Banjo Music & Song Books

Learn To Play 'Irish Tenor Banjo' one of the best and simplest Irish tenor banjo tutor books ever written...by all Ireland champion Owen Hackett.

If you're new to the 5-string Banjo, you're probably eager to learn some songs. This book provides easy-to-read Banjo tab, chord symbols and lyrics for the most popular songs beginning Banjo players like to play.

Players with years of experience will also discover tunes never before arranged for Banjo. Explore clawhammer and three-finger-style Banjo in a variety of tunings and capoings with this one-of-a-kind collection of master-crafted arrangements.

A compilation of favorite solos on Irish, Scottish and New England fiddle tunes arranged for banjo by one of America's foremost clawhammer banjoists, Ken Perlman. Book with online audio link

This comprehensive collection features over 100 note-for-note skillfully-crafted clawhammer banjo arrangements of old-time Southern fiddle tunes, in clear tablature - with suggested guitar chords at a wide variety of skill levels. It contains most of the tunes played in concert or recorded by author Ken Perlman and renowned Appalachian-style fiddler Alan Jabbour, plus over 50 more classic tunes from Ed Haley, Edden Hammons, John Salyer and many other iconic roots fiddlers. Also included: Instruction on basic and advanced techniques / Tips on improving your musicianship / How to play syncopated rhythms and melodies in clawhammer style / Frameworks for dealing with crooked tunes and modal tunes. Historical notes and picturesque backstories / Ken Perlman demonstrates all tunes and most musical illustrations on 124 online audio tracks *Online Audio Includes: 24 tracks featuring excerpts from recordings of the author performing with the virtuosic fiddler Alan Jabbour, to whom the book is dedicated.

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 of 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.

A collection of irish jogs in melodic style for the 5 string banjo by Ron Hughes

The banjo shares many of the same sonic qualities as a harpsichord, so although it's so closely associated with more homespun genres, the instrument actually lends itself very well to classical music! The pieces in Bach for Banjo are in tablature only with chord symbols, arranged at the beginning to intermediate level for five-string banjo players. As in classical guitar arrangements, the melody and harmony are combined. Most pieces are on facing pages with no page turns required, and beginners can pick through the selections at a slow pace. The book features just the best-known parts of 20 beloved Bach pieces: Air on the G String · Arioso · Minuet in G · Sheep May Safely Graze · Sleepers, Awake · and more.

Well-known composer, performer, bluegrass and five-string banjo specialist Janet Davis has arranged this fantastic book of Christmas songs for five-string banjo. Selections include material for various levels of ability and offer wide variety of songs for the holiday season. Tablature only with lyrics for each song. The companion Online Audio is included. This is a stereo recording which contains all the music in the book, played slow and up-to-speed. The fast version includes guitar accompaniment.

Traditional Appalachian banjo tunes in tablature. With tunings and all basic right and left hand techniques: drop-thumbing, the galax lick, pull-offs, slide and plucking. Includes Online-Audio.

22 favorites from the fab four arranged for 5-string Banjo in notes and tab, including: All My Loving • Can't Buy Me Love • Come Together • Day Tripper • Eleanor Rigby • Here, There and Everywhere • I Want to Hold Your Hand • Let It Be • Michelle • Paperback Writer • Penny Lane • Something • While My Guitar Gently Weeps • Yellow Submarine • Yesterday and more.

You need only minimal playing skills and three chords--G, C, and D7--to accompany all the great songs in this innovative book. If you are just getting started, or if you are a "casual" player on a chording instrument, this is the perfect book for you. The book is absolutely bursting with a great variety of music: Old-time, bluegrass, gospel, Christmas, children's, Stephen Foster, British and Celtic, cowboy, blues, and more. Because melody and lyrics are provided with every song, singers will also enjoy this wonderful collection of the world's favorite songs. Truly a book of outstanding arrangements, made playable for folks who play for their own enjoyment. (Some of these songs, like "Dark Hollow" and "Way Downtown," are hard to find in print.) Guitar, uke, and five-string banjo diagrams are included for the three chords, along with tips on strumming and transposing tips for singers. An invaluable reference book for teachers and pros, too!

40 American folk songs, arranged for the Clawhammer Banjo by Michael Miles.

This songbook includes the well-known traditional tunes She'll Be Comin' 'Round The Mountain, Amazing Grace, When The Saints Go Marching In, In The Good Old Summertime and more.

