Question
Last year I purchased a new home that came complete with a 50ft. spruce tree in the back yard. Much of the interior branches are dried, without growth and appear dead.  The exterior seems healthy but the growth is right down to the ground.  Can I cut away the dead interior branches and prune up the exterior growth.  I want to improve it but not damage it.

Answer
Cutting lower limbs off spruce is the worst offense. Spruce are designed so that the lowest branches, those that touch the ground, support the branches above, and so on, all the way to the tip of the tree.

We cut the branches off around the base ?I don't know why, it's usually a guy thing, the man of the house needs to show the world he can grow grass under there ?and when winter comes the snow load collapses the branches. No problem, the branches are designed to lock together for support. Except down at the base there's no branches, so the lowest branches are stressed or crack because they have nothing to lock down onto. Then in a year or two, those branches die.
The interior branches that are dead can be pruned off with no effect on the health of the tree.