Chords for Josh Smith Blues Fusion Guitar Masterclass

_ _ _ _ _ _ Yeah, so the best example I can give for everybody from beginners to advanced guys is the way
that I started to learn this stuff.
I was a blues guy through and through at heart.
Now you're talking, I started playing at six and at 12 I started playing gigs in clubs.
So I was playing blues already, you know, for hours [C] and hours on gigs with adults.
_ And I used to get _ frustrated because I only knew, _ _ _ _ _ and I knew it all over the neck, but
that was it, you know.
And I was trying to figure out what else to do.
_ And a gentleman at a music store, a friend of mine, he was much, much older, I was probably
13, he was 65, _ [Em] and he was a jazzer.
_ And he said, man, you gotta get some new stuff in there.
He's like, you're young, I know, but let's get you on the right path, you know.
So he had me play rhythm for him, and he had a plan in mind.
So he goes, play me a shuffle in A and play rhythm.
So I went.
_ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ [D] _
_ _ And the second I did that, he stopped me.
And I said, what?
And he goes, what'd you just do when you played rhythm?
And I said, you mean that little half-step thing to get down to the [Cm] four?
_ _ _ [D] _ And he's like, yeah, play that in your solo.
I said, wait a minute, I don't know what you mean, play that in your solo.
And he [Fm] went, _ _ [C] _ [F] _ _ _ and it was a little light bulb, and then [Bbm] he went, _ _ [Am] _ _
[Bbm] he's like, man, I think
I get it.
And he goes, dude, I'm just playing this.
_ [Am] _ _ I was like, I get it, I get it, you just arpeggiated, basically, that chromatic thing that I did
in my rhythm.
And I was like, frothing at the mouth, like, oh my god, _ what else?
You know?
So he goes, well, what chord are you on then?
And I said, _ well, we're on the four.
And he goes, well, what do you do when you play rhythm on the four?
I said, well, sometimes, _ _ halfway through, I'll go diminish. _
[C] _ And I didn't even know what diminish was.
I probably [D] played it like this.
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ And he said, well, why don't you play that in your solo?
And I didn't know a diminish scale or anything like.
So he just showed me a simple [D] as, _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ it's [G] like, OK, light bulb again.
Like, I see what you're doing there.
And he said, what else can you do?
_ And I said, I don't know, man.
That's all I play on rhythm.
And he goes, well, you can go four minor.
And I said, what, four minor?
And he's like, _ don't you listen to the Beatles?
Don't you listen to Wes Montgomery?
And I'm like, what do [D] you mean?
He's like, haven't you ever heard a song that goes like [Dm] this?
_ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
I was [E] like, yeah.
And he's like, even if the band doesn't do that, you can do that, because it's a beautiful
resolve, you know?
And he's like, so check this out.
There's this Ray Charles song where the sax player is playing over the four, and it goes
to the four minor, and he plays this.
[Gb] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ And I was like, light bulb again.
Like, I get it.
I totally get it.
What's next?
And he said, well, what chord is next?
I said, the five.
And he goes, put the two.
Make it a 2-5-1 turnaround.
I didn't know what that was.
_ So I said, what's a 2-5 [A]-1 turnaround?
He goes, that's when you [Bm] replace those two chords with a two [Dbm] minor to a five [E] dominant,
and [Am] back to the one.
[Abm] And he played me this beautiful.
[D] _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ And I was like, [Fm] that's the greatest thing I've ever heard.
And it's when I realized _ that not only were the jazz guys playing _ this exotic stuff that
fit over every chord, so it was like, here's your A.
You have all these a million things
you can play over A, but what about what you play to get from A to D, or from D to E, or
back from E to A?
And that's when I realized that's what they were doing.
They were not only playing all this stuff that I didn't know yet, and I didn't even
know yet, and didn't need to know.
It was, they were connecting the chords, and I didn't know how to do that yet.
And that was by using chromatics, _ diminished, and turnarounds, because those things exist
literally to get from one chord to the next.
And that was the start of it for me, was that type of exercise. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Obviously, I grew up _ _ loving the old school blues, but then once I started getting into
jazz, I found myself liking _ guys who played with an edge.
_ So I was digging Robin Ford, and Larry Carlton, and John Schofield, and guys like that.
And so they would play with distortion, and sometimes delay and stuff, but be playing
those same lines that I was practicing from a Charlie Parker song or something.
_ _ So I would hear Robin play stuff like, on a shelf, [Eb] you [Bb] _ _
[E] _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [C] _
[Bb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [A] _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] _ [Bbm] _ _ [C] _ _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Ab] _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [C] _
_ [Fm] _ [Eb] _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ [Eb] know?
[Bb] _ _
_ And it was like a mix of all that stuff that I'd been working on.
You know, the chromatics, and the diminished to connect the licks, and then a few other
ideas over certain chords.
_ And it was like, but played with an aggression, and also with still that blues aggression,
where, you know, you don't have to always say all those things.
It's okay to [Eb] _ go_
_ _ [Db] _ _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _
And mix it [F] up, you know?
Because I'm trying, the way I think about it is, with that type of stuff, the out stuff,
or the flashy stuff, or the harmonically sophisticated stuff, _ I want to hear it so bad, I'll hold
it back, not purposely, but it's like I'll hear something, but I don't quite feel like
I have to play it.
I want to hear it so bad that I'll play blues, blues, blues, blues, until it just, it has
to come out.
I hear this lick right now, and hear it, it has to happen.
That's the way I think about that stuff. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
For me, the bulk of the country thing was the technique.
Because once I found Danny Gatton, it was like life-changing, because you cannot play
any of his things _ flat-picked.
It's like, you have to hybrid pick that stuff.
He was _ playing banjo and stuff like that, but he played with picking fingers, always.
And when I started _ to learn those techniques, _ _ I found that naturally they were making their
way over to my _ [G] regular playing, you know what I mean?
And that came from trying to play things like this.
_ _ So _ _ _ _ _ _ _
just trying to get those type of licks, _ _
_ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ [G] _ _
_ [A] _ _ [Bb] _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ [Em] you can't play that flat-picked.
It's just not possible.
So as I started _ developing that technique, then I noticed _ it was kind of happening all the time.
When I played [Gm] blues, I'd be _ playing_
_ [C] _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[Gm] _ [C] _ _ _ [Bbm] _ [G] _ [Eb] _ _
_ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ [G] _ [Gb] _ _
_ [Cm] _ _ [G] _ _ And [B] it was like, _ that was when I started to feel like, okay, now I might be finding my
voice, which is a mix of this love of real blues, and _ _ that's where my heart lies, but
then with this technique that I was learning in the countryside, and then with this vocabulary
that I was learning from the jazz side, and taking all those things and _ kind of trying
to find my own voice.