5 String Banjo Tutor Books

The melodic style is a beautiful three finger picking style which can be traced to the early 1900's and became a fully accepted style for playing the five-string banjo in the 1960's, and is today an integral part of the three-finger style of many banjo players at all playing levels. Plus, the songs arranged in this style are easy and fun to learn. Although the melodic style may sound impossible with all of those notes coming from it, surprisingly you will find that it is not that difficult to learn and no previous musical knowledge is needed. This course covers the melodic style from the very basics of this picking style to the advanced techniques and provides many fun toplay and well-known songs arranged in the three-finger melodic style for upper level beginning players through advanced level players. Includes access to online audio.

A Clawhammer Christmas by Dan Levenson is a collection of 30 of the most loved Christmas songs transcribed in tablature for the 5-string banjo in the clawhammer style with chords provided for accompaniment instruments. Written in his clear and traditional style, Dan has finally made these holiday favorites accessible to all clawhammer banjo players with good basic skills. All songs have been written in one of the three basic old-time banjo tunings of G, double-C or G modal. This will allow you to find the tune in a fingering you know and easily capo to your preferred singing key. Build your skills as you entertain family and friends and maybe even yourself! Ring in the holiday season with the joyful sound of the 5-string banjo played clawhammer style and have a double-thumb, drop-thumb Clawhammer Christmas!

This friendly book is filled with clawhammer banjo instruction, tablature, lyrics, tune histories, chords, playing tips, vintage photos, and more.

The Absolute Beginners award-winning method has been designed to make learning the 5-string Banjo easier than ever before!

First Lessons on Banjo is an ultra-easy instruction manual for beginning five-string banjo played in the three finger style in G tuning. It can be used by those with no previous experience with the banjo or music of any sort. It is so basic it can be used even by small children.

The book features very detailed descriptions of even the most basic aspects such as wearing the picks properly, the correct picking motion, and noting the strings properly. These are aspects that are so basic most manuals skip over them. There are many detailed photos, several from the player's point of view, not from in front of the banjo.

This Book & CD pack provides the intermediate clawhammer (5-string) banjo player with a fresh repertoire of 21 traditional and 5 original tunes as played by the author with the Boiled Buzzards Old Time String Band. The book briefly addresses clawhammer basics with a few pages of exercises and scales before presenting the tunes.

With its wealth of information on how technique can be tastefully applied, Back-Up Banjo is the definitive book on the subject of banjo accompaniment.

This handy book shows left-hand fingering photos, notation, and diagrams for all of the basic 5-string banjo chords in G tuning (GDGBD). The sections are arranged alphabetically, grouping all chords with the same root in a section.

Finally! A chord book written for the young beginner (or even beginners of any age) showing a creative and simple way to learn and play banjo chords. Chords are taught beginning with the most essential to more advanced. Chords are presented with exercises that build upon each other and eventually lead the student to playing logical and common chord progressions. These progressions include I-iii-vi-ii-V-I and twelve bar blues in many different keys. Chords are shown in chord diagram form with photographs showing finger positions in relationship to the fretboard. Examples and exercises are presented in strum bar notation.

This chart provides the most used and needed scales for banjo in easy to read fretboard diagrams. Scales include major, minor, major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, harmonic minor and dorian. Scales are shown from the 4th and 3rd string roots. A must have for banjo players

Easy to play five-string banjo arrangements of twenty-four Children's favorites by banjo master Ross Nickerson. Not only are these songs fun to play but from an instructional standpoint they are perfect for helping you develop the ability to bring out the melody in the bluegrass banjo style. Accenting the melody within the steady rhythmic roll of banjo playing is one of the biggest challenges facing banjo students and these familiar melodies are ideal for your development of that skill. Each song is arranged and performed using proper three-finger bluegrass technique. The arrangements are carefully designed to bring out the melody, but easy enough for a beginner or intermediate player to learn quickly.

Over 190 licks and picking patterns at your fingertips for the 5-string banjo! Quickly and easily select picking patterns by chord to substitute in songs you already play, or combine patterns of your choice to create your own arrangements.

A comprehensive repertoire book of fiddle tunes adapted for banjo, in easy to read tablature, by the renowned player and teacher of the 5-String Banjo, Tony Trischka. For the early picker to the advanced player, this book and its companion online audio will enable the player to learn by example and broaden their technical range.

