Customer Reviews

The Banjo Pickers Fake Book: The Ultimate Sourcebook for the Traditional Banjo Player

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This book is 216 pages of banjo tunes arranged for three-finger and clawhammer players. It includes a cross-reference of alternate titles and a 24 page general discography, as well as a discussion of the types of tunes included. There is also a short discussion of technical topics such as modes (very appropriate for traditional music) and how to read tablature.

This book is a lot like a Grainger's collection of fiddle tunes for flatpickers. Unlike Grainger's, which only provides enough tablature to spell out the melody for the A part and the B part, The Banjo Picker's Fakebook takes you through one whole iteration of each tune complete with first and second endings. Also like Grainger's, this is not an instruction book. It leaves both the right and left hand fingerings entirely up to the reader. For example, if you are a strictly a bluegrass player, the clawhammer arrangements will not be useful to you.

Although the discography could be used to collect aural examples of the tunes, a CD or a set of tapes would have been a welcome addition. Music is an aural art, and it is impossible to convey the full musical sense in tablature or in standard musical notation alone.

If you are looking for a lot of tunes, thoughtfully arranged in a single volume, I highly recommend The Banjo Picker's Fakebook. If the tune can't be found in this book, chances are no one eles knows it either, so you could go ahead and play anything that fit.

The good news is there are tons of songs in this book and you'll have many hours of fun learning all sorts of new music. For that alone, this book is worth having.

The bad news: The Fiddle, Mandolin, and guitar versions of this book all have exactly the same song list all in the same keys. This is great because your fiddler, mandolin and guitar player all have the same reference to the same songs and can easily play together. The banjo book, however, does not have the same song listing. Many of the songs in the other 3 books are not in this book. Also, quite a bit of the music is in "Melodic clawhammer" style. If you don't play that style then you'll miss out on about half of the songs in this book.

However, the music that is here is pretty darn fun. Just be aware that if the other members of your group all have this book then your book won't match up to thiers.

This is a great book if you already know how to play and just want a lot of tunes. My only complaint is that not all tunes are available in all styles. (That is, some have a clawhammer arrangement, some have a 3-finger arrangement, and some have both.) I can't really blame the authors, though, as it's a pretty large volume as it is. Overall, it's exactly what it's advertised to be.

LOTS of good tunes; however, the print is too small and the tab noteheads are between the staff lines rather than on them, as more commonly found, making for difficult sightreading. It's still a very good resource for Oldtime/Bluegrass pieces for the banjo.

If you're after the usual folk-tune-collection introductions to each song, you won't find them here: just the bare bones of the songs in various arrangements (mostly clawhammer, quite a few Scruggs-style). The music speaks for itself, though, and like all books of this type it's fun to pick a page at random and see what it sounds like.