There's no getting away from it, the 5-string banjo is about as American as apple pie. This poses something of a conundrum for those who love the instrument, but don't wish to be confined to bluegrass music.

Here is a book of tunes from the Elizabethan era—the great period of English song—set in tablature for the clawhammer banjo. At first glance, it is true, the songs of Shakespeare’s day and the mountain banjo seem to be worlds apart. But the musical traditions are, in fact, related, as Elizabethan songs are the old world cousins of mountain tunes. As a result, Elizabethan tunes are a natural way to extend the mountain banjo repertoire for intermediate and advanced players.

A massive collection of transcriptions representing the history of three-finger style five-string banjo playing up to the style’s culmination with Earl Scruggs coming on the scene. This is a one-of-a-kind resource containing 49 transcriptions beginning with some of the style’s earliest forms up through those that approach the fully developed Scruggs style. These solos, written in easy-to-read tablature, are also a great source of beginner to intermediate level arrangements that players will want to learn. Players will gain a deeper understanding of the structure as well as the significance of the Scruggs Style of banjo playing.

Best selling author Fred Sokolow teaches you how to play blues on the Banjo with this instructional book and audio pack.
Includes classic blues tunes like Ain't Nobody's Business, Careless Love, Frankie and Johnny and St. Louis Blues.

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

All it takes is the thumb and index finger! This book allows you to explore this traditional, often easier way of playing the banjo: the original two-finger style. It covers thumb lead, up-picking, frailing/clawhammer (stroke style), and drop-thumb variation techniques and is presented in various tunings with easy to read tablature plus accompanying chord symbols and diagrams with audio tracks online for download or streaming. Includes over 50 songs in the bluegrass, old-time, country, folk and gospel styles. Audio is accessed online using the unique code inside the book and can be streamed or downloaded. The audio files include PLAYBACK+, a multi-functional audio player that allows you to slow down audio without changing pitch, set loop points, change keys, and pan left or right.

A fun collection of 25 Disney favorites arranged for 5-string banjo, including: The Ballad of Davy Crockett · The Bare Necessities · Be Our Guest · Bella Notte (This Is the Night) · Cruella De Vil · It's a Small World · Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious · Under the Sea · You've Got a Friend in Me · Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah · and more.

O'Carolan's best-loved harp tunes are notated in a contemporary style that makes them accessible to all instrumentalists. This ideal collection with accompanying audio lays bare 20 classic Irish compositions for melody and backing players using standard notation and chords. For all 5-string banjo players, fretting and picking-hand fingerings are included in the transcriptions which match the play-along tracks. This is Hanway's fourth collection demonstrating Celtic fingerstyle banjo in G tuning. It is part of a Celtic 5-string series that includes Mel Bay's Easy Irish and Celtic Tunes for 5-String Banjo: Best-Loved Jigs and Reels (2012) and Mel Bay's Easy Irish andCeltic Melodies for 5-String Banjo: Best-Loved Airs and Session Tunes (2013). Tom Hanway's pioneering work, Mel Bay's Complete Book of Irish & Celtic 5-String Banjo (1998), was acclaimed by Bluegrass Unlimited magazine (1999) "as 'the bible' for any 5-string player with an interest in this joyous music." The current collection breathes life into the Gaelic classical melodies of Ireland. Access to online audio download.

25 great tunes from the English Folk Dance repertoire. All selections in clear, easy to read Tab and played note for note on the accompanying 25 track CD. Tunes include Jigs, Hornpipes, Morris, Polka and Schottische. Many of the tunes have never been arranged for the Banjo before. These arrangements make a refreshing change from the usual 'Bluegrass' material and are great to play on the old 5 string. All tunes are played in standard 'G' Tuning, in the usual Fiddle keys and without a Capo.

The latest instalment in Kate's songbook collection, this brand new book of written music (single line melodies and chord letter symbols) and lyrics containing songs from Kate’s 4 recent albums;

Make the Light,

Ghost,

Life in a Paper Boat &

Philosophers, Poets & Kings. 

_________

A total of 44 songs from Kate’s repertoire.

Complete with full lyrics and easy-to-read chord boxes, this songbook allows Banjo players to pick and sing along to 30 of Dylan's greatest hits, including All Along The Watchtower, Blowin' In The Wind, Like A Rolling Stone, The Times They Are A-Changin' and more.

Exact transcriptions of 21 tunes and breaks by one of the masters of bluegrass banjo.