Fiddle tunes have been adapted for Banjo since the early 1850's. The explorations contained here include a large collection of popular American fiddle tunes and a section of Celtic tunes played in the three major Bluegrass Banjo styles. These Bluegrass, Old Time and Celtic banjo traditions will expand the players' knowledge of the instrument, and deepen their understanding of bluegrass and traditional music.

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.

If you want to learn traditional music on the 5-string, this book by Peter Flanagan is for you. There's no extraneous confusing detail and the straight forward approach using tablature means you're playing something recognisable within minutes. Soundtrack available.

This book is a "hands-on" approach to music theory with lots of playing examples for the Banjo. Music theory does not have to be mysterious or difficult. In fact, taken a little bit at a time, it’s easy and fun! Each of the approximately 50 lessons in this book has a limited scope, but by the time you complete them, you will have a thorough understanding of the basics of music theory as applied to the Banjo.

A fully revised and enhanced edition of the world-famous Earl Scruggs method - the best selling Banjo tutor in the world! The Earl Scruggs method has proven to work time and again, and has helped thousands of beginners get to grips with the instrument over the years. This new edition boasts more songs, updated lessons and much more. Includes link to online audio..

This handy book/Online Audio pack will get you playing all over the banjo fretboard in any key! You'll learn to: increase your chord, scale and lick vocabulary; play chord-based licks, moveable major and blues scales, melodic scales and first-position major scales; and much more!

18 of the Fab Four's finest for five string banjo!

This method is designed for learning the finger style five-string banjo in a larger musical context than previous single style based methods. The Modern 5-String Banjo Method builds the theoretical and technical foundations needed to play in many styles.

This book covers all of the major scales in depth as applied to the 5-string banjo, answering potential questions concerning the use of major scales for any level of player, beginning through advanced.

The 5-String Banjo Fingering Chart includes tuning notes, chord shapes and a photo/diagram of the instrument.

Early American Banjo by Tim Twiss provides complete banjo tablature transcriptions of the instrumental solos that first appeared in standard notation in Buckley's Banjo Guide of 1868. This modern tablature edition of over 100 mid-19th century jigs, waltzes, polkas, hornpipes and reels provides insight to the transition between the African down-stroke technique, which preceded claw-hammer style and the newer, more refined plucking technique. James Buckley (1803 ' 1872), sometimes referred to as the 'Father of the Classical Banjo,  was one of the most prolific transcribers of early banjo music. His compositions and arrangements were performed on the minstrel stage, andhis scholarly discipline produced a lasting record of banjo music of his era. This repertoire collection includes easy tunes as well as more complex pieces suited for the concert stage. The player will delight in discovering how fresh and unusual some of this music sounds, even today 'all in modern banjo tab. While best experienced on a period reproduction, gut-string fretless banjo in a lower tuning, any 5-string banjo in C tuning (gCGBD) may be used to interpret this collection. Includes access to online audio.

This book provides beginning banjo players with easy streamlined arrangements of 40 popular songs. Learn the basics of clawhammer style, strum and sing along, or pick the melody lines. Arrangements are a combo of tab, standard notation, chord grids and lyrics selected and prepared by renowned banjo guru, Fred Sokolow. Songs include: Ballad of Jed Clampett (Flatt & Scruggs) · Blue Moon of Kentucky (Bill Monroe) · Cold Rain and Snow (Grateful Dead)· Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash) · Freight Train (Elizabeth Cotten) · Friend of the Devil (Grateful Dead) · Gentle on My Mind (Glen Campbell) · Ho Hey (The Lumineers) · I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow (Soggy Bottom Boys) · I Saw the Light (Traditional) · I Walk the Line (Johnny Cash) · Jambalaya (On the Bayou) (Hank Williams) · The Long Black Veil (Lefty Frizzell) · Mama Tried (Merle Haggard) · The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (The Band) · Puff the Magic Dragon (Peter Paul & Mary) · (Ghost) Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend) (Stan Jones) · Rocky Top (Osbourne Brothers) · Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms (Flatt & Scruggs) · Sweet Baby James (James Taylor) · Teach Your Children (Crosby Stills Nash & Young) · This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie) · Tom Dooley (Kingston Trio) · The Weight (The Band) · Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (Pete Seeger) · Will the Circle Be Unbroken (The Carter Family) · You Are My Sunshine (Traditional) · and more.