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|  | |  | | | Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo: Revised and Enhanced Edition - Book with CD | | | | | SKU:
1001-WS1701-A01010-0634060422 | | In Stock | | Availability:
Usually ships in 1 business days | | | | | | The best-selling banjo method in the world! Earl Scruggs's legendary method has helped thousands of banjo players get their start. The "Revised and Enhanced Edition" features more songs, updated lessons, and many other improvements. It includes everything you need to know to start playing banjo, including: a history of the 5-string banjo, getting acquainted with the banjo, Scruggs tuners, how to read music, chords, how to read tablature, right-hand rolls and left-hand techniques, banjo tunings, exercises in picking, over 40 songs, how to build a banjo, autobiographical notes, and much more! The book/CD version includes a CD with Earl Scruggs playing and explaining over 60 examples! | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Earl Scruggs | | Paperback: | 200 pages | | Publisher: | Hal Leonard Corporation | | Publication Date: | August 01, 2005 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0634060422 | | Product Length: | 11.54 inches | | Product Width: | 9.57 inches | | Product Height: | 0.63 inches | | Product Weight: | 1.96 pounds | | Package Length: | 11.8 inches | | Package Width: | 9.0 inches | | Package Height: | 0.6 inches | | Package Weight: | 1.85 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 56 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 56 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
105 of 107 found the following review helpful:
 Essential book for bluegrass banjo players - UPDATE Jul 10, 2001
By Kenneth B. Hunt
"ken"
This is an update to my review of the original edition. I've been using the new edition as a teaching aid since I discovered it a few months ago. I used the original edition when I was learning myself. Most of what I said in my original review still stands, except Earl has addressed the flaws.
This book was (and is) the de-facto standard for bluegrass banjo. It covers: the history of the banjo, how to read tablature, how to play the banjo (three-finger Scruggs style, of course), tablature for 44 banjo classics (mostly bluegrass), a great chapter on how to build a banjo, and finally a short biography of Earl.
If you don't know what "three-finger Scruggs style" means, you need to listen to some clips of Earl to make sure you are getting what you want. There are numerous styles of banjo playing (Scruggs-style, Clawhammer, Frailing, melodic, etc.) Bluegrass is mostly done in Scruggs-style these days, and Scruggs-style is probably the most common banjo style heard in any modern music.
I couldn't give the original edition of this book five stars, based on several weaknesses, particularly for someone trying to learn banjo without a teacher. My opinion is that these weaknesses have been corrected (for the most part) in this revised edition. If you have a basic understanding of musical timing, and have a banjo in your hand, this book will get you going. Like I said about the original edition... it's a much better resource than Earl had at his disposal as a kid, and look how far he's gone.
Major changes in the new edition:
1. There is now an accompanying CD. (No more scouring the web for the old LP or cassette.) The content is, however, the original audio content. This may be the weakest point. The audio tracks don't give beginners enough of the slow versions of the lessons. Earl starts off slow and ramps up to a fast speed too fast. I would have preferred seperate clips at slow, medium and fast speeds, rather than clips that change tempo. Also, the songs aren't on the CD, only the lessons. (If you order the audio CD Foggy Mountain Banjo by Flatt & Scruggs along with the book, you'll have a good many banjo instrumentals to gauge your progress by, since most of those tracks are in tab in the book.)
2. Enhanced timing overview. Still probably not enough to learn music timing on your own, but enough for a teacher to help you through.
3. Updates (through 2005) on Earl's biography. Really intersting stuff.
4. Corrections to numerous errors in the original tablature.
5. A major change to the tablature format. The standard notation has been removed altogether, and the timing notation is now integrated into the tab (as the way most modern tablature is.) In the original edition, you had to scan up to the standard notation to get timing cues. In my opinion, the new tab is much more readable.
