The Banjo Player's Songbook: Over 200 great songs arranged for the five-string banjo

Starts with a generous selection of clawhammer accompaniment right hand patterns. The tab has chords identified and he has a nice selection of chord shapes for the various tunings used in the book; mostly open G. Brief selection of three finger picking (no two-finger picking) and plectrum strumming. This is a clawhammer book. No bluegrass rolls.The tab is basic melody oriented and quite shy of excessive embellishments which I consider to be a wonderful thing since they obscure the melody. It is best for a banjo player to make their own decisions and variations for that. Since the melody is clear and the clawhammer embellishments are obvious a finger picker (especially two-finger) could use the tab and put their own pinches and drone patterns.The tab makes extensive use of left-hand technique; hammer-on, pull-off and slide. There are also places where right hand drop thumb is appropriate but he doesn't mention it, though it is obvious in the tab. It is clearly not a technique book. It doesn't "teach" those techniques and the book is for someone with basic banjo skills which are best learned from an instructor of video anyway.It definitely shines as a song book with a wide selection of tunes appropriate for the banjo and some you might not think of as banjo tunes. The songs have lyrics which are great for ear players who won't be memorizing tab but just use it to get started on a tune and will remember the melody singing the lyrics. The fiddle tunes of course don't have words.I really, really like this book. Basic melody with chords and lyrics is exactly what I've been looking for. Something not typical in banjo books with some overdone arrangements. A book that can keep someone busy for a long time.A song book this large should be spiral bound but I don't have the heart to knock off a star for that.

I recently started clawhammer and read the reviews of this book before purchasing. This contains lots of information that as a beginner I can understand and play.

This is a great book! A CD with an example of the tunes would be nice as I'm not familiar with most of them. There are a number of alternative tunings used, but they are not grouped together. I thought it would be helpful to have an index that groups the songs by tunings. With that said, I've made my own. Most of the many, many songs are in gDGBD. This index only contains the tunings other than that. I've printed out this list and put in the book for reference. Overall, a highly recommended book!gCGBD - "Standard C"134 - Little Birdie158 - Old Jimmy Sutton198 - The Sloop John B.216 - Angelina BakergCGCE - "Open C"31 - Marching Through Georgia132 - Turkey in the Straw133 - Mole in the Ground159 - Over the Waterfall163 - Rose TreegCGCD - "Double C"83 - Black Eyed Suzie131 - Old Molly Hare148 - Angeline149 - Arkansas Traveler155 - Gaspe Reel157 - Mississippi Sawyer165 - Soldier's Joy167 - Sweet SixteenF#DF#AD - "Open D"107 - Will Bill Jones151 - Coal Creek MarchaDF#AD - "Open D"232 - The Ship That Never ReturnedaDFAD - "D Minor"118 - Nine Hundred Miles274 - Chanuke, O ChanukegDGBbD - "G Minor"106 - Pretty Polly110 - Buffalo Skinners130 - The Coo-Coo201 - Santy Anna208 - Go to Sea No More268 - Wayfaring Stranger272 - Shalom Chaverim281 - God Rest Ye Merry, GentlemangDGCD - "G Modal"75 - Shady Grove86 - Little Maggie138 - Cluck Old HeneDGBD276 - Hinneh Mah Tov

This song book has a huge variety of classic folk tunes and includes lyrics to the songs.

I had this book 25 years ago and I loved the simple arrangements that were easy to play by sight, even to me as a beginner. When I recently became reacquainted with the banjo after many years of not playing, I was thrilled to see that this book was still in print. I'm now very happily getting back up to speed by playing simple arrangements of fun familiar tunes. The songs in this book are almost entirely in clawhammer style, NOT bluegrass style. There are a few (Amazing Grace is one, Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring is another) that are in 3-finger up-picked style, but they are the exceptions. The rest are in clawhammer style, generally with a lot of bump-ditty strums and some drop-thumb, minimal double-thumb, and minimal up-the-neck fingerings. This makes them generlly simple to play for a beginner, and intermediate/advanced players can easily use them as a starting point to create more intricate arrangements. That said, there is still some variety of difficulty, with a few songs that are extremely simple and a few that are definitely in intermediate territory (especially the chapter of fiddle tunes)

I was looking for songs to play with clawhammer banjo, and preferably more than a few with the standard gDGBD tuning. This book has many recognizable songs with simple arrangements that sound good. A more experienced player could easily expand the tunes to create more complex arrangements, but they were simple enough for a true beginner to be able to play through. Would heartily recommend to someone looking for songs/tunes to learn for their 5 string banjo.

I expected to get the words & music to many of classic banjo songs & old folk tunes & was satisfied with the collection.

Tons of great songs, from popular to a little more obscure, in a variety of genres. I only take a star off because this (like all songbooks) should be available spiral bound. I ended up cutting the book binding and doing the spiral binding myself so that it lays flat.

Great book. Easy to read tabulature. A real variety of tunes, not just (but some of) the oft repeated stuff. Can keep you busy for quite a while learning all these tunes.

excellent

Lovely book to spend plenty of days to work through

Nice easy banjo tab to follow, full of classic banjo tunes, from Cripple creek to Christmas songs, whatever style you play, from clawhammer to bluegrass there is something for everyone

This has most of the old standard favorite song we knew as kids. It arrived in good time and in good condition Thank you