Blues Grab Bag Vol.1: Rhumba

All the best blues players have a grab bag that’s overflowing with inspirational melodic springboards to use in their solos. These are sometimes as simple as just a few notes, an interesting rhythm or some cool phrasing. They’ve been stored up because they’re gateways to the most interesting solos. Little snippets of limitless possibility that depending on the feeling of the moment, can lead you in a multitude of different soloing directions.

In this Masterclass, Josh Smith lets you peek inside his own personal blues grab bag.

Josh says, 'This is all the stuff that I know works that I’ve accumulated over my lifetime of playing blues. Hopefully, you can pick out one thing here, one thing there, and it will lead you into finding new stuff of your own.’

Throughout the Masterclass, you’ll learn 23 key insights into Josh’s creative mind, in the form of short exercises. These aren’t your boring metronomic and bland exercises of unsavoury high school music lessons, but expressive and highly articulate musical ideas that will serve you loyally in many a real-world blues situation.

Inside the Masterclass PDF, we break down these exercises in depth. You’ll get all the tips, tricks, explanations and key theory you’ll need to help you learn the phrases and truly understand the ‘Why’ and ‘How’ of what makes them great. This will empower you to develop Josh’s ideas into your own.

The 23 examples and text breakdowns alone would be worth the value of this Masterclass, but Josh also improvised a massive 4min15 solo over the Rhumba backing, which also features live instruments. What’s that?… You’re damn-right we've transcribed the whole lot for you! Not only will you be able to study and master the plethora of creative licks and phrases Josh plays over this track but you’ll also see first hand how some of these ‘springboard’ type ideas can play out in a real-world solo.

As ever, we have included everything you need to practise and perfect the material in this package. There are video and audio tracks for you to watch/listen and study, accurately transcribed TAB/notation for you to analyse and master, and backing tracks for everything!

We already know you love the blues (that’s likely why you’re reading this), but we’re struggling to contain our excitement for how much more you’ll love it once you learn to get every lick and phrase Josh plays under your fingers. Let’s fill up YOUR blues grab bag - jamming will never be the same again!