Start picking the five-string Banjo like a pro with this definitive guide to bluegrass Banjo. Whether you?re an absolute beginner or an experienced player Bluegrass Banjo For Dummies gets you started offthe right way and is your road map for mastering today?s most popular traditional and contemporary Banjo picking styles. Online audio and video clips combine with the book?s clear step-by-step instructions to providethe most complete ? and fun - Banjo instruction experience available anywhere! Bluegrass Banjo has never been more popular and is heard today not only in country and folk music but in jazz rock and country styles.Bluegrass Banjo For Dummies provides everything you need to know to play just about any kind of music on the five-string Banjo by getting you started with the roll patterns essential to Scruggs style picking.You?ll then add left-hand techniques such as slides hammer-ons and pull-offs play great sounding licks and perform classic tunes like ?Cripple Creek? and ?Old Joe Clark.? You?ll navigate upthe neck on the instrument as well as learn the essential skills you need to play with others in jam sessions and in bands. You?ll even tackle contemporary banjo styles using melodic and single-string scales and pickingtechniques. Choose a Banjo and accessories that are just right for you and your budget. Put on your fingerpicks find your optimal hand position and start playing with the help of online audio and video.Explore the fingerboard using melodic and single-string playing styles. Accompany others in different keys with roll patterns and chord vamping techniques. Keep your Banjo sounding its best with practical andeasy set up tips.

The non-jazz improvisation series is a concept that germinated in Dick Weissman's mind while he was attending music school. He wrote a 15-piece arrangement of the old square dance tune Cripple Creek and wanted the trombone totake a solo as part of the arrangement. When the trombonist kept playing a bebop solo that was totally unsuitable for the chart Dick realized that - in addition to the many musicians who do not improvise - there are even jazzmusicians who don't know how to improvise outside the limits of their own stylistic backgrounds. This book approaches the five-string banjo as a musical instrument freed from the prison of specific musical genres. Old-timemusic clawhammer bluegrass and many eclectic adaptations of the banjo are utilized to demonstrate a variety of musical styles. A number of the selections are in different tunings. All examples are written out in traditional andtablature notation.