His facsimile book of The Briggs Banjo Instructor on Centerstream lists the tunes in alphabetical order as opposed to the seemingly random listing in the original Briggs book, findable in the Internet Archive. My question, Is the order progressive in the original Briggs book? Do you think I should bother to work on them in the order they were listed in the original instead of going from A towards Z as they are in the modern publication? Do the skills learned in one tune or so apply to the next ones and so on? If I want to try and perceive Briggs' lessons it would seem to be important to learn them in their original order. Thankyou.
I think the original is graduated for the first part, which runs to page 13 ("second position"). There is some additional text later on regarding tuning...and the tail-end is reserved for songs.
I found the "movements #1" to be the most instructive. The movements appear more in depth in Converse's later texts, such as the Converse Analytical. I'd read both for learning Stroke Style.
I used only the few tunes in the first part of Briggs to learn stroke style...and then I went exploring.
I'll say that, while I don't have this book, I have most everything else Joe has written. I think he's a great teacher and his notes and exercises are helpful. His Old Time Stringband Banjo Styles is required reading. His books were one of the reasons I reached out to Centerstream when it came to my own books.
You raise a good point of the grading of the pieces. I'm thinking that Weidlich's notes in the book, if there are any; would likely offset some of this.
Edited by - Nic Pennsylvania on 09/15/2024 05:25:33
