Early Minstrel Banjo
Technique and Repertoire
Guitar - Sheet Music

Banjo

SKU: HU.325

Technique and Repertoire. Guitar & Folk, Methods. The Early Minstrel Banjo. Softcover Book. 266 pages. Centerstream Publications #325. Published by Centerstream Publications (HU.325).

UPC: 073999569797. 12 x 9 x 0.7 inches.

Featuring more than 65 classic songs, this interesting book teaches how to play the minstrel banjo like players who were part of various populartroupes in 1865. The book includes: a short history of the banjo in the US in the antebellum period, including the origins of the minstrel show ; info on the construction of minstrel banjos, evolution of the lower-pitched minstrel banjo tunings, and idiomatic techniques peculiar to the minstrel banjo; chapters on each of the seven major banjo methods published through the end of the Civil War; songs from each method in banjo tablature, many available first time; info on how to arrange songs for the minstrel banjo; a reference list of contemporary gut and nylon string gauges approximating historical banjo string tensions in common usage during the antebellum period (for those Civil War re-enactors who wish to achieve that old-time “minstrel banjo” sound); and an extensive cross-reference list of minstrel banjo song titles found in the major antebellum banjo methods.