February 26, 2024

learning from Banjo books

I suppose that if you want to learn the banjo, you have 3 options: lessons, books, and the internet. If you take lessons, your instructor will no doubt have you get a book (not necessarily).

Brainjo

I have one book of a different sort than the others below. I highly recommend it.

The Laws of Brainjo by Josh Turknett 2020

Turknett is a neurologist and discusses learning the banjo using insights from neurology, in particular brain plasticity. When you practice, you are programming your brain. This implies that anyone can learn if they put in the time and stick with it. If you thought you were ineligible because you don't have talent, think again.

Instructional books

I have a stack of books. They are all valuable. I learn things from all of them. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Here we go:

Mel Bay's Complete Bluegrass Banjo Method by Neil Griffin 1993
This is the book I started with back in 2008. One thing I like is that it gives both standard musical notation and tabs. A problem is that the type on the tabs is too small and I find myself often misreading them, in fact I have started using colored pencils to circle numbers to help "fix" the problem. He gives both chord charts (to strum) along with 3 finger arrangements for songs in the book.

The Complete 5-String Banjo Player by Tony Trischka 2007
This is more of an intermediate book honestly, though he pretends to give introductory material for beginners. As with all the books, there is great value in reading his comments, and there is more hidden in the tabs than you might think. No trouble here reading the tabs.

The Banjo Encyclopedia by Ross Nickerson 2003
I like this book. He gives a lot of good advice, and the tabs are big and readable. He has a plan for you to follow to learn and get somewhere.

Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo by Earl Scruggs 1968
This book and the man are a legend. I'm not actually trying to learn from this book, but I am glad to have it.

Bluegrass Banjo for the complete Ignoramus by Wayne Erbsen 2004
Books with a title like this always put me off. You have to accept an insult to decide to get the book. I have always refused to buy any of the "dummy" books for this reason, no matter how good people say a particular one is.

But I like this book, it is nicely produced, with some appropriate humor and a unique approach. Learn a skeleton melody, they play it in a variety of ways embellished with different rolls. The books seems thin, but the quality of content make up for that.

Comments

I do get tempted to learn standard musical notation. As my aging eyes struggle to accurately read numbers on tabs I can understand why musicians use big black dots instead. And musical notation tells you at a glance what the music ought to sound like. High is higher and low is lower. And I have already learned the system at a basic level, practice will cement it into my mind.

On the other hand, I want to avoid being paper dependent. The notation is just a way to transfer information. Once the tranfer is complete, I want to play from music in my head.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's home page / tom@mmto.org