I would like make a rant about the popularity of books for "idiots", "dummies", or now "ignorami." But the American marketing ploy has worked on me more than once. I guess we are for the most part an unpretencious lot. The irony is that I go by the Humble monicker too. Perhaps, it's just me! I do have a wonderful standard ukulele book with a semi-pretentious title, "Helping you go from lonely strummer to life-of-the-party." Now that's a book with a title and an aspiration all-in-one.
Well what about this book? I think its stocked full of good stuff and it includes a CD too! I love this book because it has so much to offer in small-one-page chunks. One of the best features I see is that there is a very unique large-font-tablature which has the NOTES, not a number. There is a lot of historical items for many of these bluegrass style songs. You say but it's based on guitar, yup it is, and only 10 songs work solely for bari and that's a bit of a bummer. But, I think this book has some keys to really getting to know your DGBE fretboard really fast.
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I found Richla's book review on Amazon.com to be quite interesting...
"I bought Wayne's banjo book, as I couldn't even tell you how a banjo is tuned, let alone played. That book got me up and running on simple songs, and actually having a lot of FUN. I liked the method so much, I thought "it would be nice if somebody would do the same thing for flat-picking guitar." I happened to look at Wayne's website, and to my surprise, he has indeed written such a book. I have used this book for a few weeks now, and like his banjo book, it's a lot of fun. There is about 40 songs included. Lot of classics like "Whiskey Before Breakfast" "House of the Rising Sun", etc. Wayne also gives just enough theory to get pretty much anyone going, but not overwhelmed. He also departs from the standard TAB format and explains that he does not want you dependent on memorizing TAB. He's 100% right. I have memorized songs in tab format for far more years than I want to admit. Unfortunately, a dependence on tab does not really help you understand music theory at all. (for example, can you take a simple version of "Amazing Grace" and play it with improvised licks up and down the neck??) With this book, I am now taking simple arrangements of classic songs, flat-picking them, and sprinkling in my own improvised licks, based on taking basic scales and moving them up the neck. I have a shelf full of books full of guitar music, but I'm really USING this book, and taking Wayne's suggestion and trying to develop my ear, not just memorize TAB. As you can tell, I think this is an excellent book, and wish this was available twenty years ago. If you are like me, you may have been focusing a LOT of years on trying to play material that was far too advanced. If you are a beginner, this is THE place to start, not go back too years later, like me. By the way, I wrote to Wayne's website in the hopes I could get him to answer a question regarding banjo technique, and he responded promptly. I can't say enough good things about his method, or about him, he seems like a great guy with a sincere interest in putting FUN back in music."
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