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Jazz Guitarist Jimmy Bruno Redefines Online Learning With New Website

Monday, February 28, 2011

Take a jazz guitar legend, add a comprehensively designed series of lessons, garnish with thousands of guitar students from around the world, mix thoroughly with direct teacher and student interaction, and you get a recipe that sets the standard for guitar education on the Internet. Jimmy Bruno, a jazz guitar phenomenon with over 40 years [...]

The Worst Musician Biography, Ever

Thursday, February 10, 2011

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Sometimes a guy just has to cut through the witty banter, joking titles, and say what’s on my mind. I have, unfortunately, just finished reading what I believe to be the absolute worst biography of a musician ever in the history of print. The worst part is that I was really looking forward to reading [...]

Chord Hacks: Root Substitutions

Friday, September 17, 2010

6 Comments

It’s fun chord Friday here on Fretterverse! I can’t believe how long it’s been since we’ve broken out the staff paper and done some actual guitar work. I hope you had a chance to digest and start working on yesterday’s phrasing exercise. Though you should continue with the phrasing work from yesterday, today we’re going [...]

Stop Putting Up Roadblocks to Your Own Guitar Success

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

5 Comments

I’ve decided to forgo my usual Wednesday time off today. Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and it won’t go away, so rather than fight it I’m just going with the flow. At the risk of having to turn in my man card to the nearest tough-guy recruitment center, I was watching [...]

Jazz Guitar Harmony by Jody Fisher (book)

Friday, September 10, 2010

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I love chords. Love ‘em, love ‘em, love ‘em! I’m one of “those” guitar players that gets off on hearing great guitar rhythm playing/comping than a great solo. Especially in regards to jazz, comping and playing the right notes and chord voicings is where it’s at. There is nothing like hearing a new chord underneath [...]

Dr. Matt’s 20 Essential Jazz Guitar CDs

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

11 Comments

OK, first let me start off by telling you what this article isn’t. Then I’ll tell you what it is. This isn’t a list of the 20 best jazz-guitar albums of all time or a list of what I think should be the only 20 jazz-guitar albums somebody to own. (This is not the be [...]

Spread the Guitar Love

Friday, June 11, 2010

12 Comments

I want to try and get some good audience participation going with today’s thread. As I’ve written about before, the hater community is very much alive and well among guitarists. So what I would like to do today is flip the script a little bit and get some publicity for those players that we love [...]

625 Alive: The Wes Montgomery BBC Performance Transcribed

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

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Wes Montgomery is widely regarded as the greatest jazz guitarist of all time. His work has been dissected, analyzed, and copied millions of times. His influence as a jazz guitarist has thus far been unsurpassed and will probably remain so for a very long time. One would be hard-pressed to find a straight-ahead player who [...]

Do You Critique Your Own Performances?

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

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Welcome back, everyone. I hope those of you in the U.S. had a happy and safe holiday weekend. Mine was great, thank you very much. During the extended weekend I had a gig with my jazz quintet. It’s been quite a while since we’ve played together. One of the great things about playing jazz is [...]

Chord Substitutions

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

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One thing common to jazz but found less often in other styles of music is chord substitutions. In its simplest form, this is the process of playing one chord instead the one originally specified in order to spice up the harmony, create different voice leading, or take the song in a different harmonic direction. If [...]