Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 23:15:46 -0700 From: tom ball Subject: re: banjos (no harp)
My brother Steve (who plays banjo professionally) just sent me the following regarding banjo instructional material. Hope it's helpful to the person who asked... -Tom Ball _________________ Banjos huh? OK..you asked for it. Or maybe you didn't, but here it is anyway. I am assuming our friend's friend wants to play bluegrass banjo. If that's wrong, then most of this won't do them much good.
There is some good stuff written by Janet Davis and marketed by her on her website: http://www.janetdavismusic.com/ She writes the books and publishes some of them herself, but most of her stuff is eventually published by Mel Bay, so you can also find them there. She puts out good instructional material for all levels of players. In fact, Mel Bay puts out some good banjo books written by several well known players.
Murphy Henry puts out good material for those people who favor learning by ear instead of by tablature...her website is: http://www.murphymethod.com/
One thing..."Masters of the 5" is a great book...chuck full of tons of interviews and useful information, but it isn't really an "instructional" book....at least not for beginners. There are a few more advanced tabs in there, written by the featured players, but no real instruction. Plan to get this book some day, but learn to play some basic stuff first. It was out of print for years, but it's been resurrected, and is now published by Acutab http://www.acutab.com
The old Earl Scruggs book is always a real good source of tab for some of Earl's most famous tunes, but personally, I didn't think the basic instructional part was that great....it's several years old now, and I don't know if they've ever updated it (probably no video, etc available). The tab in my old Scruggs book includes regular "music" notation...something you probably won't find anywhere else. I don't know if they left that out in later editions or not.
You're right about Pete's (Wernick) tapes and books...they have been around a while too, but should still be good, and might be available from Homespun Tapes at: http://www.homespuntapes.com/ I think they also carry Tony's (Trishka) video's there too.
Tabs and tapes, etc, are all good, but I think they work even better if you can find a good banjo instructor. Nothing beats having somebody to show you the basics in person.
Hope some of this helps your friend...OK to post this if you want,
