Good beginner's book for reading music on a banjo?

[Paul Bock]

I'be been playing by ear since 1956 (98% Bluegrass, 2% folk using "up-picking") and  learned how to use tab in the early 1970s as a way of deciphering some of the melodic tunes coming into vogue at that time.  I know that a lot of classic banjo music has had tab added and I've downloaded several years worth of stuff should I choose to tackle it all, but I'm interested in spending part of my time learning how to read standard notation for banjo (as in, what notes are where, LOL!).

Can anyone recommend a good "starter" book for this?  I'd like a book that actually teaches reading music from notation for a banjo rather than something that just gives a "music theory" overview - if such a book exists......

 

Paul Bock

Hamilton, VA   

[Joel Hooks]

Get a copy of Frank Bradbury's book still published by Mel Bay. They call it "Banjo Method, C tuning" or something like that. You can also use the Ellis book.

[Jody Stecher]

Have a look here:  http://www.classicbanjo.com/tutor.php

before Emil Grimshaw's 2 books were re-published and re-organized with tab added, these were also downloadable on the above website. 

The Banjo And How To Play it (by Grimshaw) is a good one. Even better maybe is How To Excel On the Banjo but it doesn't quite start at the beginning. Do a search on this website for discussions a few years ago on printed tutors. 

As for learning What Notes Are Where, you can just draw a picture of the fingerboard and write in the notes. If the third string open is G then the first fret must be G#.    etc.

Or look at Bradbury's book for that. It is Not the most scintillating prose you've ever seen, not by a wide margin, but the info is all there.

[Mike Moss]

My advice is to read/play a lot of banjo music -- easy banjo music, with lots of annotations (Clifford Essex published solos, for instance, were always very thoroughly annotated). They act as training wheels and give you the immediate satisfaction of being able to play stuff right away without knowing all the notes. You will gradually become familiar with the dots and what they translate to on the fingerboard. Since you've already got the technique from playing tab, you will easily recognise the chord shapes and positions most commonly used.

[Trevor Boyd]

Mike Moss also posted a very good tutorial to the Banjo Hangout a little while ago, based on some of the materials mentioned earlier in this discussion:

http://www.banjohangout.org/archive/226430

Trevor

[Paul Bock]

Thanks Trevor, I just went to that link and you are correct, there appears to be enough basic info to help me get past the "mental block" of "not being able" to read music in standard notation for the banjo.

 

     I also noted the comment (I'm paraphrasing here) that it's all well and good if a song is written in "banjo notation" but if it's not it sort of leaves the banjo player "high & dry".  Well, maybe not.  I happen to think that once one has experience in actually reading music for the banjo and also has fairly well learned the FB through experience and knows where to "find" things, it may not be all that great of a step to "figure out" how to play a song written, for example, for the piano - at least, that makes some sense to me intuitively. 

I recall a story about the late, great Bobby Thompson and his first meeting with Bill Keith, at which Bill played an abbreviated version of "Nola."  Bobby announced that he had really liked the song when he had heard Bill's recording of it and so he *BOUGHT THE SHEET MUSIC* so that he could learn it.  According to the eyewitness account, Bobby played "all four parts, and very, very fancy".  This tells me that someone accomplished on the banjo and familiar enough with standard notation to "figure out" a song can effectively derive a suitable arrangement for banjo even if that arrangement is only in the person's head and not written down.  Obviously, any good "ear" player can do the same with a song they're familiar with (early Bluegrass players who recorded many "non-Bluegrass" and "non-Country" songs like Birth of the Blues, Limehouse Blues, Five Foot Two, Farewell Blues, etc., etc., etc., did exactly that). 

Enough rambling, time to get back to practice!

Paul Bock  

[Alan Sims]

Hi Paul ,another good book is the banjo and how to play it, by Alan Middleton . Clifford Essex music co ltd . It has music and tab together.

[Mike Moss]

I agree with your conclusion entirely, Paul. The annotations act as training wheels and make reading the music less daunting, but eventually you won't even need them anymore. Another important thing about reading notation, in my opinion, is having a relaxed "if it sounds good, it is good" attitude rather than obsessing with reading every single note -- it is somewhat like ear playing, but with a written medium. You see the look of the chords, the flow of the music, and it gives you the general gist of it.

My experience, coming from tab, is that it was a bit disturbing at first not to have absolute certainties and exact positions -- I played from tab very much how one would paint by numbers -- but reading notation helped me become a better musician and improve my impro/ear playing skills. Sometimes when I look at the notation closely I notice I've been playing something "wrong" all the time, but if it sounds good I don't really worry about it. Classic banjo is a popular music style and the written notes aren't sacred. Olly Oakley made these "mistakes" all the time and got paid to do it.

[Paul Bock]

This a bit off the banjo track, but...... while we accept different interpretations ( or "covers") of popular songs we often fail to realize that some classical music we hear an orchestra play today may be performed differently than the way the composer originally wrote the score.  For example, much Bach, Handel, etc., was written using the *RECORDER* for the flute parts; the transverse flute now so familiar to us was not in vogue or just coming into vogue when some of the music was written.  It eventually supplanted the recorder because it was *LOUDER* and fit better with large public auditorium performances (no sound "enhancement" available back then!).  I also "dabble" with the alto recorder, BTW, and I do read music notation (at a beginner's level) for that.

In addition, the tempo of some classical music when played as originally written is different from what we hear today, which says that music is - or should be - open to the interpretation of the arranger and/or artist(s).  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but that's the way art forms are supposed to be.

Earl Scruggs was once told by a fan that the fan "can't play such and such song the way you play it" and Earl replied, "You don't have to play it my way, just find your own way to play it!"  Wonderful advice from a man who, indeed, certainly found *HIS* "own way to play it" (otherwise he'd might have been a copy of Snuffy Jenkins instead of an "original").

My wife plays flute and is totally "paper-trained", and I've been trying to get her to "use the notation to learn it and use your ear to play it", which is some of the best advice I've ever read.

PB