Covering all the basics of bluegrass banjo including melodic and 'Scruggs-style' playing. Studies of more than 20 bluegrass standards appear in the book and are featured on the accompanying CD.

Southern Appalachian native Dan Levenson and Mel Bay Publications present Clawhammer Banjo from Scratch - A Guide for the Claw-less! This book teaches Clawhammer Banjo the way we play not theway others say. It really begins as though you really have NO knowledge of how to play the five string Banjo clawhammer style. Based on Dan's innovative Meet the Banjo program (where Dan brings 15 Banjos andteaches players who may have never held a Banjo) this book assumes no prior experience.Beginning at the beginning Dan presents a brief history of the 5-string Banjo then goes over the parts of the Banjo holdingthe Banjo right and left hand positions and his basic clawhammer strum. Even the strum is broken down into the steps of the finger and thumb. You are guided through the chords the scale and then the individual notes of each of12 jam session favourite tunes from scratch. Includes audio recordings available for download online with all exercises tunes (slow and up to speed) and a Fiddle version of each tune.

Description 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 to take 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 jazz musicians 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-time music, 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 and tablature notation.