Overall Comments
|
Although I’ve seen a few questions about it on the hangout and there was a review of the second book in this month’s BNL, I haven’t seen much mention of the Eddie Collins “Basics of Bluegrass Banjo” book and after looking at the book, it is a real shame this one doesn’t get more mention. I purchased the “Beyond Basics” at a recent Eddie Collins workshop because I liked what I saw but didn’t see the point in buying another “Basics” type of book at that time. However after I dug into the material a bit, I liked what I saw enough to purchase the “Basics” book as well. I thought I’d take a few minutes and post a review of the book.
The first thing I noticed about this book, is that there is a lot more text in this book than in many of the music books I’ve purchased. Eddie sprinkles in lots of paragraphs with helpful tips on things like the importance of memorizing songs, types of exercises, explaining the different parts of a song or how to structure your practice. This aspect of the book appealed to me since I really enjoy the verbose explanations and thought provoking statements (I’m not as much of a learn-by-example kind of guy as some folks might be).
All of the normal stuff you’d expect to see is in there.. hand position, the rolls, common chord progressions, common licks, hammer-ons, slides etc.
One of the things that I really like about this book though is that the many different elements of playing are taught in an integrated manner. You won’t spend 2 years learning a bunch of lead breaks and then be clueless in your first jam session! Eddie starts from the very first song (Camptown races) encouraging you to try to pick out the melody by ear. He then gives you the lyrics to the song and the chord structure and discusses how to accompany the song with chords (just basic strumming at this point). This structure continues throughout the book. All aspects of the songs are introduced at basically the same time: playing the solo, singing along and playing backup. In addition music theory is slowly introduced including rhythm, scales, chord progressions, etc.
As the book progresses, it discusses arranging the songs (meaning how you would perform it with a group, not writing your own solos). For example, when the song, “Golden Wings” is introduced on page 35, the solo is given. On the next page is a description of some new chords needed for the song followed by a chord chart and a lead sheet with the lyrics / chords that shows when you take the banjo break. If you decide to play along with the CD, you can play the chords during the verse and chorus (and sing along as well if you are so inclined!), then play the break at the appropriate time. By the time you get to page 94, the arrangement for New River Train takes the whole page. It shows a suggestion for the intro, when to play the rolling backup, when to vamp, when to play the fills when to take the solo and how to tag out the song. The lyrics for all three verses are given and the CD contains the full 3 minute arrangement with the singing and guitar break so you can exercise all of your skills at a comfortable speed.
The book includes two CDs, one containing the examples and songs at a fairly slow pace and the 2nd one at a little faster pace. The idea of the 2nd CD is that it can be used just for general listening pleasure as well as to play along so that you can learn how the songs sound. The Banjo is recorded more heavily on one of the stereo track so you can adjust its volume according to your needs.
In Chapter Five, the book introduces ¾ time and at the same time discusses the process of building up a solo from a melody you pick out by ear. It discusses how you might want to fill in the beats in between the melody notes of “Amazing Grace” and then shows the tab for the whole solo. Again the chord chart is given and the CD gives you the chance to play backup while the other instruments play a solo.
There are chapters on using< |
RSS Feeds