Description

The Moment You Stop Memorizing and Start Improvising.

There’s a wall that every banjo player hits. You’ve learned your songs, you can play them well, but you’re playing the same arrangement every time — note for note, exactly the way you learned it. Meanwhile, the great players seem to pull solos out of thin air, playing something different every time, even on songs they’ve never practiced. What do they know that you don’t?

The answer is lick substitution. And that’s exactly what Banjo Improvisation Book 1 teaches you.

What You’ll Learn

Geoff Hohwald breaks down the concept that great banjo players use to instantly create solos — even to songs they haven’t rehearsed:

• Lick substitution — the core concept behind all bluegrass banjo improvisation. Learn how licks are interchangeable and how to swap them in and out of any song.
• Building a lick library — you’ll accumulate a large collection of licks, each one a building block you can use in multiple songs and multiple positions.
• Plugging licks into songs — learn how to take a lick and fit it into the chord structure of any bluegrass song, so you’re not locked into one memorized arrangement.
• Creating solos on the fly — by the end of the book, you’ll understand the method great players use to improvise in real time, and you’ll have the licks to do it yourself.
• How to use each lick in context — Geoff doesn’t just teach licks in isolation. He shows you how and where each one fits inside real songs.

Why This Matters

Learning to improvise isn’t about being flashy. It’s about freedom. When you can improvise, you can walk into any jam and play along — even if you’ve never heard the song before. You can take a second solo without repeating yourself. You can play something that sounds like you, not like a note-for-note copy of someone else’s arrangement. That’s the difference between playing banjo and being a banjo player.

How the Course Works

• 1. Watch Geoff teach each concept and lick. 143 minutes of detailed video instruction with Geoff demonstrating every lick and explaining how lick substitution works.
• 2. Read the tab. 39 pages of full tablature for every lick and example.
• 3. Play along with the jam tracks. Audio tracks let you practice plugging licks into real songs with a band backing you up.

Who This Book Is For

This is the entry point to Geoff’s four-part Improvisation series. You should be comfortable playing songs from tab, know your basic rolls, and be able to play some solos before starting this book. If you’ve worked through the Banjo Primer, the Easy Banjo Songbook, and the Classic Banjo Songbook, you’re ready.

This book is also a great fit for players who’ve been playing for a while but feel stuck in memorized arrangements. If you can play songs but can’t improvise, this is exactly where to start.

Who Geoff Is, and Why That Matters

Geoff Hohwald has been playing banjo since 1964 — back when Columbus, Ohio was a genuine bluegrass hot spot — and studied under John Hickman. He’s performed with two of Bill Monroe’s guitar players, shared stages with Red Allen, Frank Wakefield, and Hylo Brown, played with the Atlanta Pops Orchestra, and co-founded the Greater Atlanta Bluegrass Band. Six decades of improvising on stage and at jams means Geoff doesn’t teach theory in a vacuum — he teaches what actually works when you’re playing live.

Geoff also runs Banjo Warehouse, our sister shop in Yellow Springs, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia, where he’s been buying, selling, and setting up banjos since 1980.

Buy Direct. Skip the Warehouse.

When you order from GeoffHohwald.com, you’re buying directly from us — a small family business in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Your book is packed and shipped by people who actually play banjo, and if you have a question about a lesson, Geoff is the one who answers the email.

• ✔ Signed by Geoff on request — add a note at checkout
• ✔ Direct access to the author if you get stuck on a lesson
• ✔ Your purchase supports a small family business, not a warehouse
• ✔ Ships from Yellow Springs, Ohio, usually within one business day

Product Details

• Format: Paperback, 39 pages
• Includes: Free online video and audio access (143 minutes of video, plus jam tracks)
• Focus: Lick substitution and creating your own solos
• Level: Intermediate
• Style: 5-string Scruggs-style bluegrass banjo
• ISBN: 978-1980699620
• Ships from: Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA

The Complete Improvisation Series

• → You are here: Book 1: Banjo Improvisation — learn the fundamentals of creating your own solos through lick substitution.
• Book 2: Banjo Improvisation — positional, bluesy, chord-based, and J.D. Crowe-inspired licks.
• Book 3: Pentatonic Improvisation — use pentatonic scales to improvise freely across the neck.
• Book 4: Up the Neck Licks — advanced licks for playing up the neck with confidence.