without enough base want to learn advanced playing skills. That's too often true. A lot of people love listening to a good guitar playing and have a sincere desire to be able to do it themselves. So they seek lessons. Lessons in general are a conundrum for a lot of people. Both for teachers and students. Teachers need to offer a good value in their lessons but students will inevitably be overwhelmed and the natural reaction is to simply back away. Overwhelmed because in a single lesson you might get enough information to practice for several months and in a single book you might get a lifetime of practice. But in most people's minds, they'll be thinking "oh, I have to digest and master this lesson this week, and I should be able to go through this book in the next few months. So people feel they're not getting it. At least not fast enough. It should a mindless endeavor in a sense. You just keep putting in the time, that's it. It's great if a person can comfortably afford a private teacher whose music and teaching approach you like. There are many benefits to this of course. But a great teacher isn't much without a great student. And a teacher isn't there to teach you something each and every week, more often they're there support and guide.
I like Jimmy, he truly is a living legend of jazz guitar. One of the greats. I wish he wasn't so bitter about a lot of things. But I don't know the guy's life. He seems like a super nice guy really, behind it all.
If the student knows what they want out of a lesson it can be beneficial doing one-off lessons with good players/teachers. I had a lesson with John Stowell a few years ago and still think about things we went over haha
Absolutely. I took a lesson with Sam Farthing and what we discussed along with what I've seen him doing prior to our lesson, at Django in June, has been quite transformative for me.
And wow, John is another phenomenal player.
Can you share a cool thing that Sam taught you?
Several things came a full circle for me if you will. I told him I'm mostly interested in how he gets his tone and volume. That I wanted to discuss that and try to break it down. I noticed at Django in June that a lot of the time when he's picking, he's holding the pick so relaxed it's actually doing sort of a seesaw motion. He does also put a stronger grip when picking very fast. But a default position is so, so very relaxed. Enough grip for the pick to stay between the fingers, that's it. Yes he's using the loose and relaxed weight of the wrist and the reststroke to pick but also his thumb is actually helping driving the pick through the string as well (this thumb moving has been mentioned on the forum). He makes sure to move the guitar away from the body a bit, let it breathe. I kinda feel most of us are going about the volume the wrong way. Everyone is thinking in terms of more volume. Just let it breathe and let it do what's it built for and the rest will take care of itself. For his tone, some of it is in the pick and the guitar; his guitar has dark and warm tone and he's using a big thick pick with rounded tip. I asked him to play my guitar with my pick. And his playing still sounded like him. But my guitar still sounded like itself, only the nicest I ever heard it. There was clarity in the tone that was not exactly familiar for me. Now I'm hearing some of that clarity when I play after I've done adjustments I mentioned above. As they say, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Every little detail is extremely important for the magic to happen. The rest is lot of time.
Thanks for sharing, Buco! He has my favorite tone. I like the idea of letting the the guitar and gravity do the work. If he lost his pick, what do you think he would replace it with?
Probably something big and thick with a rounded tip, lol. You're welcome. He did say he liked the pick I handed him (4G one I mentioned here recently).
I get, at least, part of the bitterness. My plan at a young age was to make a living as a performing guitar player. Not teaching lessons, not working in a music store, none of that. Making a living up on stage, period.
There were a few Halcyon periods in my life where I was able to do that. A seven-year stretch where I toured most of the Eastern part of the US, making a very good living at it. There were many more days where I was only able to eat one meal per day, or have to live with my parents in my late 30s.
in the early 2000s I finally threw in the towel and started doing other things to make a living - playing live for money became a sideline.
Eight years ago or so I stopped playing all together. Until just the last few weeks. Ran into my old violinist and told him I’ve been woodshedding on the Django stuff for the last seven or eight months. He said he had a gig coming up and would I like to do it? Hell yes! 150 bucks per man - the same money I was getting 30 years ago.
Imagine someone of Jimmy’s caliber; considering his incredible history and all the amazing personalities he’s worked with in his long career; at his age and health; hoping to get that next weekend Jazz brunch for between 50 and 200 bucks just to make ends meet.
Live gigs. 100% inflation-proof.
Yep, that might make me bitter too.
Live gigs. 100% inflation-proof.
Sorry for the thread drift but it truly is both sadly funny and funnily sad that most fun gigs are still paying $50-$200, just like they did 20+ years ago...and "fun" meaning gigs at bars or music specific venues vs. soul-sucking gigs that tend to pay a lot more, like weddings or worse, corporate events. I too tried my hand at living the "music life" and at one point was working at a music store & teaching about 25-30 students while also gigging maybe 8-12x per month...that lifestyle worked OK in my 20s but now in my 40s?? I'd rather work a decent paying 9-5 like I am now and play a few gigs here and there as a substitute on guitar (which is one good thing about playing GJ and swing, there aren't a lot of players out there so opportunities do tend to pop up).
Either way tho, I don't know any professional musician living the life who isn't teaching and/or taking a part time gig economy job on top of playing 4-5 gigs or more during the week. It sucks society doesn't appreciate live music more but it is what what it is. At least tips tend to be better now, or at least in my experience compared to the old days...seems like people are a lot more willing to throw in 10s and 20s into the hat while it used to be mainly singles and maybe a 5 here and there lol.