I’m Matt C Bruno, a Seattle-based mandolin player, instructor, author, and bluegrass jam leader with over 20 years of experience playing and teaching mandolin. I’ve taught workshops, led educational jams, and helped musicians develop their skills through private lessons, group classes, and bluegrass festivals. I’m also the author of the Mandolin Primer instructional book series, which helps players develop essential skills, including chords, scales, and music theory. My Introduction to Bluegrass Jamming book helps musicians of all instruments build the skills and confidence to participate in bluegrass jams.
This website is a collection of resources I’ve created to help musicians of all levels improve their playing. You’ll find free mandolin lessons, technique exercises, chord charts for popular bluegrass songs, mandolin scales, sheet music and tablature, song breakdowns, and instructional books. While bluegrass is a major focus, I also explore other musical styles, including gypsy jazz, rock, pop, and more.
Beyond teaching, I’m an active performer and organizer in the Seattle bluegrass community. I host a weekly bluegrass jam at Machine House Brewery in Seattle’s Hillman City neighborhood, co-founded the Outlanders Progressive Bluegrass Social Club, and have served on the boards of several bluegrass organizations. Check out my upcoming performances, recordings, and EPK to learn more about my musical projects.
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
-Frank Zappa
Matt C Bruno Instructional Music Books
Learn to play mandolin with clear, and practical mandolin instruction books by Matt C Bruno.
Each of these mandolin instructional books cover an essential topic like mandolin chords shapes, pentatonic scales, double stops, and bluegrass techniques, making them valuable resources for both beginner mandolinists to more advanced mandolin pickers.
As a bonus, for each book you purchase, you’ll get a free virtual lesson with Matt C Bruno. For more details, check out the Matt C Bruno store.
You can find my educational music books for sale at my store here www.mattcbruno.com/matt-c-bruno-store/.
Personal Coaching and Mandolin Lessons with Matt C Bruno
Personal Coaching Sessions focus on learning new and honing existing mandolin skills through playing songs and tunes that you want to learn. This starts with creating a long term learning plan designed around your unique goals and working backwards to create a path forward. I create custom mandolin chord charts, sheet music (with standard notation and tabs for mandolin), and detailed practice notes & lesson recaps to help you learn new skills and perfect your playing.
I primarily teach in person at my Seattle, WA studio or via Zoom. If you are interested in personal music coaching, please head to the Personal Coaching Page for more details or message me on the Contact Page.
Free Lessons and Weekly Posts
Aside from the instructional mandolin music books and personal coaching, there’s a slew of free mandolin information on under the Free Lessons tab. Here you’ll find free sheet music for mandolin, tablature for mandolin, chord charts, mandolin chords and movable mandolin chord shapes, mandolin scales, and much more.
Sing up for my Weekly Posts where I dive into various topics like mandolin song breakdowns where I deep dive into a song or fiddle tune, music theory topics for mandolinists, and more. If you want to be notified when I publish new song breakdowns or theory lessons, feel free to subscribe below.
Material Use Request
If you would like to use any of the materials on this site for your private students, workshops, association, or other instruction events, please contact me so we can review what you need. Generally I’m pretty open to providing materials to other educators. Click the button below to learn about my policies and request authorization for use.
Oh, and if you like cooking check out my Quarantine Cookbook.
Thanks for visiting my site. Hope to see you soon!
main page photo credit: Robin Frenette