6. This edition adds over a dozen songs to the song section. (Additions include American Made-World Played and Pick Along)
Complete song list:
- American Made-World Played
- Ballad Of Jed Clampett
- Bleeker Street Rag
- Blue Ridge Cabin Home
- Broad River
- Careless Love
- Carolina Boogie
- Carolina Traveler
- Cripple Creek
- Cumberland Gap
- Dear Old Dixie
- Earl's Breakdown
- Flint Hill Special
- Foggy Mountain Breakdown
- Foggy Mountain Chimes
- Good Times Are Past And Gone
- Ground Hog
- Ground Speed
- Home Sweet Home
- Hot Corn, Cold Corn
- Instrumental In D Minor
- John Henry
- Little Darling Pal Of Mine
- Lonesome Road Blues
- Loraderojost 111 Breakdown
- My Cabin In Caroline
- Nashville Blues
- Old Folks
- Pedal To The Medal
- Pick Along
- Pretty Polly
- Randy Lynn Rag
- Reuben
- Roller Coaster
- Sally Ann
- Sally Goodwin
- Shuckin' The Corn
- Silver Eagle
- Station Break
- String Bender
- Train Number Forty-Five
- Yonder Stands Little Maggie
- You Bake Right With Martha White
- Your Love Is Like A Flower
As far as the lack of standard notation, this isn't bad for learning the banjo. If you've played a stringed instrument at all, you know that most notes can be played in several different ways. (example: G is open 3rd string, as well as 4th string fretted at 5th fret.) You really need to know precisely which string and fret the note is on to learn these lessons. The tab is explicit, whereas the standard notation is subject to intrepretation. Tablature is the preferred notation for banjo.
In summary, anyone who plays the banjo should own this book. I would up my rating to 5, but Amazon doesn't let me change the rating in an edit.
51 of 61 found the following review helpful:
 Too much, too fast Dec 28, 2000
By Daniel J. Mauck
"Dan"
This book presents too much information too quickly. I'm a music teacher, and if I were to teach somebody banjo, I'd use a different book. The material just isn't sequenced properly. All of the tunes are fairly advanced, and there's not really any songs that a beginner could play. All there is for beginners is boring, repetitive exercises. The material on chords and music theory progresses far to quickly for most newcomers to the subject to understand. Earl Scruggs is certainly a master of the instrument, but his pedagogical techniques leave much to be desired. The book might be useful to somebody who has some background in music and some experience with a stringed instrument, like guitar. It also has a lot of good information about the instrument in general - it's construction, history, etc. One other thing - the binding makes it almost impossible to lay the book flat, which is very frustrating when you try to put it up on a music stand.
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 The essential guide to learning the banjo Oct 17, 2000
I strongly recommend "Earl Scruggs and the Five String Banjo" to anybody interested in learning the banjo, or other string instruments for that matter. It has a clear, common sense approach to learning music that is useful to all musicians. The book has helped many of my friends and me to become accomplished banjo players. However, as one of the other reviewers pointed out, it does contain a few errors in the tablature. There is a cassette tape associated with this book, which I highly recommend purchasing, if available. It contains music for each tablature being played by Earl Scruggs starting at the beginning of the book. This will help smooth out any inconsistencies in the tablature and will teach the importance of good timing and sticking to the melody. Very few people can match Earl's perfect sense of timing on the banjo.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Earl Scruggs Banjo Aug 10, 2006
By Everett L. Boxdorfer
I started to play banjo or tried to play banjo in the year
of 1969. My uncle got me this book and a record that you could get with the book. After a period of about two years I was playing 5 string banjo like Earl Scruggs, well almost. To make
this story short, this still is a great system to learn banjo.
Everett Boxdorfer
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
He REALLY did "write the book" on Banjo playing! Jan 03, 2006
By Bill Turner
Earl Scruggs HAS to be the MOST imitated musician on the planet; when you consider all the 5 string banjos being made in the world, and HOW they are going to be played by the people purchasing them. Granted, some will be played in the traditional Clawhammer/Framming/Drop-Thumb styles which predated Bluegrass by several decades....but the remaining 99.99% will almost certainly be played in the 3 finger style of Earl Scruggs, the author of this nearly 40 year old book. Although many of today's modern 5 string banjoists have expanded the idiom somewhat, into the 'chromatic' or 'melodic' realm and attempt arrangements of jazz and new-age pieces adapted for the instrument...it is STILL the playing of Earl Scruggs that remains as the foundation of it all. The book is well written, well illustrated, easy to follow, and the accompanying CD (or tape) with it is a special treat with Earl himself, speaking each step of the way (in his pleasant down-home North Carolina accent)
This book and CD will get the aspiring picker up and running in a very short time, as Earl starts with the tuning, then the basic fingerpicking patterns, which in combination, and with speed added, will develop into some very good sounding music...played by YOU!
You absolutely CANNOT go wrong with this book...millions of copies have already been sold worldwide. What many people don't know, is that Earl is also an incredible fingerpicking guitarist with a style all his own. I would like to see him publish a book of his guitar stylings--I'll be the FIRST to buy a hardcover of it.
See all 56 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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