The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo
So I’ve been messing around with a banjo lately, and I’ve been looking for good books and youtube videos and Pete Seeger pamphlets about doing so.
I started with Pete’s book ‘How to play the 5-String Banjo’ (which one friend described to me as the most frustrating book he’d ever read). It’s not too bad but a bit vague on technique and he seems to get to more advanced stuff very quickly. There’s a record that went along with this book that has some nice examples, someone has kindly ripped it to youtube. This made following along in the book much easier:
How to Play the 5-String Banjo Part 1 (youtube)
But, Pete starts you off playing in C, and the conventional wisdom (or at least what is considered these days says) says start in G. So some of the materials need a bit of transposing or returning.
Generally tho, for old time, you’ll be working on that frail, Pluck-Rest-Brush-Thumb (Bumm-Titty as Pete Says) for hours, or weeks, or months..
Other than this there are a bunch of pretty good instructional videos on youtube showing this strum and some other nice instructional things, here’s a good one.
Here’s a video from Pete’s Rainbow Quest show where he teaches you how to play Skip To My Lou. A standard starting point. Oh Pete’s great.
Another book I have really come to like is called The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo by Patrick Costello. Its very specific on the strumming pattern and just progresses from there. It’s also pretty dang funny too. And the best part of this one is it’s free under a creative commons license, you can download it here (Archive.org) I really like how it steps you through the initial steps of frailing, very specifically and slowly. Whatever works ends up as the general philosophy, but here’s a good example of one thing that works in excruciating detail.
You’re going to need to play with other folks eventually and jam and become awesome, but these are good resources to get started!
Related Links:
You can get Pete’s book at a lot of places, here are some copies you can purchace from Elderly Instruments. (Elderly)
You can get a hard copy of the How and the Tao (with a nice hard plastic like cover for keeping in your banjo case) at Amazon as well. (Amazon)
Update: You can check out Patrick Costello’s blog at http://dailyfrail.com, cool. And if you want to purchase the book, maybe do it direct from Patrick instead of amazon. (http://funkyseagull.com/banjo-tao.html)
When you want genuine music - music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whiskey, go right through you like Brandreth’s pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pinfeather pimples on a picked goose - when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo! - Mark Twain
Tags: banjo, frailing, instruction, patrick costello, Pete Seeger