The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo by Patrick Costello is a comprehensive guide for all banjo lovers. Novices and old-timers alike will benefit from clear and easy to understand presentations on subjects like the basic strum, melody, rhythm, scales, modes, playing by ear, playing while singing, drop thumb and much more. The author also entertains readers with many heart warming and sometimes amusing accounts of his musical adventures.

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

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.

Southern Appalachian native Dan Levenson and Mel Bay Publications present Clawhammer Banjo from Scratch - A Guide for the Claw-less! This book teaches clawhammer banjo the way we play, not the way others say. It really begins as though you really have NO knowledge of how to play the five string banjo clawhammer style. Based on Dan's innovative Meet the Banjo program (where Dan brings 15 banjos and teaches players who may have never held a banjo), this book assumes no prior experience. Beginning at the beginning, Dan presents a brief history of the 5-string banjo then goes over the parts of the banjo, holding the banjo, right and left hand positions and his basic clawhammer strum. Even the strum is broken down into the steps of the finger and thumb. You are guided through the chords, the scale and then the individual notes of each of 12 jam session favorite tunes from scratch. Includes 2 reference CD's with all exercises, tunes (slow and up to speed), and a fiddle version of each tune.

(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.

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.

This handy book shows all of the basic banjo chords in photo and diagram form. the front of the book contains a section of bluegrass G-tuning chords, and the remainder contains C-tuning.