Jimmy Bruno is one of the premier, living, Jazz guitarists of our time. His playing style is immediately recognizable. He has a signature guitar built by luthier Roger Sadowsky you can buy. He’s the boss man. He’s a top teacher. You can now study Jazz guitar with him online at the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Workshop.
If you want to study in person with Jimmy Bruno in Pennsylvania, it’s going to cost you $150.00USD an hour. If you want to study online with Jimmy from anywhere in the world for as many hours as you like, you’ll pay a $60.00USD membership fee for a three month subscription or $220.00USD a year for access to his teaching portal.
I signed up for the three month trial to get a taste of what Jimmy is teaching and I am impressed. The site is well-programmed and easy to navigate by experience level. Jimmy is always entertaining and fun and his rough personality is a breath of fresh talent and seriousness you don’t get with this sort of direct, mainstream, access to a SuperStar.
Jimmy is deeply involved in the site. He replies to forum inquiries. He posts video responses. You can tell he hasn’t just given over his name for branding the site. He is the site. The site is Jimmy Bruno.
Jimmy’s workshop is not for the novice guitarist. If you can’t name all the notes on the fretboard, you will have trouble with his teaching method. Jimmy also doesn’t use a lot of TABs. He also is against providing explanatory PDF files for every teaching video. I disagree with him on that note, because my philosophy of online teaching is that the distance between teacher and student is tough enough to conquer, and anything and everything you can offer to help bridge better learning and facilitate understanding is something that should be done. Jimmy feels PDF files will make you lazy and inattentive — he wants you to figure it all out on your own. I argue PDF files can only help build deeper comprehension.
The core of Jimmy’s teaching is in offering public or confidential Master Classes — you choose your privacy preference — as part of your subscription package. You must first submit a video of you playing Jimmy’s “Five Fingerings” in all 12 Keys to qualify you for getting future directed assignments, and perhaps, video feedback, from Jimmy.
There is a lot of content in Jimmy Bruno’s Guitar Workshop that could easily challenge a top Jazz guitar player for a year or more, and new content and lessons are being added all the time. The website recently celebrated its first anniversary online and I am impressed by the depth of the provided teaching. If, however, you don’t know what — II-V-I — means, then you aren’t quite ready for Jimmy to teach you.