The banjo has been called by many names over its history, but they all refer to the same sound—strings humming over skin—that has eased souls and electrified crowds for centuries. The Banjo invites us to hear that sound afresh in a biography of one of America’s iconic folk instruments. Attuned to a rich heritage spanning continents and cultures, Laurent Dubois traces the banjo from humble origins, revealing how it became one of the great stars of American musical life. In the seventeenth century, enslaved people in the Caribbean and North America drew on their memories of varied African musical traditions to construct instruments from carved-out gourds covered with animal skin. Providing a much-needed sense of rootedness, solidarity, and consolation, banjo picking became an essential part of black plantation life. White musicians took up the banjo in the nineteenth century, when it became the foundation of the minstrel show and began to be produced industrially on a large scale. Even as this instrument found its way into rural white communities, however, the banjo remained central to African American musical performance. Twentieth-century musicians incorporated the instrument into styles ranging from ragtime and jazz to Dixieland, bluegrass, reggae, and pop. Versatile and enduring, the banjo combines rhythm and melody into a single unmistakable sound that resonates with strength and purpose. From the earliest days of American history, the banjo’s sound has allowed folk musicians to create community and joy even while protesting oppression and injustice.

(Banjo). A complete guide for beginning and advanced banjo players! From Ken Perlman, here is a brilliant teaching guide that is destined to become the handbook on how to play the banjo. The style is easy to learn, and covers the instruction itself, basic right and left-hand positions, simple chords, and fundamental clawhammer techniques; the brush, the 'bumm-titty' strum, pull-offs, and slides. For the advanced player, there is instruction on more complicated picking, double thumbing, quick slides, fretted pull-offs, harmonics, improvisation, and more. The book includes more than 40 fun-to-play banjo tunes.

A complete survey of traditional banjo styles complete with tunings, playing tips, and the author's deft drawings. Progresses from easy tunes for the beginner to more difficult pieces. The styles include up-picking or Pete Seeger's basic strum; two-finger picking; three-finger picking; and what had variously been called frailing, clawhammer, knocking, rapping, overhand, fram-style, flayin' hand, andother Appalachian names, here called down-picking. Audio download available online

This is the basic manual for banjo players at any level. Covers all the fundamentals of strumming, hammering-on, and pulling-off. Includes folk and traditional songs all with melody line, lyrics, and banjo accompaniment, and solos in standard notation and tablature.

(Banjo). The best-selling banjo method in the world! Earl Scruggs's legendary method has helped thousands of banjo players get their start. The "Revised and Enhanced Edition" features more songs, updated lessons, and many other improvements. It includes everything you need to know to start playing banjo, including: a history of the 5-string banjo, getting acquainted with the banjo, Scruggs tuners, how to read music, chords, how to read tablature, right-hand rolls and left-hand techniques, banjo tunings, exercises in picking, over 40 songs, how to build a banjo, autobiographical notes, and much more! Includes audio of Earl Scruggs playing and explaining over 60 examples!

Art Rosenbaum is one of America's foremost performers and teachers of traditional five-string banjo playing. He has a long-time interest in the myriad old-time tunings that give breadth and richness to mountain and old-time banjo picking, and has learned first-hand from old-timers in the South and Midwest. Pete Seeger (whose pioneering book How to Play the Five-String Banjo gave Art his start in the 1950s) praised the inclusion of 23 tunings in Art's 1968 Oak Publications book Old-Time Mountain Banjo. This book and 2-DVD set doubles (plus one!) that number of tunings. Art groups the tunings into families and shows how they can be used, with various picking styles, in playing banjo tunes and string band music and in song accompaniment. Experienced players will broaden their knowledge of unusual and interesting tunings and styles, and novice players can get started with common tunings for easy pieces like Cripple Creek and Shout Lulu, the first tunes many old-timers learned.

An Instruction Method for playing the old-time five-string mountain banjo based on the styles of traditional banjo-pickers.

Beginning banjo lessons have never been more fun! Written for the absolute beginner, this FUN book is guaranteed to help you learn to play bluegrass banjo (How many books come with a personal guarantee by the author?). · Teaches the plain, naked melody to 23 easy bluegrass favorites without the rolls already incorporated into the tune. · Wayne shows simple ways to embellish each melody using easy rolls. · With Wayne’s unique method, you’ll learn to think for yourself! · Learn how to play a song in different ways, rather than memorizing ONE way. · Includes a link to download 99 instructional audio tracks off our website! You WILL learn to play: Bile ‘Em Cabbage Down, Blue Ridge Mountain Blues, Columbus Stockade Blues, Down the Road, Groundhog, Little Maggie, Long Journey Home, Lynchburg Town, Man of Constant Sorrow, My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, Nine Pound Hammer, Palms of Victory, Pass Me Not, Poor Ellen Smith, Pretty Polly, Put My Little Shoes Away, Red River Valley, Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Shall We Gather at the River, Wabash Cannonball, When I Lay My Burden Down, When the Saints Go Marching In.

The banjo is emblematic of American country music, and it is at the core of other important musical movements, including jazz and ragtime. The instrument has been adopted by many cultures and has been ingrained into many musical traditions, from Mento music in the Caribbean and dance music in Ireland. Virtuosos such as Béla Fleck have played Bach, African music, and Christmas tunes on the five-string banjo, and the instrument has had a resurgence in pop music with such acts a Mumford and Sons and the Avett Brothers. This book offers the first comprehensive, illustrated history of the banjo in its many forms. It traces the story of the instrument from its roots in West Africa to its birth in the Americas, through its coming of age in the Industrial Revolution and beyond. The book profiles the most important players and spotlights key luthiers and manufacturers. It features 100 “milestone instruments” with in-depth coverage, including model details and beautiful photos. It offers historical context surrounding the banjo through the ages, from its place in Victorian parlors and speakeasies through its role in the folk boom of the 1950s and 1960s to its place in the hands of songwriter John Hartford and comedian Steve Martin. Folk, jazz, bluegrass, country, and rock – the banjo has played an important part in all of these genres. Lavishly illustrated, and thoughtfully written by author, broadcaster, and acclaimed banjoist Bob Carlin, this is a must-have for lovers of fretted instruments, aficionados of roots music, and music history buffs.

This is the ideal beginner's book, presenting the basics of playing the 5-string banjo is a way that is both fun and produces quick results. Janet Davis takes you on an extensive tour of this instrument's fundamental techniques as well as some intermediate possibilities including rolls, chords, bluegrass banjo techniques, playing up the neck, licks, endings, and other basic information needed to play bluegrass and melodic-style banjo. Thorough performance notes are provided from beginning to end revealing the secrets of this versatile traditional instrument.