Overall Comments

I feel much better about myself as a banjo player now having learned from this book. I combined this book with listening to J.D. Crowe (as suggested by Mike Munford). The book gave me the basics and J.D. Crowe (The New South and Bluegrass Album Band (vol1)) demonstrated how you should use them. The book does an OK job of showing you how to use the techniques in a song, but not like J.D. Crowe.

I feel like a have a good base for backup now and I think it will help me play better all around. I highly recommend it.

Overall Rating

9

Overall Comments

I bought this book with a veiw to learning to play Scruggs style Back-Up, I could already vamp and had good knowledge of chords. This Book and DVD combo completely confused me even as to what I was trying to achieve, additionally it frustrated me so much I actually gave up playing Banjo for about six months.

It is poorly presented, badly organised i.e the book is muddled with just collections of licks splattered all the way through it. The DVD has terrible picture quality and has an even more rushed feeling to it than the book.

I learned the sum total of nothing from this book and DVD. I found it completely impossible to learn from, and I have also seen a thread here on the hangout where someone else had asked "how do I learn from this?" The answer in my experience is, "you don't."

The whole product feels rushed, slapped together as quickly as possible, put on the market to make money, rather than put on the market to help aspiring musicians.

Overall Rating

1