Hello again! Still busier than a Glasgwegian chip shop, but at least my hand is better. I think I know what it was -- pillows. I can't stand thick pillows. Indeed, I like pillows that are little more than a pillow case with four or five socks chucked in, and as a result, I think I've been lying on my wrist and cutting off the circulation with the weight of my mighty head. I woke up the other night and my whole hand had gone completely numb and I had to slap it against the wall for ten minutes to get the feeling back. In the midst of morphic slumbers, I remember thinking that this is what it must be like to play ping pong with a fist full of whitebait. Obviously, I'm going to have to start wearing some sort of foam helmet to bed. Just after I've finally managed to give up the boxing gloves as well.
Moving on, I went and joined the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute about two and half months ago, though what with my hand and all, I haven't had a good opportunity to really dig into it until recently. Basically, you all know that I really like Jimmy Bruno's educational materials for his refreshing committment to music and clarity, and the site is a continuation and improvement on them except with lots more content.
Taught through a ton of short videos, ear training is the heart of the course, the foundations of which come from a thorough knowledge of Jimmy's five shapes - a modification of his "Six Essential Fingerings" idea from earlier. The absolute fundamental is to learn these shapes (or "pitch collections" as he prefers to call them) in all keys and all positions in order to internalize the sounds to the extent that you're hitting notes instinctively without having to figure out where you are all the time. Only then - and I guess that's going take quite some time - does he encourage you to start thinking about experimenting with outside notes. It makes sense. Why dick around with altered tones when you can't yet hear the diatonic ones?
There's also an interactive aspect. Send in a video of yourself playing one of the assignments or standards from the tune section, and a few days later, he posts a a response. Those of you who like your guitar teaching to stamp on your fingers and spit in your face will be disappointed, as Bruno's teaching style is genial and encouraging rather than punitive. I expect it's easier to keep his customers than sending an electric shock through the keyboard everytime you play a wrong note, but it would be good to have just one video somewhere where he says "call that playing? You're a worthless piece of shit" for those times when you need a good talking too. That said, Bruno hears all and can see right through you, so there's no flannel, and the advice is all good.
Here's a video I just made as my homework. I had already done a solo over "Satin Doll," and Jimmy said (quite rightly) that he suspected me of having holes in my knowledge of the fretboard. My next assignment was to improvise over five choruses of the tune, staying in one position for each chorus. As the tune moves from C to D to G to Gb, then F and G in the bridge and back to C for the last A section, I play through the changes without shifts save for the necessary single fret shifts from G to Gb. I get all sloppy in the last position because my concentration was going, and it also has shitty sound from the (free) webcam's on-board microphone, but you get the idea at least. It was a very instructive exercise, and it's very motivating to have Jimmy Bruno tell you you've got good time. I'd join if I were you. After all, a three month subscription to JGBI is less than you paid for all those Berklee method books, and you've never even looked at them, have you?
